U.S. Justice Department investigating fraud allegations in Black Lives Matter movement, AP sources say

A man carries a Black Lives Matter flag in Lafayette Square outside the White House on the fourth night of the Republican National Convention, Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement defrauded donors who contributed tens of millions of dollars during racial justice protests in 2020, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

In recent weeks, federal law enforcement officials have issued subpoenas and served at least one search warrant as part of an investigation into the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc. and other Black-led organizations that helped spark a national reckoning on systemic racism, said the people, who were not authorized to discuss an ongoing criminal probe by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

It was not clear if the investigation would result in criminal charges, but its mere existence invites fresh scrutiny to a movement that in recent years has faced criticism about its public accounting of donations it has received. The recent burst of investigative activity is also unfolding at a time when civil rights organizations have raised concerns about the potential for the Trump administration to target a variety of progressive and left-leaning groups that have been critical of him, including those affiliated with BLM, the transgender rights movement and anti-ICE protesters.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department declined to comment on Thursday.

One of the people said the investigation had been initiated during the Biden administration but is getting renewed attention during the Trump administration. A second person confirmed that allegations were examined in the Biden administration.

The foundation said it took in over US$90 million in donations following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man whose last breaths under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer sparked protests across the U.S. and around the world.

Critics of the nonprofit foundation, and of the BLM movement broadly, accused organizers of not being transparent about how it was spending the donations. That criticism grew louder after BLM foundation leaders in 2022 confirmed they used donations to purchase a $6-million Los Angeles-area property that includes a home with six bedrooms and bathrooms.

The leaders previously denied wrongdoing and publicly released tax documents. No prior investigations into the non-profit’s finances have yielded proof of impropriety.

Leaders of the foundation have received subpoenas. In a statement emailed to the AP on Thursday, the foundation said it “is not a target of any federal criminal investigation.”

“We remain committed to full transparency, accountability, and the responsible stewardship of resources dedicated to building a better future for Black communities,” the foundation said in the statement.

Several localized BLM chapters, which are not affiliates of the foundation, have previously been at odds with the nonprofit over its plans for donations. Those chapters operate and fundraise independently of the foundation.

The Black Lives Matter movement first emerged in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch volunteer who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida. But it was the 2014 death of Michael Brown at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri, that made the slogan “Black lives matter” a rallying cry for progressives and a favorite target of derision for conservatives.

Movement founders and organizers pledged to build a decentralized organization governed by the consensus of BLM chapters. But as the movement’s influence grew, so did the number of organizations that became affiliated with BLM. In 2020, a tidal wave of public contributions in the aftermath of protests over Floyd’s murder came mainly to the BLM foundation, although other organizations were resourced from those funds.

Leaders of the foundation opened up about finances and organizational structure in 2022, revealing detailed accountings of expenditures. The latest Form 990 filing shows the BLM foundation had $28 million in assets for the fiscal year ending June 2024.

The investigation is being run out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.

The top prosecutor there, Bill Essayli, was determined by a federal judge this week to have stayed in his temporary acting U.S. attorney job longer than allowed by law. He was permitted to effectively remain the office’s chief prosecutor but with a different title of First Assistant United States Attorney.

Essayli had previously served as a Republican assemblyman in California, where he took up conservative causes and criticized the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. He has been outspoken against state policies to protect immigrants living in the country illegally, and he has aggressively prosecuted people who protest Trump’s ramped up immigration enforcement across Southern California.

As a private practice attorney, he characterized BLM as a “radical organization” while defending a white couple charged in 2020 with a hate crime after they were videotaped defacing a BLM mural in Martinez, California.

At the time, city-sanctioned BLM murals had been painted on roadways in cities throughout the U.S. in an expression of solidarity with the racial justice movement. Essayli was quoted as telling reporters that his clients were simply expressing their political viewpoints and that they disagreed with taxpayer funds being used to “sponsor” Black Lives Matter, which he described as a “radical” group.

At the height of the Floyd-sparked reckoning on racial injustice, some state officials vowed their own investigations in the foundation’s finances, citing their responsibility to protect residents who may have donated to BLM. But most of those probes were resolved without official action.

In 2022, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed a lawsuit against the BLM foundation for failing to comply with an investigation into the organization’s finances. Soon after, a representative of the foundation responded with the necessary information and documentation, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said, and the lawsuit was dismissed.

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By Aaron Morrison And Eric Tucker

Alana Durkin Richer in Washington, D.C., and Graham Lee Brewer in Oklahoma City contributed.