The leftist campaign to force Justice Clarence Thomas from the US Supreme Court let its inner clown out when the executive director of the AstroTurf smear group Fix the Court inadvertently released the names of its donors to a Washington Examiner reporter.
Fix the Court has not only been a player in the current attacks on Justice Thomas, but they were also a major participant in the smear campaign directed at Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.
It all started innocently enough with Washington Examiner reporter Gabe Kaminsky taking a deep dive into the finances of the fake groups trying to give the appearance of popular demand for Justice Thomas’ resignation. Kaminsky noticed that the New Venture Fund reported giving $111,677 to Fix the Court. On the other hand, Fix the Court did not file the required IRS Form 990 but used the truncated IRS Form 990-N used by non-profits raising less than $50,000. Kaminsky queried Fix the Court Executive Director Gabriel Roth about his violation of federal tax law.
CREDIT: Fix the Court website
Roth responded on Wednesday, noting he “misunderstood the filing instructions,” and sent the Washington Examiner full copies of Fix the Court’s 2021 and 2022 financial disclosure forms. He also claimed on Wednesday that he mailed the new forms to the IRS.
As soon as it dawned on Roth what he’d done, he begged to get the documents back.
“S***, I’m not legally allowed to send you those. I really messed up. Can you call me now?”
…
…Roth further told the Washington Examiner that he “wanted to fix the mistake as soon as possible” since his “donors don’t want their names out there.”
This is not the strongest argument to make. If the disclosure were illegal,l it would be Roth, not the reporter, whose ass was in the crack, and who cares about that?
What the documents showed were two things. First, there is no widespread support for Fix the Court. In 2021, it received just over $290,000. Of that amount, $286,000 came from two grants: the previously mentioned $111,000 from the New Venture Fund and $175,000 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In 2022, Fix the Court pulled in nearly $196,000. The three main contributors ponied up $185,000. The climate alarmist Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave $50,000, the Lebowitz-Aberly Family Foundation donated $35,000, and the big loser was the Weinberg McCann Foundation which was tapped for $100,000.
Why do I say big loser? Well, of the $486,000 Fix the Court has raised in the last two years, $242,000 went to its executive director as salary. In 2022, $162,000 of the $195,000 raised went into Mr. Roth’s pocket. As a result, Fix the Court looks much more like a jobs program for one guy with a website than a non-profit.
“As you can see if you’ve reviewed the forms, I’m not a good fundraiser,” Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court and a former vice president at the Democratic consulting firm SKDK, told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “I’m not a good CPA. I’m a klutz. Schedule B is not something that is sent out, right? It’s not made public. Like, if you’re donating to a 501(c)(3), the IRS gets to see who donates to you, but the general public doesn’t.”
“I mean, basically, I’ve tried to donate money; I have failed,” Roth added. “I tried to raise money; I have failed. I have only two foundations that give me money, and if their names become public, they’re never going to talk to me again, and Fix the Court is over. My screwup this morning probably cost me my job.”
The executive director added, “I really just don’t know what to do here” and that he “just f***ed up in a minute” after the group had been operating for almost a decade.
You could feel sorry for the guy if he hadn’t been making a living impugning the integrity of some Supreme Court justices to further a political cause.