California authorized the national Black Lives Matter group to resume fundraising in the state on Wednesday, less than two weeks after the charity pulled an unusual accounting gimmick that enabled it to further delay reporting its 2020 finances until mid-May.
California had previously ordered Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation to cease fundraising in the state in a Jan. 31 letter that also threatened to hold the leaders of the charity personally liable if they don’t fork over information about what the group did with its financial windfall from 2020. The liberal state’s greenlight to BLM to resume fundraising also comes less than two weeks after the charity revealed that two longtime allies of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had taken key roles at the group.
“BLMGNF is current in its reporting to the Registry and is authorized to solicit in California,” a spokesperson for the California attorney general’s office told the Washington Examiner.
BLM announced it had voluntarily shut down its ability to raise funds on Feb. 2 amid legal threats from California and Washington. BLM’s fundraising pages on its website and on ActBlue remain deactivated as of Thursday afternoon.
BLM also remains removed from Amazon’s charity platform, AmazonSmile, as of Thursday afternoon.
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BLM revealed last week it had changed its 12-month accounting cycle to run July through June, a move that enabled it to report a sparse, short-year Form 990 tax return to the IRS that covered its activities from January 2020 through June 2020, a time frame the group was entirely dormant as it was a fiscally sponsored project of the California charity Thousand Currents.
Thousand Currents dumped $66.5 million into BLM’s coffers in October 2020, according to an asset transfer agreement previously reported by the Washington Examiner. Because of its recent fiscal year change, BLM now has until mid-May to report to the IRS and to the public what it did with those funds.
Charity experts previously told the Washington Examiner that BLM’s move to change its fiscal year was “unusual and irregular.”
BLM filings last week also revealed that the law firm of prominent Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, who is best known for his funding of the discredited anti-Trump Steele Dossier, is now in the care of BLM’s books. The records also show that Minyon Moore, a Democratic operative with close ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, took up a position on BLM’s board.
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In early February, BLM had fallen out of compliance in California, Washington, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, Connecticut, Colorado, Maryland, Maine, and Virginia for its failure to report what it did with its financial windfall from 2020. There was no indication that BLM had changed its fiscal year until it revealed its short-year 2020 Form 990 last week.
As of Thursday, BLM’s charity registration has been reinstated in California, New Mexico, Connecticut, Colorado, and Maine.
BLM remains out of compliance in New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington as of Thursday afternoon.
Washington ordered BLM in early January to “immediately cease” soliciting contributions in the state due to its failure to report its 2020 finances to the state. BLM has been “involuntarily closed” in Washington since Jan. 5, according to the state’s Corporations and Charities Filing System.
The Washington Examiner first reported last week that Amazon had booted BLM off AmazonSmile as the charity faces compliance problems in states across the country.
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who resigned from the charity in May amid scrutiny of her personal real estate purchases, said on Feb. 9 that the unaccounted millions her group received in 2020 came from “white corporation guilt.”
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“People have to know we didn’t go out and solicit the money,” Cullors said. “This is money that came from white guilt, white corporation guilt, and they just poured money in.”
BLM will have to report its five highest compensated independent contractors who received more than $100,000 between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, when it files its next Form 990, which is due on May 15 at the latest.
BLM likely paid a substantial amount in contracting fees in 2020. The charity reported to the IRS in August 2020, when it applied for tax-exempt status, that it expected to incur precisely $12,706,366 in “Professional Fees” expenditures in 2020.
All three key BLM stakeholders that were in control of the charity before Cullors resigned in May 2021 were closely tied to or were in direct control of consulting firms that claimed to do business with BLM, the Washington Examiner previously reported.
