Tag: david clarke
Florida Agency Opens Probe Of Bannon-Backed ‘We Build The Wall’

Florida Agency Opens Probe Of Bannon-Backed ‘We Build The Wall’

Reprinted with permission from DCReport.

A public record request just revealed that the charity started by a Florida man who raised more than $22 million on GoFundMe to build a private border wall just fell under potentially criminal investigation by a state consumer protection regulator.

Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (known as AgDept.) oversees charities which solicit funds from the public. It began investigating Brian Kolfage, who raised millions on GoFundMe before incorporating Florida nonprofit WeBuildTheWall Inc. (WBTW) after public officials received complaints and saw Snopes.com’s reporting about the questionable uses of over $1.7 million of the funds intended for its project. Public budget disclosures from the state-regulated charity indicate unusual expenditures may have been made by the well-endowed WBTW, which operates out of a post office box storefront in Panama City Beach, Fla.

WBTW also has an apparent problem following the corporate formalities that allow it to accept tax-free donations by lacking the minimum number of directors. It also has filed false statements about those issues with its regulator, the Florida AgDept.

“We have received a media inquiry about a company called We Build The Wall [sic], started by Brian Kolfage,” wrote Scott Hunt, chief of the Special Investigations Unit under Ashley Moody, a Republican who is Florida’s attorney general. Hunt’s letter was sent to the director of the Florida AgDept.’s Compliance Bureau, Liz Compton. In turn, Compton alerted her boss.

“Have you received any inquiries or launched any investigations re: this company?” Hunt asked. He shared three consumer complaints against WBTW, one of which cited a complete lack of corporate governance to manage over $20 million tax-free dollars.

“We’re opening an investigation on them,” replied Amy Topol a mere 50 minutes later. She is the Florida AgDept.’s director of Consumer Services, which oversees charities that solicit the public.

One of Topol’s bosses confirmed to the DC Report that the state will look into whether Kolfage caused materially false statements to be made in required charitable disclosures. The disclosure, filed with the assistance of counsel, states the charity has three directors. Yet it has only one listed director, Brian Kolfage, its president.

“We have an ongoing investigation into WeBuildTheWall Inc.,” said Franco Ripple, the StateAg spokesperson.

Kolfage has told numerous media outlets, including Snopes, that former Kansas Secretary of State and Trump acolyte Kris Kobach is on his board. That is also what he told the Florida AgDept., along with naming a third director, Dustin Stockton. Articles of incorporation filed with Florida’s Secretary of State and a copy of the complete archive of corporate filings contradict that story.

Florida law prohibits filing materially false statements with the AgDept. charitable registration. If the department decides that materially false statements have been submitted, it has the power to impose administrative fines of $10,000 per occurrence. It’s a third-degree felony crime for anyone to knowingly and willingly submit a false filing to the department or lie to its investigators, which can result in up to five years imprisonment.

The Florida AgDept.’s Compliance Bureau first contacted Kolfage in January, demanding that he comply with state charitable solicitations law and register WBTW with them by completing a detailed questionnaire disclosing its board members, its activities and a sample budget. Kolfage responded by filing registration paperwork in February with help from his first lawyer. The AgDept. found the paperwork incomplete. Then in March a new lawyer, based in Texas, responded to the deficiency notice and corrected the filing.

However, both the original and revised filings by WeBuildTheWall Inc. contain materially false information about the nonprofit’s board of directors.

WeBuildTheWall Inc. still only has a single director, its president, Kolfage.

That disclosure is likely considered a material fact because Florida law says that the nonprofit “corporation must never have fewer than three directors.”

The revelation that WBTW only has a single director could have led to a further investigation because the three director minimum is considered the first line of oversight to ensuring that charitable funds are properly directed.

Without other directors, Kolfage could open banking accounts on his own, a major avenue for potential fraud and abuse.

Florida’s AgDept. also regulates charity raffles. In response to a public records request, the department’s general counsel, Steven Hall, provided a consumer complaint about an apparently illegal raffle run by WBTW in May.

The raffle requires a mandatory donation for entrants to be eligible to win a trip to meet what it advertised as its “MAGA all-star board of advisors.” The raffle reads “TO ENTER: Please fill out the ‘raffle ticket’ with your name and email address.”

Requiring a cash donation violates Florida law on charity raffles. It instructs entrants that “to win you must be a donor, and we will verify this with our records.”

When asked if WBTW registered its raffle, Hall said he could not locate any responsive records but did identify the state’s criminal law prohibiting entry fees or mandatory donations to enter raffles. Violation is a second-degree misdemeanor.

The AgDept. has the power to issue a cease and desist order to WeBuildTheWall Inc. for its false filings. It could also fine the charity or revoke its registration to solicit funds. It also could place the charity on probation, or some combination of all of those remedies, if it decides that the disclosure filings were illegal.

Without three directors, a Florida nonprofit cannot conduct any lawful business. In the case of WeBuildTheWall Inc., there is a further complication in that there is no apparent way for Kolfage to add new directors because he incorporated without a quorum of directors, and his articles state that the only way to add new directors, “shall be provided in the by-laws of the corporation.”

Without a quorum of directors already, Brian Kolfage cannot call an organizational meeting to adopt new bylaws.

That could be a major problem for real estate deals that Kolfage has in the works. “We are under multiple land contracts,” Kolfage wrote by email two weeks ago.

“It’s a Catch-22,” says Florida lawyer Sree Reddy. “How can he cure the defects without a quorum? There’s no ability to take votes or anything. His big issue is that he already took the money, which makes it harder now. WeBuildTheWall Inc. might have to seek a remedy from the courts in order to add new directors. In addition, without a functioning corporation, the charity can’t obtain title insurance in a real estate acquisition transaction.”

Two other Florida lawyers told the DC Report that Kolfage might need to go to court and get a “court order” to amend his articles of incorporation to add new directors so this new board can adopt bylaws and conduct lawful business. However, these actions would not be retroactive.

“If there is a single member board in a not-for-profit corporation then there is no multiple-member board to vote on changes,” according to attorney Harris Gilbert of Gilbert & Smallman, which has offices across the Sunshine state.

“The single member would likely have to petition the court on any amendments and a judge would have to review the proposed amendments, determine if they are legally sufficient and then issue a court order to allow for any changes to have proper legal effect,” Gilbert said.

That hasn’t stopped Kolfage from claiming that the bylaws of WBTW prevent him from profiting off his private wall efforts.

“My time with WBTW is volunteer, I will never take a penny from it. It’s even in our bylaws that I receive no compensation,” Kolfage wrote by email. But he refused to provide a copy of his bylaws or corporate records showing they were adopted at a proper meeting.

purported copy of the bylaws documents provided to the Snopes.com fact-checking website states that say Kolfage will receive no salary as a corporate officer. However, Snopes published only a portion of the purported bylaws.

The nonprofit’s articles declare that it would seek tax-exempt status under section 501(c)4 of the IRS code as a social welfare organization.

Donations to so-called C4 organizations are not tax deductible because a C4 is not a charity.

Accordingly, the Internal Revenue Service confirmed that WBTW applied for nonprofit status in January. But the IRS is backed up in processing new applications. The IRS is currently processing August 2018 applications, and will not release any of WBTW’s records until a determination of tax status has been made. Social welfare organizations may not make politics their primary purpose and could be taxed on any funds used for political purposes.

WBTW is associated closely with Kobach; former Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon who went on a midwest road show to Detroit and to Cincinnati to tout the private wall charity; and former Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke. It’s wall GoFundMe page is emblazoned with “Trump Approved” across its photo which raises the specter of involvement in the 2020 Republican primary campaign. Florida law prohibits a charity from advertising any personal endorsement unless it is consented to in writing.

“One of the biggest debates right now at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is what qualifies as a political committee. This group probably falls somewhere in the grey area,” wrote the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center spokesman Corey Goldstone about WBTW’s seemingly political activities, “a nonprofit organization cannot engage in political campaigning on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate for office, or it may risk its tax-exempt status.”

Kolfage claims to have audit committees on the board of WBTW, but under email, questioning refused outright to say who sat on those boards and refused by email to name his claimed external auditor either.

Kolfage’s charity reported a salary budget of $690,000, a “fringe benefits” budget of $78,864, alongside a $500,000 budget to acquire land or easements (perpetual use rights) with $1 million set aside in the first year just for legal services.

“Don’t need to explain anything wall related,” Kolfage said by email when asked for land records. “You aren’t privileged to this information.”

It’s unknown whether Kolfage collects any of the “fringe benefits.”

Kolfage denies improper use of corporate funds for reasons other than his organization’s plan to erect a wall along America’s southern border, but refused to provide any records in 13 emailed replies to this author.

“We have hired and paid a major construction firm and are under contract with them,” Kolfage wrote by email two weeks ago, when he refused to provide any records to rebut earlier news stories. “We don’t owe you anything.”

Public boat registration records indicate that Kolfage lives in a $1 million country club home in Miramar Beach, Fla., with no apparent income except a “coffee company.”

“Also, if we were doing anything wrong GoFundMe would pull the plug,” he added. “GoFundMe is fully aware of what we are doing…”

GoFundMe did not reply to an emailed request for comment sent through its press contact page.

Sunland Park, N.M., is where the group attempted to build its wall and got stopped by City of Sunland Park officials on May 28 for a code violation. Mayor Javier Perea says that city staff issued a cease and desist order against WBTW until they apply for proper permits which Sunland Park believes will take at least two weeks to process. Kolfage held a media day and celebration on June 4 outside his project, even while Sunland Park’s Mayor Perea told the local Fox News outlet that they still do not have valid building permits.

No deeds or land easements or any records constructively indicating site control for wall activities were found in public records during a search of the Dona Ana County clerk’s website. The mayor noted that city zoning requires a 6-foot maximum fencing height, while WBTW was constructing an 18-foot-tall fence before ordered to stop.

WeBuildTheWall Inc. has numerous apparent deficiencies in the way that it is managing a charity with $20 million in known funds, which were solicited from over 260,000 Americans across the United States. However, it did not tell the Florida Agriculture and Consumer Protection Department about those corporate problems, instead claiming a full complement of directors. It also filed a budget citing unusual items like “fringe benefits” and a bloated legal budget, even though charities are not allowed to let their incomes inure to the benefit of insiders.

Several Florida attorneys agreed that Kolfage’s charity has a procedural problem dating to its incorporation. Although the charity did file its required registration paperwork to be a social welfare organization with the IRS, it’s not clear whether f it disclosed its single-member board to the tax agency.

Featured image: Brian Kolfage (left) with Kris Kobach. (Source: Kolfage’s Instagram page.) Special thanks to American Oversight.

Follow Grant Stern on Twitter @grantstern and check out his first book, Meet the Candidates 2020: Elizabeth Warren on sale now, as part of his Meet the Candidates 2020 Series.

 

Milwaukee Sheriff ‘Missing In Action’ As He Seeks Trump Limelight

Milwaukee Sheriff ‘Missing In Action’ As He Seeks Trump Limelight

Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County in Wisconsin has become a fixture on Fox News and at conservative political events, regularly serving as a shameless advocate for President Donald Trump.

But local journalists who report on the 15-year sheriff of Wisconsin’s most populous county say his newfound national spotlight sharply detracts from his law enforcement duties. They note that he spends much of his time away from home, either promoting Trump or pushing his new book, Cop Under Fire: Moving Beyond Hashtags of Race, Crime and Politics for a Better America.

Wisconsin reporters also point out that his local approval ratings continue to fall as he ignores his responsibilities, as well as a string of troubling incidents that have occurred in the past few years. Chief among the concerns are four inmate deaths that occurred in his jails in 2016, which Clarke has failed to adequately explain, they say.

“It gives the impression that he is missing in action and that he is an advocate for the Trump administration,” Daniel Bice, a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who has reported extensively on Clarke, said about his recent actions. “The perception is that he has gone from being the sheriff to being an advocate for Trump — that is his primary role right now.”

Clarke, a Democrat and African-American, is among Fox News’ favorite guests. A search of Fox News transcripts on Nexis since 2015 finds he has made prime time appearances more than 100 times, in most cases to discuss national issues, not his home county. (Nexis does not capture Fox News appearances on morning and daytime programming.)

In addition, a recent Journal Sentinel review of Clarke’s outside income disclosure statements found he had earned more than $220,000 in 2016 from speaking fees and related expenses, along with other gifts, during speeches to 34 different groups in 20 states outside of Wisconsin. These earnings outpace his sheriff salary which is $132,290.

“He’s not around and he’s not doing his job and not providing any leadership,” said Charlie Sykes, a longtime conservative Wisconsin talk show host now appearing on MSNBC and WNYC Radio in New York. “His approach has been to refuse to comment, refuse to be transparent in any way, and attack anyone who raises questions about it.”

And then there are the questionable incidents involving Clarke, ranging from his tweet calling CNN’s Marc Lamont Hill a “jigaboo” to his alleged harassment of a fellow airplane passenger.

Clarke also called for a boycott of a local Fox affiliate, claiming it presented “fake news” and “racist” coverage.

“He doesn’t talk to the local press except through the county sheriff’s Facebook page, but he does talk to Fox News, which is a contrast,” Bice said. “The assumption nationally among the conservatives is that he is beloved here, but even conservatives are frustrated with how long he is gone and not doing his job.”

Clarke was first appointed sheriff in 2002, winning re-election later that year and again in 2006, 2010 and 2014. He is up for re-election again in 2018.

But he didn’t gain national prominence until his last election, when groups of gun-safety advocates helped support an effort to have him voted out.

When he won that election, local reporters say, he started getting national attention as a gun-rights advocate and law enforcement voice. He drew further attention last year when he spoke out against the Black Lives Matter movement, calling it a hate group. He was also an early Trump supporter.

One of the misconceptions about Clarke, however, is his image as a crime-fighter, local journalists say. His office does very little in the way of policing, with most of its work focused on the county’s jails, highways, and parks.

“The county sheriff has almost nothing to do with crime. The police handle the crime,” said Bruce Murphy, editor of UrbanMilwaukee.com, former editor of Milwaukee Magazine and onetime Journal Sentinel reporter. “He’s the classic example of all hat and no cattle. He talks tough and he has the impression of being this guy who is taking care of crime, and he has very little to do with it.”

A January 31 report from Public Policy Polling found that Clarke had a 31 percent approval rating among local voters, and it noted that “voters consider him to be somewhat of a national embarrassment.” It also revealed that 65 percent believed Clarke has had a negative impact on Milwaukee County’s image.

PolitiFact, meanwhile, has deemed 75 percent of his statements that it reviewed false or mostly false.

“He’s very thin-skinned. He enjoys the limelight, likes the big checks and flying first class,” said Mike Crute, a talk show host on WRRD News Talk 1510 in Milwaukee. “It’s horrible. He’s got people dying in his own jails and he is nowhere to be found.”

Crute added: “He is a guy who undermines the office and the public service office. It’s all narcissism, building himself as a TV brand, following Trump’s example. The sheriff’s office and its duties are just tedious to him. He doesn’t do anything.”

James Wigderson, assistant editor of the conservative website RightWisconsin.com, called the outside appearances “a distraction.”

“The fact that he probably earns more from speaking fees than he does at his day job leads you to believe that his day job has to be suffering at some point in this process,” Wigderson said. “It’s a mixed bag in Milwaukee County when you are more frequently appearing on Fox News nationally than you are on the local news discussing what is going on in Milwaukee County.”

Journalists also say that he has not properly addressed the jail deaths or his constant trips out of town. When Media Matters approached him at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in February outside Washington, D.C., Clarke declined to comment on either.

Most reporters who cover Clarke believe he will not run for re-election in 2018, due in part to his diminishing local image and popularity, but also because of his continued support for Trump, as many believe he still hopes to serve the president in some capacity.

“He’s become a Fox News commentator/Trump surrogate and at that point has become almost completely disconnected with the community,” said Sykes.

In response to a request for comment, Fran McLaughlin at Clarke’s office sent the following:

I spoke with the sheriff :

The left (Progressives, Democrats) doesn’t think a black guy is capable of handling many things at one time. Let me introduce them to Sheriff David Clarke. He’s added Tammy Baldwin to the list. He’s EVERYWHERE! He’s too busy to talk to you right now though. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain

Milwaukee’s War On Black People

Milwaukee’s War On Black People

Published with permission from Alternet.

Donald Trump supporter and Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke has built a national profile by openly declaring war on the Black Lives Matter movement, from the floor of the Republican National Convention to the pages of national media outlets, once even proclaiming on social media that racial justice protesters will “join forces” with ISIS.

Now that some Milwaukee residents have staged days of open rebellion against police violence following the cop killing of 23-year-old black man Sylville K. Smith, Clarke is ratcheting up his rhetoric. During a press conference on Sunday, he employed dog whistle racist language, stating that “the urban pathologies have to be addressed to shrink the growth of an underclass.” Clarke went on to argue that, from Baltimore to Ferguson Milwaukee, there is a “war on police”—and vowed to escalate his crackdown on demonstrators. Meanwhile, Governor Scott Walker on Sunday declared a state of emergency and activated the national guard against protesters.

But in a city that has been called the most segregated urban area in America, angry demonstrators are telling a different story: of a state-sanctioned war against poor, black residents. This perspective was articulated by Milwaukee man Sedan Smith, who identified himself to local outlet CBS 58 as the brother of Sylville Smith.

“It’s the police. This is the madness that they spark up. This is what they encourage. This is what they provoke. This is what you get. You take a loved one from something, this is what you get,” Smith declared on Saturday, standing in view of an auto parts store engulfed in flames. “I don’t know when it’s going to end. But it’s for y’all to start. We’re not the ones that’s killing us. Y’all killing us. We can’t make a change if you all don’t change.”

Before Sylville Smith was killed, Milwaukee was already reeling from former Milwaukee police officer Chistopher Manney’s killing of mentally ill black man Dontre Hamilton with 14 gun shots in 2014. While Manney was fired from his position, he did not face any charges for the murder, and Milwaukee residents staged Black Lives Matter demonstrations to protest his impunity.

Protesters taking to the streets today say that police violence against black residents of Milwaukee remains systemic. “You see anger, just the anger and the frustration of a community that has suffered atrocities and oppression on behalf of what they deem to be the police oppressive system, that has never seemingly been held accountable for taking the life, like the young man said, of their loved ones,” Muhibb Dyer, a community activist and co-founder of the organization Flood the Hood with Dreams, told Democracy Now.

But in Milwaukee, injustices against black people extend far beyond policing. A 2013 study from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee found that the state has the highest incarceration rate for black men in the country at 13 percent, thanks largely to Milwaukee’s stunningly high rates. Report authors John Pawasarat and Lois M. Quinn note:

The prison population in Wisconsin has more than tripled since 1990, fueled by increased government funding for drug enforcement (rather than treatment) and prison construction, three-strike rules, mandatory minimum sentence laws, truth-in-sentencing replacing judicial discretion in setting punishments, concentrated policing in minority communities, and state incarceration for minor probation and supervision violations. Particularly impacted were African American males, with the 2010 U.S. Census showing Wisconsin having the highest black male incarceration rate in the nation. In Milwaukee County over half of African American men in their 30s have served time in state prison.”

Not surpringly, Wisconsin’s budget allots more for incarceration than for schooling. This is in a state where four out of every five African-American children live in poverty.

A report released last year by the University of California at Los Angeles found that schools in Milwaukee suspend black students at nearly two times the national average. Meanwhile, Wisconsin has the worst achievement gap between white and black students in the United States, thanks largely to the Milwaukee public school system, which has been systematically defunded and privatized for more than two decades.

Racial disparities extend to home lending. A study released in July by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found, “In the Milwaukee Metropolitan Statistical Area, whites represent 70 percent of the population, yet received 81 percent of the loans. African Americans are 16 percent of the population yet only received four percent of the loans.”

NPR’s Kenya Downs wrote an article last year raising the question, “Why is Milwaukee so bad for black people?” Downs wrote: “Milwaukee is a vibrant city known for its breweries and ethnic festivals and can be a great place to live — unless you’re black. Statistically, it is one of the worst places in the country for African-Americans to reside.”

When Baltimore erupted in uprisings last year following the violent death of Freddie Gray in police custody, angry protesters, most of them black youth, were widely demonized. Yet, a recently released Department of Justice investigation into that city’s police department vindicates protesters’ outrage, exposing law enforcement’s stunning and systematic atrocities against poor black communities, including systematic harassment, violence and degradation.

Now, like their counterparts in Baltimore, black youth of Milwaukee are being demonized as thugs and criminals by the police department entrusted to serve them. Bolstered by a hate-fueled presidential campaign, Clarke is escalating his demagogic incitement against the very people he and his city have failed.

Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare.

Photo: A burned down liquor store is seen after disturbances following the police shooting of a man in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. August 15, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein