Politics

Jay Sekulow's Made Millions From His Charity And That Has A Lot Of Experts Very Concerned

Over $60 million in donations to his non-profit have gone back to Sekulow and his family.

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Jay Sekulow via Twitter

In the cult classic Christmas Vacation, hapless loser Cousin Eddie confesses that he can’t afford Christmas presents for his young children by explaining “if only I had that money Catherine and I gave to that TV preacher who was screwin’ that hockey player.” There’s a tragic ring of truth to the gag — there are predators out there who see nothing but a sea of marks across America.

There’s no word on whether or not Trump attorney Jay Sekulow is screwing any hockey players, but documents obtained by The Guardian suggest there’s more than one Cousin Eddie out there living in poverty because Jay Sekulow’s religious boiler room managed to separate them from their money all for the greater mission of… funding Sekulow’s lavish lifestyle. The attorney and his family have secured over $60 million from the coffers of his non-profit organizations through salaries, loans, and subsidies. Over the years, donations have purchased homes and cars and meals and a jet for Sekulow.

Amazingly, this story isn’t even new. Tony Mauro broke the tale of Sekulow’s eyebrow-raising non-profit dealings for Legal Times twelve years ago:

For example, in 2001 one of Sekulow’s nonprofit organizations paid a total of $2,374,833 to purchase two homes used primarily by Sekulow and his wife. The same nonprofit also subsidized a third home he uses in North Carolina.

At various times in recent years, Sekulow’s wife, brother, sister-in-law, and two sons have been on the boards or payrolls of organizations under his control or have received generous payments as contractors. Sekulow’s brother Gary is the chief financial officer of both nonprofit organizations that fund his activities, a fact that detractors say diminishes accountability for his spending.

According to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service, funds from his nonprofits have also been used to lease a private jet from companies under his family’s control. And two years ago, Sekulow outsourced his own legal services from the ACLJ, shifting from a position with a publicly disclosed salary to that of a private contractor that requires no public disclosure. He acknowledged to Legal Times that his salary from that arrangement is “above $600,000” a year.

Mauro’s piece quotes a former employee of Sekulow’s charity, saying that “[s]ome of us truly believed God told us to serve Jay…. But not to help him live like Louis XIV.” Back in 2005, Sekulow insisted that his private jet trips to the golf course were all about fundraising and the extravagant compensation he sends to himself and his family fit squarely within the law governing non-profits. It’s unclear how that $2.4 million in housing related to fundraising.

Despite the protestations he offered back then, non-profit experts have reservations about his arrangements today. From The Guardian:

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Attorneys and other experts specialising in nonprofit law said the Sekulows risked violating a federal law against nonprofits paying excessive benefits to the people responsible for running them. Sekulow declined to detail how he ensured the payments were reasonable.

“This is all highly unusual, and it gives an appearance of conflicts of interest that any nonprofit should want to avoid,” said Daniel Borochoff, the president of CharityWatch, a Chicago-based group that monitors nonprofits.

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“I can’t imagine this situation being acceptable,” said Arthur Rieman, managing attorney at the California-based Law Firm for Nonprofits. “That kind of money is practically unheard of in the nonprofit world, and these kinds of transactions I could never justify.”

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“$60m is a lot of money,” said Charles Bridgers, an Atlanta-based attorney practising in nonprofit law. “If the IRS did an audit, they’d want to understand what they based that value on. We need to understand whether it might have conferred an excess benefit.”

But whether or not Sekulow’s organization is within its legal rights in the way it distributes assets, the methods it uses to pressure people into donating are as laughable as they are abhorrent.

A 2013 script warned listeners that Obama’s signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, promised to give Planned Parenthood federal funding to open abortion referral clinics “in your child’s or grandchild’s middle school or high school”.

Remember the abortion clinics in middle schools provision of the ACA? That must have been right after the death panels.

Telemarketers for the nonprofit, Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism (Case), were instructed in contracts signed by Sekulow to urge people who pleaded poverty or said they were out of work to dig deep for a “sacrificial gift”.

“I can certainly understand how that would make it difficult for you to share a gift like that right now,” they told retirees who said they were on fixed incomes and had “no extra money” – before asking if they could spare “even $20 within the next three weeks”.

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Trump reportedly found Sekulow while watching Fox News. Nestled between ads for gold and reverse mortgages is the perfect place for someone whose minions focus on making the hard sell to folks on fixed incomes. Expect a lot of grandparents to lament that they can’t get gifts this Christmas.

And now, with Sekulow representing Donald Trump, America is the proverbial hockey player.

Trump lawyer’s firm steered millions in donations to family members, files show [The Guardian]
The Secrets of Jay Sekulow [Legal Times via Wayback]

Earlier: Why Does Every Republican Lawyer Have A Terrible Rock Band?

HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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