New financial controversies have arisen about the use of donations by Black Lives Matter (BLM), including additional allegations that co-founder Patrisse Cullors used BLM funds and resources to benefit herself and friends. I previously wrote a column asking why Democratic prosecutors like New York Attorney General Letitia James shown comparably little interest in these allegations even as James sought to disband the National Rifle Association (NRA) over similar allegations. In the meantime, the Washington Examiner is reporting that former Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias has left the BLM board after his firm. the Elias Law Group, had “taken control of its books and finances.”
Black Lives Matter reportedly raised $90 million after the death of George Floyd and still has $60 million in cash.
Even with the rising scandals over the use of donations, many Democratic politicians (who called for the prosecution of the NRA) remain conspicuously silent on the BLM scandals.
Cullors was always a curious choice of corporate donors given her intensely anti-corporate stances. She insisted that she and her BLM co-founder “are trained Marxists. We are super versed on, sort of, ideological theories.” She has denounced capitalism as worse than COVID-19. Nevertheless, corporations poured money into BLM and some, like Warner Bros. hired Cullors to guide their programming.
Cullors recently said that BLM was flooded with “white guilt money.”
However, BLM failed to file required tax reports and some of that money appears to have gone to buying expensive properties and supporting personal friends of Cullors.
Cullors stepped down last year as executive director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, and there have been other resignations that left the group effectively headless. Those resignations followed the New York Post’s revelation that BLM Global Network transferred $6.3 million to Cullors’ spouse, Janaya Khan, and other Canadian activists to purchase a mansion in Toronto in 2021.
Then reports surfaced of the purchase of expensive homes and other allegations of using BLM resources or funds for personal benefits.
A $6 million Los Angeles mansion has been the most recent focus of these allegations of personal use of BLM assets.
There are also allegations that Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation paid out $4 million in consulting payments to its board secretary, co-founder Patrisse Cullors’ brother, and the father of Cullors’ child. That includes $970,000 to Trap Heals LLC, a company established by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’ child. It also includes $840,000 to Cullors Protection LLC, a security firm owned by her brother, Paul Cullors.
Some $2.1 million also allegedly went to Bowers Consulting, a firm run by Shalomyah Bowers, the foundation’s board secretary.
Cullors once declared that “while the COVID-19 illness is tragic, what’s more tragic is capitalism.” She is fast making that tragedy a reality.
