Black Lives Matter slammed for 'incredibly shady' finances while running massive deficit
Columnist Adam Coleman joined 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss why he believes the organization is struggling financially and how money mismanagement has led to the group's monetary decline.
The Black Lives Matter organization is no stranger to financial controversy, but this time the organization is sparking headlines over its massive deficit amid bankruptcy fears.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation ended the financial year with a deficit of $8,559,748 while still paying companies owned by people close to the organization millions, a number that represents a staggering decline from the $42 million it banked last year after expenses, The New York Post reported Wednesday.
New York Post columnist Adam Coleman detailed the organization's "incredibly shady" business dealings - and even compared the eyebrow-raising transactions to those of Hunter Biden.
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"Just as shady as Joe Biden's son in Burisma," Coleman told Todd Piro. "Looking at the whole situation reminds me of that. They have a PAC they're transferring money from one account, from one organization to another. Basically, it looks like they're funneling money to either their family members to possibly get it themselves, but the entire situation looks incredibly shady."
Tax documents posted online show the group raked in about $8.5 million, but spent roughly $17 million on expenses.
A large chunk of the money was spent making payments to companies owned by individuals close to the group, including $1.69 million "for management and consulting services" paid to a company owned by Shalomyah Bowers, who replaced embattled former leader Patrisse Cullors amid financial scandals of her own.
Coleman highlighted the organization's money mismanagement as potentially to blame for the current financial woes.
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"They never had a plan. I think truly Black Lives Matter had no concept of having this much influx of money… coming into them," Coleman said. "If you look at their previous tax year before 2020, they had $0, so they went from 0 to 90 million, and for most people, if you win the lottery, a lot of people don't know how to handle that."
"So just using the… best case scenario that they're not trying to be sleazy, but they just completely mismanaged it, so none of this surprises me," he continued.
This comes after it was revealed that donations to Black Lives Matter nosedived nearly $70 million for its fiscal year ending in June 2022, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Amid the drop in contributions, Black Lives Matter still reportedly spent millions on companies with close ties to the organization's executives.
The BLM Global Network previously funneled nearly $4 million in consulting payments to its leader Shalomyah Bowers and individuals linked to its co-founder Patrisse Cullors.
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This cash included $2.1 million to Bowers Consulting, a firm run by Bowers, between July 2020 and June 2021, tax forms showed. The nonprofit also moved $970,000 to Trap Heals LLC, a company established by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors' child, and $840,000 to Cullors Protection LLC, a security firm owned by her brother.
The foundation also reportedly purchased a several-million dollar mansion in Los Angeles that garnered national scrutiny before Cullors stepped down in May 2021.
"This is the shady part that we're talking about… What do they actually do with the money? They gave it to leftist organizations that had nothing really to do with Black people to benefit Black people, more so to benefit the LGBT[Q+] community, which maybe there's a small sliver of Black people who are affected by it, but there's no checks and balances to it," Coleman said.
"It just seemed haphazard. They have really no idea what they're doing, and it shows," he continued.
Fox News' Michael Lee and Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report.
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