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Is Black Lives Matter a ‘Shell Company’ for a Liberal Super PAC?
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The Dispatch Fact Check

Is Black Lives Matter a ‘Shell Company’ for a Liberal Super PAC?

No.

Alec Dent
Jun 12, 2020
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Is Black Lives Matter a ‘Shell Company’ for a Liberal Super PAC?
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In viral tweets Wednesday, political provocateurs Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk suggested that donations to the Black Lives Matter Foundation are being sent instead to ActBlue, a Democratic political committee:

Twitter avatar for @RealCandaceOCandace Owens @RealCandaceO
Wow this video is really important and every person needs to watch and share it. Black Lives Matter donations go directly to a superpac called “ACT BLUE” that has given hundreds of millions to Democrats running for President. How is this legal? #BLM is LITERALLY a shell company. https://t.co/V57IUCThVo

kingface_f1 @KingfaceF1

https://t.co/1Qr9fqRtFr

June 11th 2020

61,049 Retweets85,101 Likes
Twitter avatar for @RealCandaceOCandace Owens @RealCandaceO
100 million dollar question that leftists are refusing to answer: To what organization do the funds raised on the Black Lives Matter website go? BLM raised 40 million dollars in 48 hours because of George Floyd’s death. But WHO did Act Blue direct that funding to?

June 11th 2020

28,680 Retweets69,178 Likes
Twitter avatar for @charliekirk11Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11
Did you know: Donations to Black Lives Matter are funneled through ActBlue, the Democrat Party’s main fundraising platform Does anyone else think it’s odd these BLM riots pop up every four years? 🤔

June 11th 2020

22,062 Retweets50,144 Likes

Daily Beast reporter Lachlan Markay pointed out that Owens’s tweets, and Kirk’s by extension, are inaccurate—while ActBlue is organized as a political committee, it acts as a nonprofit fundraising tool that serves as a conduit, rather than a collector, for donations. ActBlue’s website explains that the platform is available to “Democratic candidates and committees, progressive organizations, and nonprofits that share our values.” Such groups can incorporate an ActBlue contribution form into their websites for free—although there is a 3.95 percent processing fee on donations—allowing groups and candidates to raise funds without having to create and maintain their own secure method of receiving donations.

While donations go to ActBlue initially, the group delivers the funds to the organization or candidate intended by the donor. It’s only possible for ActBlue to redirect funds if the recipient refuses a donation or doesn’t cash a check from ActBlue for 60 days. In such an instance, a donation is re-designated as a contribution to ActBlue (if earmarked for a campaign or committee), to support social welfare activities (if earmarked for social welfare organizations), or to ActBlue Charities (if earmarked for a charitable organization). In other words, even if Black Lives Matter were to refuse donations the funds would be given to another similar cause, not the Democratic Party or any political candidates. Donations can be made directly to ActBlue as well to support the organization.

As a registered political committee, ActBlue is required to report all contributions made through its platform to relevant agencies at either the federal or state level. All donations at the federal level can be viewed on the Federal Election Commission website, and each donation shows who the donation is from and reports where it’s going in the memo section. 

After seeing the success of ActBlue, the Republican Party launched WinRed, a similar fundraising platform, though WinRed works only with candidates for elected office.

Owens’s and Kirk’s representations of ActBlue are inaccurate. Black Lives Matters is not “a shell company”; ActBlue serves as a conduit for donations for the Black Lives Matters Foundation and other political organizations. 

Neither Owens nor Kirk responded to our request for comment.

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Is Black Lives Matter a ‘Shell Company’ for a Liberal Super PAC?
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Luke Thompson
Jun 13, 2020

Fact-checking Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk is like fact-checking the Onion. Their entire careers are based on fraudulent claims. Neither of them is Conservative in any meaningful sense, they just say whatever they think people want to hear.

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Derek M
Jun 12, 2020

Alec, I love the subtitle on this piece. Just a firm, "No." Great work as always.

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