I see a lot of blame-throwing going on now even though we appear to have won the House and may yet win the Senate. We need to concentrate on ensuring the wins we can now, as well as winning the run-off in Georgia on Dec. 6 that might decide control of the Senate. The Democrats are going to throw everything against the wall to take down Herschel Walker. We cannot be divided going into the race if we want to win — everyone from all sides has to come out in force.
One of the issues we need to hammer home is not just that Raphael Warnock is a bad senator who has gone along with every bad policy of Joe Biden that has made everything worse, he’s also involved in a swirling scandal surrounding his church, evictions, and ongoing investigations.
Herschel Walker nailed Warnock in a lie about those evictions during their debate. Warnock lied and said they hadn’t evicted anyone during the pandemic when in fact they had. Additionally, he had been chastising Republicans for not being in favor of an eviction moratorium during the pandemic when the Foundation he was an officer in was running a building evicting people. The scandal about the evictions helped Walker to close the gap with Warnock before the election.
The State of Georgia has been investigating the Ebenezer Building Foundation’s charity registration. The Foundation is owned by the Ebenezer Baptist Church. On Oct. 12, the Secretary of State’s office demanded answers about the Foundation’s registration by Nov. 2. But they blew off the state and failed to respond. Now the state may consider dropping a subpoena on them.
Authorities are mulling how to ratchet up the pressure on the Ebenezer Building Foundation, including whether to issue a formal subpoena against the church if it does not respond when a Georgia state investigator delivers another investigative letter, a spokesman for the state charities division told the Free Beacon on Thursday. Though it is not clear precisely when the second letter will be delivered, authorities are expected to do so in the coming days.
Warnock is the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church and a principal officer of the Ebenezer Building Foundation.
The charity appears not to have been registered at least from 2011, according to the Free Beacon.
The church, which pays Warnock a $7,417-per-month tax-free housing allowance, intermingles its finances with the charity. The two entities ended 2021 with combined cash and “cash equivalents” exceeding $1.2 million, according to audited financial statements obtained by the Free Beacon.
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The charity, which owns a low-income apartment building that moved to evict residents during the pandemic, has claimed in IRS tax filings dating back to 2011 that it is registered to operate in Georgia. But state authorities told the Free Beacon in October that this claim isn’t true. Charities operating without registration can face civil fines, and in more extreme cases, the Georgia secretary of state can bar offenders from raising funds in the state.
So that not only seems likely to be a big question for what they are doing in Georgia but whether there’s a big IRS problem as well.
Plus there are House and Senate rules about
That’s not the only investigation whirling around Warnock.
The secretary of state’s probe is not the only investigation looming over Warnock. Former senator Kelly Loeffler (R., Ga.) called on authorities to fast-track an investigation into illegal activity at failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’s (D.) New Georgia Project, which Warnock chaired from 2017 through early 2020. The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission confirmed Monday that it was aware of the allegations against the New Georgia Project but said its hands were tied until after the 2022 election is decided.
Warnock also is skirting around Congressional rules which don’t allow more than $29,895 in outside income. But because it’s counted as a “housing allowance” and a “benefit” he’s able to bank that $7417 a month.
“Sen. Warnock’s arrangement appears to be an abuse of both the parsonage allowance provisions of the tax code and Senate ethics rules,” Charlie Spies, a Republican campaign finance attorney with Dickinson Wright, told the Washington Free Beacon. “The parsonage exception in Sec. 107(2) is targeted for those who are pastors, not boondoggles for politicians.”
Warnock is making bank while the people of Georgia suffer under Biden and Warnock supports that. Republicans need to drive all this home to the voters of Georgia.
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