More on the Minutemen’s Money Problems

John Hawkins at Right Wing News has more on the story I posted about a few days ago. Hawkins writes,

The Minutemen have responded to this, basically, by calling all the people making allegations racists, anti-semites, and creeps….

And he also points us to this response by Chris Simcox.

“All of our financial operations are overseen by professionals including a caging agency, banking institutions, a professional accountant, a professional auditor, a non-profits specialty attorney, etc. All checks, credit card and any other cash donations received go directly into designated bank accounts, overseen by these professionals. Yes, professionals we have hired (that means donations go to pay them for services) to ensure fiduciary integrity of the funds donated to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. Everyone must realize that by hiring responsible and respected professionals we ensure the integrity of the operation and keep funds separated from the volunteer national leadership directors.

…Our national leadership team does have their travel expenses covered when engaged in official Minuteman Civil Defense Corps business. My travel expenses are covered by donations, but only when I am traveling for official Minuteman Civil Defense Corps business. Most of my travel expenses are covered by organizations that request my presence at meetings, conferences and other speaking engagements. When I am compensated to speak by a hosting organization, not only do I have the opportunity to travel around the country to educate people about the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps mission and the crisis at the border, but I also have the opportunity to recruit volunteers and solicit for donations to MCDC. Only four of the dozens of trips that I have made in the last year have been paid for out of Minuteman Civil Defense Corps funds. Those trips were to Washington D.C. to work with cooperative organizations and to talk to Congress—the total cost of those four tris comes to less than $3,000.

Our last two, month long border-watch operations cost around $80,000 each, and each 3-day monthly muster costs us at least $1,000 per state, not including travel expenses.

Each of our satellite chapters around the country has received start up funding and continues to be supported by the national organization. Each new chapter receives approximately $1,000 in start up capital to cover expenses. We have a rapidly expanding national organization that needs the support of aggressive national fundraising efforts—it costs money to raise money, but I assure you every penny is accounted for as federal law requires, and is utilized appropriately.

At this time we have a fully accredited, independent auditor undertaking a full accounting of the past years’ income and expenses. We are completing federally mandated accounting and filing of our financial activity for the past year. (Those conspiracy theorists out there forget that the #1 oversight committee on groups like ours is the IRS, aka the federal government, who would be the first to shut us down if there were any improprieties involved with our finances.) We are required to submit our Form 990 filing to the IRS on November 15, 2006.

Once completed, our financial reports will be made available to the public, as required by law, and on the same timetable as all other non-profit organizations.”

As Hawkins notes this is all well and good, but where is the rest of the basic information like some information on expenditures, staff salaries, and so forth? Anybody can say they are running an honest operation with no funny business. Hell Ken Lay and Jeffery Skilling did it for years.

Michelle Malkin has this response,

Bad, bad, bad.

It is hard enough for pro-enforcement folks to get a fair shake in the public arena. Simcox better follow the Times’ friendly advice to get his house in order and to do it with maximum transparency. The open-borders lobby is gloating, no doubt. But that will be nothing compared to the wrath of civic-minded donors if they find out that Simcox has been ripping them off in the name of national security.

So either Simcox is running an honest operation and just hasn’t had the time to make this information available or he is a crook. I wonder when Simcox will provide information that people like Malkin and Hawkins want?

FILED UNDER: Borders and Immigration, Congress, National Security, Race and Politics, US Politics, , , , ,
Steve Verdon
About Steve Verdon
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.

Comments

  1. Fersboo says:

    They have filed an information return with the IRS. Some enterprising blogger could find said return and detail many of those questions.

  2. floyd says:

    if you can’t argue the issue,OBFUSCATE!!

  3. Bill Faith says:

    There were a couple of comments you might find interesting left on my Time for some answers. NOW, Chris! post. I’ll include them in the post I link to this one from in a few minutes.