Giannoulias's Embellishment, Cont.

Last week, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported that Illinois Democrat Alexi Giannoulias had embellished his record. Giannoulias claimed on his official website – he is currently the state treasurer of Illinois – to be the founder and chair of the AG Foundation. His biography stated, “He founded and chairs the AG Foundation, a not-for-profit charity that donates money to treat child-related illnesses, curb poverty and assist disaster relief organizations.”

Hours after THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s post was published, Giannoulias, currently running for the Senate seat held by Roland Burris, quietly updated his website, which now places his involvement with the AG Foundation correctly in the past (“He founded and chaired the AG Foundation,” the biography currently states).

Over this past weekend, the Associated Press received comment from Giannoulias’s campaign about his embellishment:

Most recently, the Illinois Republican Party circulated a blog posting that said Giannoulias was wrongly claiming on his official website that he “chairs” a now-defunct foundation he started to help children, the poor and disaster victims. The Giannoulias campaign said he shut down the charity after he took office and they alerted the treasurer’s office to the mistake on their website.

But the tax form which indicated the AG Foundation was defunct also indicates that the organization was no longer in operation several months before Giannoulias took office on November 7, 2006.

According to the filing:

The organization began the year [2006] with only $3,107 in total assets, all of which consisted of cash in a checking account. Due to the organization’s limited resources and also due to time constraints on the part of the founders of the organization, the founders decided to terminate the organization and cease all operations. During 2006, the organization distributed $2,000 on 2/1/06 to Starlight Children’s Foundation and then distributed $1,000 on 4/4/06 to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, both public charities (see part XV, page 11). These disbursements left $107 remaining the organization’s checking account. This amount is reserved to pay the costs for the preparation of the organization’s final form…

Giannoulias’s chairmanship of the foundation was effectively over once the organization gave its final donation in April 2006. But Giannoulias appears intent to suggest, as his campaign did to the Associated Press, that he maintained his chairmanship of the foundation after he took office. So the resume-padding seems to have started long ago.

Giannoulias’s Embellishment, Cont.

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