Over the summer I remember seeing several articles and videos on this. As an example ~
Wouldn’t that violate federal law as to contributions? Bil Barr would have been on them like a ton of bricks!
" There are a number of groups that use the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in their name. There is a “
Black Lives Matter Foundation,” for example, whose president confirmed to us that it is not related to the organization behind
BlackLivesMatter.com — which is at the center of the viral claims.
BlackLivesMatter.com is operated by an
umbrella Black Lives Matter organization called the Black Lives Matter Global Network. The effort
started in 2013 following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin.
To collect donations, the website uses
ActBlue Charities, a 501(c)(3) organization that specifically makes the platform available to charitable organizations.
Owens’ Instagram post features a video showing that
BlackLivesMatter.com uses ActBlue for its donations. It then shows an
OpenSecrets.org breakdown of
expenditures by ActBlue made in the 2020 cycle; the top recipients are the presidential campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
But the video misrepresents how ActBlue works. ActBlue isn’t itself donating money. It’s just the online platform that campaigns and groups use to solicit and collect donations.
Campaign finance experts told us that it’s false to say that donations to the Black Lives Matter group are going to the Democratic National Committee, or to Democratic presidential campaigns, simply because the website uses ActBlue.
“ActBlue lets candidates and liberal nonprofit organizations set up their separate accounts,”
Michael Malbin, director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute, told us in a phone interview. “There’s no crossing from one account to another. If you give the money to Sanders, it does not go to Biden.”
Since the allegation is a hoax, it should be barred on this forum.