Rep. Elijah Cummings
Congressman Elijah Cummings’ wife is breaking the law by refusing to hand over documents on her nonprofit, a lawyer said.
Cummings’ wife Maya Rockeymoore is breaking the law by not handing over requested records on her nonprofit, a legal expert told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Last week it was first reported by the Washington Examiner that a charity run by Maya Rockeymoore, the wife of Rep. Elijah Cummings, received millions from special interest groups and corporations that had business before her husband’s committee.
Democrat Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee was in very poor financial condition and heavily in debt due to unpaid child support to three women he had children with — until the last 10 years or so after he married his young, politically connected wife, Maya Rockeymoore.
At least three different groups have requested records from Maya Rockeymoore and she is refusing to hand over the documents, even though the law requires it, via the Daily Caller:
“Wow. That’s illegal,” Sally Wagenmaker, a Chicago attorney who specializes in nonprofit tax law, told TheDCNF. “It’s interesting and sad. You have the right to get them. The organization absolutely is required to provide the information, so to not do so would appear to be flaunting the law.”“As a family member of an elected official, we’d expect high-road, integrity and compliance. If anyone should be responding promptly, it should be her. He should be above approach.”“One of the policy reasons for disclosure is to be able to to illuminate conflict of interest, and the media’s role is to help illuminate that: is she trying to hide information, is she being secretive, does she think she’s above the law? And one of the ways that happens is through the required disclosure of 990s,” Wagenmaker said.
Tom Anderson, an investigator with the conservative leaning NPLC told the Daily Caller that his group called Maya Rockeymoore and she refused to engage, repeatedly asking, “And how can I help you?”
“We called the phone number for the nonprofit and she answered it like her personal cell. Then every time we asked a question, she just kept repeating ‘And how can I help you?’ And then finally hung up. It was so creepy.“We pointed out that it was required by law, and her response was ‘And how can I help you?’ It was so weird.”“It’s against the law. You have to hand those over. We’re a 501(c)(3) and if George Soros or a 10-year old kid requested our 990, we’d have to hand it over on the spot. The idea that she thinks she doesn’t have to is outrageous.”
The backstory, via The Washington Examiner:
Rockeymoore runs two entities, a nonprofit group called the Center for Global Policy Solutions and a for-profit consulting firm called Global Policy Solutions, LLC, whose operations appear to have overlapped, according to the IRS complaint filed by watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center on Monday. The complaint states that the arrangement may have been used to derive “illegal private benefit.”Global Policy Solutions received more than $6.2 million in grants between 2013 and 2016, according to tax records. Several of the nonprofit group’s financial backers — which included Google, J.P Morgan and Prudential — have business interests before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Cummings has served as Democratic chairman of the committee since January and previously served as ranking member.
Cummings blasted a complaint to the IRS against his wife as “baseless,” and a “political hit job” in a statement to Fox News.
“These baseless claims come from a group funded by right-wing mega-donors known for their political hit jobs,” Cummings said in a statement to Fox News. “I am confident that they will be exposed for what they really are – a fabricated distraction from the important work being done on behalf of Americans, such as lowering the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs.”
Last week, Rep. Cummings’ wife also blasted the Washington Examiner’s complaint to the IRS as a “hit piece.”
“It appears a conservative front group and a news outlet . . . are pushing a hit piece filled with faulty research, lies and innuendo in an attempt to tarnish my personal reputation, professional work and public service as well as that of my spouse,” Rockeymoore Cummings said in a statement to The Washington Post, calling the effort a “distasteful attempt to intimidate my family into silence at such a pivotal moment in our nation’s history.”
Speaking of a “political hit job,” Congressman Cummings’ committee has launched multiple baseless investigations into President Trump’s finances and security clearance process.
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