The Washington Examiner‘s Andrew Kerr argued that Black Lives Matter has a “duty” to its donors to explain how it has been spending their money.
During a Fox Business interview Thursday, Kerr talked about his investigation into BLM that raised questions about who is in charge of the group’s finances and how it managed the roughly $60 million it reported finishing with in 2020.
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“There were a large number of people, probably millions of people, that donated to this charity with good intentions,” Kerr said. “Just like regular folks that did not like the scenes they were seeing on television, and Black Lives Matter has a duty to those people who gave them their hard-earned money [to disclose] what they’ve done with their money. It’s been two years — the reporting was due months ago, and it’s been radio silence.”
Kerr emphasized that BLM’s status as a public charity requires it to disclose information about its finances and leadership to the public.
“We tried to go to their Los Angeles address, my colleague did last week, and was told by a security guard that ‘Black Lives Matter has never had an office here, and we constantly get packages here for Black Lives Matter that we have to return back to send,'” he said. “And their board members won’t disclose who has been in charge of the charity for the past eight months.”
BLM is facing scrutiny from a number of states. California and Washington recently ordered the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the legal entity that represents the national BLM movement, to stop its fundraising activities in their state until it submits documents about its finances. BLM claimed Wednesday that it paused its online fundraising, but Kerr said BLM is still accepting donations from ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform.
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Kerr said he had a discussion with the attorney general of Indiana who said the pattern Kerr has reported is typically the pattern law enforcement finds in organizations that turn out to be conducting frauds or scams. Kerr said he believes BLM will continue to face more scrutiny until it releases more financial information.
“BLM has had plenty of opportunities to provide their documents,” he said. “All they need to do is to provide the documents they were required to disclose upon request that were due back in November. And until they do that, I think they are going to face more and more scrutiny.”
