WaPo investigation: partisan nonprofits enabled Trump, using rich people's tax-deductible donations

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-a-shadow-universe-of-charities-joined-with-political-warriors-to-fuel-trumps-rise/2017/06/03/ff5626ac-3a77-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html

From the start, Horowitz was supported by contributions from stalwart conservative groups, including the John M. Olin Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, along with donations from the wealthy Scaife family of Pittsburgh.

Horowitz’s charity launched a group called Students for Academic Freedom, framing it as a counterweight to the dominance of the left in high schools and on college campuses. Miller formed a chapter and sought permission from school officials to invite Horowitz to the school to speak. When administrators delayed, Miller and Horowitz accused them of stifling free speech.

By 2006, Horowitz’s charity, now operating as the David Horowitz Freedom Center, was staging events, publishing books and pamphlets, and operating a website devoted to “news on the war at home and abroad” against the left.

The Freedom Center was among a growing group of allied charities that received funding from large, conservative foundations such as Donors Capital Fund, Donors Trust, the Bradley Foundation and the Scaife family. For decades, those foundations and others had financed nonprofit organizations that promoted free enterprise and small government and opposed the environmental movement and other issues favored by progressives.

In general, charities have been able to operate with little scrutiny by regulators. The number of enforcement officials at the IRS and the audits they conduct have dwindled over the past decade. The IRS became especially reluctant to enforce limitations on political activity, following a furious backlash from conservatives and Republicans in Congress in 2013 over allegations the agency was illegally targeting tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status. An IRS spokesman declined to comment.

Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer, Bradley Foundation board member and recipient of a Freedom Center award, said conservative charities “take great pains to stay within their lanes from a legal perspective.”

Matthew Vadum, senior vice president of the tax-exempt Capital Research Center and a prolific contributor to the Freedom Center’s Frontpagemag.com, said there is no question the conservative charities work in concert.


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ed note: Bradley, Olin, Scaife, Koch, Walton have together done a lot of harm to American society.