How Patrisse Cullors Lied About Shutting Down BLM’s Fundraising As It Was Instructed by California and Washington

Executive Summary

• BLM was instructed by both the state of California and Washington to cease accepting donations until they meet their reporting requirements.

Introduction

BLM has developed a habit of lying. They have been found to be out of compliance with many states to operate a charity in those states. And after being told to cease fundraising in California and Washington until they were in compliance, BLM continued to accept donations.

Our References for This Article

If you want to see our references for this article and other Brightwork related articles, see this link.

The National Legal and Policy Center Letter to The Attorney General of California on BLM

This is the first page of the seven-page letter from the NLPC asking the Attorney General of California to investigate BLM. 

The letter asks the AG of California to investigate BLM to determine if BLM should lose its charitable status.

The following quotes from the letter are extremely interesting.

Blatant Lie #1: NLPC on BLM Lies on Responding to a Delinquency Notice

Even though the Delinquency Notice was issued on January 31, 2022 and BLMGNF was promptly made aware of it, the group ignored it and continued to solicit and receive donations as
reported by the Washington Examiner as recently as February 3, 2022. When this violation was recently brought to the attention of BLMGNF, a representative told the reporter: “We take these matters seriously and have taken immediate action,” an
unidentified spokesperson for the BLMGNF told the Washington Examiner. “We have immediately engaged compliance counsel to address any issues related to state fundraising compliance. In the interim, we have shut down online fundraising as we work
quickly to ensure we are meeting all compliance requirements.” 7
This response is disingenuous for several reasons. First, if BLMGNF did take “these matters seriously,” why did it fail to renew its registration since November 2021? Second, its
representation that it has “shut down online fundraising as we work quickly to ensure we are meeting all compliance requirements” is demonstrably false. While it did eliminate the
“DONATE” button on its website, blacklivesmatter.com, where donations were processed through ActBlue, a fundraising organization for Democratic candidates and liberal activist
organizations, it continued to receive donations from a separate email solicitation from BLMGNF regarding Black History Month and other donation streams through ActBlue. – NLPC

Blatant Lie #2: NLPC on BLM Lies on ActBlue Fundraising

When this continued flagrant violation of the California’s Delinquency Notice and Washington’s Closure Notice was brought to its attention by the Washington Examiner, the unnamed representative of BLMGNF further replied: “The ActBlue campaigns you reference are not active campaigns and are not
actively soliciting any funds,” the spokesperson said in an email.” As previously noted, we have ceased all current fundraising as we work to ensure complete compliance.”

This statement too is demonstrably false since donations were subsequently solicited and made to the group through its email solicitation about Black History Month that was indeed – NLPC

NLPC Asks for AG to Depose BLM Insiders Under Oath

Besides obtaining copies of its books and bank statements which BLMGNF is required to keep, NLPC believes that the Attorney General should depose BLMGNF representatives under
oath subject to perjury to ensure accurate information is provided regarding the finances of this group. – NLPC

The NLPC has concluded the same thing we have. BLM are serial liars and will continue to lie unless they are subject to criminal prosecution for lying.

What Happens When You Ask Patrisse Cullors a Straight Question

Patrisse Cullors will tend to pivot out to how those that ask her questions she does not want to answer are racist, sexist or the topics are only being raised by right-wing media. Another common pivot is how she is a victim and how questions like this cause her trauma and damage her mental health.

Yet another example of this is found in the following quotation.

Cullors did not acknowledge during the interview that BLM had shut down its online fundraising pages last week amid legal threats from California and Washington, instead pivoting to accuse “right-wing media” of weaponizing her trauma in an attempt to drive her into insanity. – Washington Examiner

And there is a good reason for the pivot.

BLM has not done what it was instructed by California and Washington. Journalists have reported being able to make donations from states that BLM is no longer allowed to raise funds until they comply with reporting requirements.

BLM has done this even though they have not only been instructed to stop accepting donations in these two states but that they will be fined if they violate the instruction, as is explained in the following quotation.

Washington state officials notified BLM in a Jan. 5 letter that the charity faces fines upward of $2,000 for each donation it solicits in the state until it reports its 2020 finances, and California threatened to hold BLM’s leaders personally liable if they don’t report their finances within the next 60 days. – Washington Examiner

BLM not only has violated the rules of running a charity, but even after being told they are out of compliance, they continue to ignore the instructions provided to them by the states. BLM seems to think that they don’t have to follow the rules of running a charity.

Asking For State Rules For Running a Charity to be Followed is a Way of “Shrinking the Movement”

Rather than providing evidence, Cullors has a long-established pattern of claiming she is the victim.

“Their job is to drive me to insanity,” Cullors said. “Their job is to keep me silent, to shrink me. Their job is to shrink us as a movement.” – Washington Examiner

Cullors and the other BLM executives are doing a good job of that by themselves. They are undermining faith in BLM as a charity as they are not following the rules of a charity, and they do not appear to be using the donations for much of anything but enriching BLM insiders. This would fall into the category of blaming the messenger.

BLM Mystery #1: How Mentally Stable is Patrisse Cullors?

But given that Cullors has referred to committing suicide and that she is being driven to insanity, and that she is being hunted by white supremacists in her house in Topanga Canyon, which is close to Malibu, one wonders if Cullors may just have long-standing mental health problems. Investigating this involved analyzing Patrisse Cullors behavior gets into a topic beyond her mental stability, and is covered in the article The Evidence BLM Leader Patrisse Cullors is a Mentally Unstable Narcissistic Sociopath Who Is Constantly Lying.

All of this makes us wonder what percentage of BLM’s leadership has mental problems and is generally low functioning.

This brings us to the next topic.

BLM Mystery #2: Where is BLM Treasurer Shalomyah Bowers?

BLM executives have a habit of dodging responsibility. As we covered in the article How Patrisse Cullors Never Left the Management of BLM, Patrisse Cullors created a fictitious exit from BLM to escape scrutiny, which she said had her concerned she was going to be murdered by a white supremacist, or if not a white supremacist that she would kill herself, and that she was “prepared to die.” Now Shalomyah Bowers has disappeared.

One of BLM’s two known board members, Shalomyah Bowers, appears to have gone underground. Bowers said in an automated, out-of-office email on Tuesday that he will be unavailable via email and phone during the first half of February, and phone calls to Bowers’s cellphone on Thursday went straight to voicemail. – Washington Examiner

BLM Mystery #3: What Happened to Board Member Raymond Howard’s Association With BLM?

In addition to Bower’s “extended vacation,” another BLM executive seems to no longer be interested in being associated with BLM.

BLM’s other known board member, Raymond Howard, modified his LinkedIn page to erase his association with BLM after being contacted by the Washington Examiner for comment last week. – Washington Examiner

BLM Mystery #4: Where Are the Other Founders of BLM?

BLM was founded by three women, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza. It was officially proposed that all three stepped away from BLM, but Cullors’ stepping away turned out to be falsified and was just a way to escape the scrutiny that BLM was under for charity fraud. However, Opal Tometi and Alicia Garza seem to have dropped their profile.

Did Cullors run Tometi and Garza out of BLM? Did they agree to leave, while Cullors would only fake her departure? This entire issue seems to have occurred with very little media scrutiny. Why would all three founders depart BLM at roughly the same time? Don’t that smell like control fraud? Control fraud is where the fraud is perpetrated by the top executives within the organization.

BLM Founders Have a Pressing Need to Leave After Only Roughly A Few Years on the Job?

The following quote explains the revenue history of BLM.

In 2016, the Black Lives Matter founders partnered with a sponsor now called Thousand Currents, and its official filings give a window into BLM fund-raising over the years. Thousand Currents’ revenue increased dramatically after taking on the organization, from $1.7 million in the year ending June 2015 to $6.6 million a year later. In the fiscal year concluding just after Floyd’s 2020 murder, revenue shot up to $86.9 million. – NY Magazine

There is an important distinction between the money raised by Thousand Currents and BLM. It seems that Thousand Currents had a yearly donation income of roughly $1.5 million. BLM apparently took off around 2016. This is when the founders can be said to probably have begun working for BLM full time — aka quitting their other jobs. However, they departed BLM in early 2021 in response to the scrutiny they received on money distribution and the lack of transparency with BLM.

It is very atypical for all three founders to drop out of a successful entity like BLM after only what looks to be around 5 years. It is also not clear why the jobs they had were particularly difficult. These appear to be dream jobs, and until the accounting scandal broke, they received extremely positive media coverage. This has the smell of rats trying to exist a sinking ship.

Conclusion

Patrice Cullors has stated that all criticism of BLM, including the requirements by states that BLM complies with reporting requirements that apply to all charities, is a racist plot. And that some of these racists are blacks. Cullors has further stated that only conservative media have been covering the corruption at BLM.

The problem with this accusation is that Brightwork Research & Analysis is not conservative media. We often cover corruption, and BLM’s behavior and statements fit into a pattern we have seen many times before. The question is why liberal or Democrat-aligned media has not covered the corruption at BLM.

Bias and Corruption in Democrat Aligned Media

Cullors is right on one point — only conservatives appear to be covering this story. However, that is not an indictment against conservative media but an indictment against Democrat-aligned media, and this is because this story is real.

This video was produced by RT or Russian Television. This type of video would never be produced by a Democrat-aligned media outlet (CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc..)