Charlie Kirk Is Sadly Departed, But The TPUSA Grift Lives On
At Sunday’s gigantic memorial service for the slain Charlie Kirk, his widow Erika offered a powerful message of faith, even saying that she had forgiven his alleged assassin. At the same event, President Donald Trump delivered a rambling, typically tasteless and narcissistic address that emphasized his unquenchable “hate” for everyone who opposes him.
Trump's bizarre rant preceded equally disturbing speeches from his eldest son, his vice president, his secretary of state, and a parade of far-right personalities such as Tucker Carlson (who seized the chance to highlight his own antisemitic conspiracy theories).
Behind the televised farewell, with its kaleidoscope of vengeance, rage and reconciliation, the political boodling that has long undergirded Kirk’s career intensified in recent days.
Over the weeks since her husband’s death, Erika Kirk has consolidated control of Turning Point USA, the far-right student organizing and media network that he founded. Now acting as its chief operating officer and overall boss, she swiftly embarked on a broad fundraising campaign designed to profit from his horrible murder. Indeed the relentless fund solicitations began almost immediately after his shooting. Unsurprisingly, public empathy for his suddenly fatherless family inspired a gusher of millions of dollars into online accounts sponsored by Carlson and others, even as Erika drew millions more into TPUSA.
Investigating the campaign-style drive to vacuum up donations from grieving Kirk fans, Snopes.com found that four fundraising sites organized to support his family have already raised "nearly $9 million combined." Although "most were organized by groups that had no direct ties to the Kirk family, one was linked to Charlie Kirk's official website." Another of the fundraising operations was financed and operated by a company controlled by Carlson.
Natural compassion for the bereaved Kirks doesn’t eclipse what has been mocked repeatedly by critics as a “grifting” exercise on their behalf. When he died at age 31, Charlie left his wife three luxury homes, a fleet of expensive automobiles and at least $12 million. In The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism, my most recent book, I briefly examined the abuse of TPUSA’s tax-exempt status to enrich Kirk and his cronies.
“With chapters on hundreds of college campuses, TPUSA is ostensibly a nonprofit group (with an attached political action committee). Its politics are on the far right of Trumpism, with a troubling tendency to encourage white nationalism and other extremist and hateful ideologies. But hiding behind its tax exemption and its stated “charitable” purposes is a business that has proved highly lucrative for Kirk...
“In October 2023, an Associated Press investigation of TPUSA’s finances found that the group has raised “roughly a quarter-billion dollars” over the past seven years—much of which has been spent not to educate young conservatives but on ‘cultivating conservative influencers and hosting glitzy events’ (which included a lavish wedding for Kirk at a Scottsdale, Arizona, resort).
"Kirk’s personal compensation has soared from $27,000 to over $400,000, and he owns three luxury properties, including a beachside condo on the Gulf Coast and a new “Spanish-style mansion” on a Phoenix golf course worth nearly $5 million. The AP report also revealed that the organization has doled out more than $15 million to companies controlled by TPUSA insiders and their cronies.”
Among those who have most loudly demanded revenge on liberals are far-right media scammers like Benny Johnson, who brought home nearly half a million dollars as TPUSA’s “chief content officer.” TPUSA has paid tens of millions of dollars to other friends and relatives of Charlie Kirk – including TPUSA officials – who won lucrative contracts to provide “services” to the nonprofit. Turning Point Action, the organization's political action arm, has engaged an Arizona company called Superfeed to provide its app and other technology services. Among the for-profit Superfeed's directors are a coterie of close Kirk associates, including Turning Point Action's chief operating officer -- and Erika Kirk's mother Lori Frantzve.
In their beatification of Kirk, his eulogists portrayed him as not just an organizer or podcaster but a dedicated evangelist with a mission to save souls. No doubt that was how the young missionary saw himself. But he practiced his own lavishly compensated version of the Christianity that is embodied in the Trump White House and the MAGA movement: the “prosperity gospel” that has turned Jesus into a golden calf.
Joe Conason is founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo. He is also editor-at-large of Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative reporting organization formerly known as The Investigative Fund. His latest book is The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism (St. Martin's Press, 2024).
