Republican Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter is demanding additional consequences for a nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams that was slapped with a record fine Wednesday for illegally aiding her failed 2018 gubernatorial campaign.
The Georgia Republican wrote to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Daniel Werfel Wednesday night urging the agency to revoke the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status and investigate the entity for additional violations of federal law, according to a letter exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Georgia State Ethics Commission fined the allegedly nonpartisan voting advocacy nonprofit and its affiliated action fund $300,000 Wednesday, the largest penalty levied on an entity for violating state campaign finance laws in Georgia’s history. The nonprofit admitted to 16 violations of state campaign finance laws for supporting Abrams’ campaign without registering as an independent political action committee and filing regular disclosure reports.
Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock notably ran the New Georgia Project during the period the nonprofit engaged in illegal campaign activities until he ran for Senate in 2020.
“The abuse of the organization’s [New Georgia Project] tax-exempt status and violation of federal campaign finance laws are serious violations of the public’s trust that undermine our country’s tax code and election system and must be fully examined by the Internal Revenue Service,” Carter wrote in the letter. “Considering the facts already reported, I believe the tax-exempt status of the New Georgia Project and its related Action Fund should be revoked and that it should be subject to further penalties.”
Carter notes that since the New Georgia Project is registered as a 501(c)(3), the nonprofit is “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office” due to the entity’s tax-exempt status.
However, despite the New Georgia Project certifying to the IRS that it did not engage in political campaign activities that year, the nonprofit admitted to failing to disclose that it spent $3.2 million on campaign resources instructing voters to support Abrams’ 2018 campaign and other Democratic candidates on the ballot.
The voting advocacy nonprofit also admitted to engaging in illegal campaign finance activities in 2019 by engaging in partisan activities in support of a referendum on extending public transportation, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday.
Buddy Carter says Stacey Abrams has to explain where her money came from pic.twitter.com/c0CCQR1gzT
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 31, 2022
Carter told the DCNF Wednesday that the record fine levied by the state commission did not go far enough in holding the nonprofits accountable for engaging in illegal campaign activities.
“It is disappointing that failed-candidate Stacey Abrams, who repeatedly spouted lies about her election being stolen, has yet again made a mockery of our free and fair system of elections,” Carter told the DCNF. “Georgians deserve better.”
A spokesperson for the IRS did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment regarding Carter’s letter.
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