Genocide, uh, defenders of Israel are frustrated by their inability to trample on American opposition to the genocide. We announced earlier warnings by Lara Friedman that a bill has passed the House and Senate that would end the nonprofit status as sponsors of terrorism for organizations accused of supporting anti-Zionist protests. We will soon turn to Friedman’s new sightings. The vice chairs of the House Oversight and Education Committee and the Workforce Committee reveal what amounts to an enemy list of 20 organizations and require the Treasury Department to produce a suspicious activity report on the organizations. That’s what it is. myself, all of my officers and employees.
The only good news about this salvo is that there’s a lot more barking than biting. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t scare a lot of people who don’t have it resolved, as it was intended.
We briefly return to our earlier action to end the nonprofit status of Palestinian rights activists. The justification is that somehow Hamas is behind it.I have also included this sighting information. In previous post:
Chairman Mike Johnson has claimed that Hamas is supporting pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and other U.S. universities, and has threatened Congressional intervention, including pulling federal funds from the universities. https://t.co/qy7eYO3Nik
— ABC News (@ABC) April 25, 2024
Under current law, organizations that actually received funding from or defended Hamas could have their tax-exempt status revoked for promoting terrorism. The big troubling aspect of the new law is that due process rights are almost completely removed, so that “supporting the Palestinians = supporting Hamas = supporting terrorism” could be treated as if it were true. .
The new strategy is to create what certainly looks like a list of enemies. Quoted from the letter embedded below:
1. Students for Justice in Palestine (including its individual chapters).
2. Jewish Voice of Peace (including its individual chapters)
3. In a lifetime
4. American Muslims who love Palestine
5. If Not Now
6. Open Society Foundations
7. Rockefeller Brothers Fund
8. Tides Foundation
9. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
10. Solidaire Action
11. Libra Foundation
12. Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation
13. Muslim Community Network
14. Council on American-Islamic Relations
15. Center for Popular Democracy
16. New York State Peace Action
17. People’s Forum
18. Samidun
19. Adalah Justice Project
20. Palestinian Law
To be clear, we are not saying that these organizations are paragons of virtue. A colleague who helped convince the Old Left complained a lot about the lack of transparency in nonprofit organizations, especially large ones. The Treasury Department does not release tax returns in a timely manner, and in most cases, not at all. This colleague is interested in the interaction between nonprofit donations and what amounts to soft lobbying, which is also not entirely kosher (political advocacy nonprofits are 501(c) 4s and , that entity is tax-exempt, but donations to it are not tax deductible). He also claims that much of the donations are leaked because companies like Tides act as top-tier recipients and distribute funds to others, hiding the original source of the funds. are doing. He also believes that even big companies are giving money to each other. He seemed to think this was clearly not an improvement, and gave specific examples of why. It’s a lawsuit by Black Lives Matter against Tides. I must confess that I didn’t read it carefully, but the gist is that Tides has claimed that it can help organizations like Black Lives Matter manage large donations, but instead they are now It has refused to hand over the funds entrusted to it and has reportedly mismanaged it. 1
update: As I was working on this post, The Hill posted a new article confirming our enemy list theory. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith is demanding that the Chamber return the $12 million it received from Tides. From that article:
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Missouri) asked the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation to answer questions about the more than $12 million it received from the left-leaning nonprofit Tides Foundation between 2018 and 2022. requested the Chamber of Commerce. .
In a letter last Monday to Chamber President and CEO Suzanne Clark and Foundation Board Chair Carolyn Corey, Smith said the Tides grants will support U.S. businesses. He said the move seemed to contradict the chamber’s mission to do more and raise questions about the organization’s tax-exempt status.
The Chamber of Commerce and Foundation say the study is based on a misunderstanding. Eric Ebersole, president of the foundation’s Hire a Hero program, told The Hill that the funds the foundation receives are “a combination of corporate philanthropic donations going to donor-advised funds. It’s a thing,” he said. funds.
A Tides spokesperson told The Hill that Smith’s investigation was “a politically motivated PR tactic during an election year driven by actors who disagree with the social justice work of Tides and our partner organizations.” ” he said.
But Mr Smith made it clear he was not satisfied with the initial response.
“The Chamber’s mission is very clear: to support American businesses,” he said. “When you get $12 million from Tides and then try to claim that it actually came from someone else and not from Tides, you want to look harder.”
Return to original post. That’s not to say that passionate right-wingers don’t have legitimate complaints about the intimate practices of major Democratic-leaning NGOs. But the House Oversight Committee’s actions are not about that. This is an attempt at blackmail.
Specifically, when a bank or other financial institution discovers money laundering-like activity, a suspicious activity report is filed with the Treasury Department. From Investopedia:
Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are a tool provided under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) of 1970 to monitor suspicious activity that is not typically flagged in other reports (such as currency transaction reports). SARs became the standard form for reporting suspicious activity in 1996.
SAR can cover almost any unusual activity. Any activity that gives rise to suspicion that the account holder is trying to hide something or conduct an illegal transaction may be included in a SAR.
A SAR is filed by a financial institution that observes suspicious activity within an account. The report will be submitted to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which will investigate the incident. FinCEN is a division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Financial institutions are responsible for filing reports within 30 days of account activity that is deemed suspicious or unusual. The purpose of SARs and resulting investigations is to identify customers involved in money laundering, fraud, and crime. Or terrorist funding?
Some common patterns of suspicious activity identified by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network include:
Lack of evidence of legitimate business activity (or business activity itself) undertaken by many of the parties to the transaction
Unusual financial ties or transactions that occur between certain industries (e.g., a food importer doing business with an auto parts exporter)
Transactions that do not match the listed industry or are unusual compared to the volume of similar businesses operating locally
Unusually large amounts of wire transfers, repetitive wire transfer patterns
An unusually complex series of transactions involving multiple accounts, banks, and parties
Bulk transactions of cash and financial instruments
Unusual mixed deposits into business accounts
Bursts of transactions over short periods of time, especially on dormant accounts
Transactions or activity levels that are inconsistent with the account’s expected purpose or activity level as stated by the account holder at the time of account opening.
Transactions that attempt to circumvent reporting and record-keeping requirements.
So the House Oversight Committee is asking the Treasury Department to recall existing SARs against 20 suspected organizations and nearly everyone working for them in an official capacity. Congress has that power. But Congress cannot, and this letter does not call on the Treasury Department or financial institutions to subject these 20 groups to additional scrutiny in general.
Importantly, the Ministry of Finance is ignoring these requests. When Republicans gained the House majority, they requested over 100 SARs regarding Hunter Biden from the Treasury Department. Nothing is produced.
Therefore, the value of this exercise is primarily the fear factor. And perhaps the House Oversight Committee is lucky that the Treasury Department actually has some SARs that fall within the scope of this fishing expedition. No doubt the commission will dismiss its findings as a bloody flag, even if the scale is trivial or explainable.
So while this is an exercise in threat-mongering, it does indicate that lawmakers appear intent on punishing visible pro-Palestinian speech and behavior as much as possible. More and potentially stronger measures are expected.
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1 I would have embedded it, but now I end up creating the document in a completely disrespectful way, and even if I take just the first 24 pages of a 285 page file, WordPress will only allow me to upload 2 MB. However, a document larger than 11 MB is generated. Also, I don’t recommend reducing the size. The tools I have only reduce it by 20%.
