Tea
Party Fraud Exposed: Millions of Dollars Intended For Veterans Diverted
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| Charity fraud! |
The Daily Beast exposed the right leaning charity group Move America Forward (MAF)
for deceiving donors about where the donations were going and how much they had
raised.
Founded in 2005, MAF promotes itself as the
U.S.’s “largest grassroots pro-troop organization,” and has the support of
Republican leaders, including former Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W.
Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Barker wrote, “In February 2013 Move America
Forward announced an ambitious fundraising goal. The charity, launched in part
by one of the most prominent figures in the Tea Party movement, had adopted the
800 Marines in a battalion fighting in Afghanistan and wanted to send them all
care packages.”
MAF claimed to be sending the care packages to
a 1st Marine Division battalion known as “Geronimo” to help them fight against
the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, when the drive was taking place, the
Geronimo battalion was actually stationed in Okinawa, Japan.
The charity boasted that the Geronimo drive
was a success and that the Marines received the packages as well as all the
personalized letters.
Barker also reported that MAF lifted images from other legitimate charities of veterans and
accounts of successful deliveries to U.S. troops, and used them on their
fraudulent site in an effort to appear valid.
According to tax experts, the group has pumped
millions of dollars to Tea Party groups and to a California Republican
businessman, Sal Russo, 67, founder of Move America Forward, the Tea Party
Express and a number of other conservative political groups.
ProPublica also reported that the last five
tax returns show that MAF paid out “more than $2.3 million to Russo or Russo,
Marsh and Associates for services including ‘program management and
advertising.’ That’s about 30 percent of the charity’s overall expenditures
over that time.”
The group holds an annual “Troopathon”
fund-raiser that features “live and taped appearances by conservative stars
from entertainment, media and politics, including actor Gary Sinise, rock
idol Gene Simmons of the rock group KISS, Sarah Palin, Rick
Perry, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. The charity counts all the money
raised in the month of the broadcast as part of Troopathon.” Sponsors of
MAF include the San Francisco 49ers, Breitbart media, and
Cumulus Radio.
Move America Forward brags that it has
provided more than 315 tons of care packages to U.S. troops in Afghanistan
and Iraq. Barker argued, however, that the figure is very difficult to verify.
Neither the Department of Defense nor the International Security Assistance
Force in Afghanistan track the volume of packages sent to U.S. troops in the
field.
Kimberley A. Johnson (BIO) is the author ofThe Virgin Diaries and
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