No Matter How Cynical I Get, I Just Can’t Keep Up
Bannon, y’all.
The Washington Post did a big, long, documented, well researched story explaining how Bannon used loopholes and felonies to make himself one rich sumbitch. Take the time to read it but be aware that your jaw will drop and hit your keyboard so be careful. Bannon set up non-profits to funnel money to himself and friends.
Among the fun parts of the article is this:
Bannon, Schweizer and Robinson were linked through nonprofit organizations and filmmaking work. Bannon and Schweizer had made the film about President Ronald Reagan together in 2004; more recently, they were colleagues at Breitbart News. Schweizer sat on the board of Robinson’s Young America’s Foundation, which had paid Bannon $404,904 to produce films in 2010 and 2011, documents show, and would pay him almost $173,000 in 2012.
In the document seeking tax-exempt status for the GAI [Government Accountability Institute, a non-profit famed by Bannon], Bannon signed a document under penalty of perjury repeatedly attesting that each of them “has no family or business relationships with any other persons involved with GAI.”
A GAI spokeswoman told The Post that the relationships were later disclosed in the group’s annual filing with the IRS — submitted in November 2013, nine months after the GAI’s tax-exempt status was approved.
Charities are required to disclose business relationships among their directors on their initial applications for tax exemption so that the IRS can examine whether the organization is being formed for a proper public purpose.
So, there you have it. Perjury. And ironically, no accountability.
Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.
A note from Alfredo before the lunchtime rush: That’s why Republicns spent the last eight years cutting the budget of the IRS and trying to impeach the IRS Commissioner – so there would never be an investigation of the far right’s extensive use of 501(c)(3)s to elect Republican presidents and ensure a permanent conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Perjury, but no accountability? Standard operating procedure for the snacilbupeR now. After all, IOKIYAR.
1Wot? No Trey Gowdy or pint sized Utah punter Chaffetz to the rescue or arsonist Issa? Boys must have exhausted all their investigative ‘skills’ on Benghazi redux x19+.
2Never seen such a filthy bunch of felons. So now kick them in prison. Traitor trump will kick them all out without a glance to save his sorry, obece ass.
3Seriously, is anybody really surprised? Wow! Wht a movie this is going to make! And it won’t be fictional!
4The political vehicle is a 501 C 4. That’s where the money goes dark.
5What I find so entertaining about these folks is the fact that, if they hadn’t spent so much energy getting to the top — getting the spotlight trained on them [Tweety Bird], becoming the Power Behind The Throne [the Little Nazi] taking money from as many nations as they could cram into their speed-dial [Flynn (who doesn’t even rate a nickname)], getting a $60 million Friendship medal [Tillerson (ditto)] or becoming bff with certain Russian bankers [Manaforte (again, ditto)], they might have gotten away with what they were doing.
But noooooooo – – – they had to go for the spotlight ON TOP OF all those self-enriching criminal actions they were pursuing.
Piles and piles of money wasn’t enough. They wanted publicity and political power too.
Hubris. All is hubris.
And now they’ll blame the liberals.
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