The Georgia Secretary of State’s office, headed by Brad Raffensberger, has launched an investigation into a charity linked to Stacey Abrams. The investigation comes hot on the heels of a bombshell report from the Washington Free Beacon that exposed some serious “irregularities” at charities linked to Abrams, particularly that about $500k was “missing” from the New Georgia Project.
Reporting on the new investigation in a follow-up article on its bombshells about Abrams and financial improprieties at the New Georgia Project, a charity linked to her, the Washington Free Beacon reported:
Georgia’s secretary of state has opened an investigation into “financial irregularities” surrounding the New Georgia Project, a voting-rights charity founded by Stacey Abrams, individuals familiar with the matter told the Washington Free Beacon.
The investigation comes after severalFree Beaconreports on the alleged financial mismanagement by former New Georgia Project executives. Accounting and legal experts have raised questions about the legality of the New Georgia Project’s latest tax filings. As investigations get underway, authorities will issue subpoenas to parties affiliated with the New Georgia Project, a source with knowledge of the state’s actions said.
A spokesman for the Georgia secretary of state confirmed the investigation but declined to comment further. The New Georgia Project did not respond to a request for comment.
After being founded by Abrams in 2013, the New Georgia Project became a leading voter registration group. It then worked with an affiliated group, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, and they have raised a massive $54.7 million since 2020. But that money appears to have been mismanaged, if not outright pilfered, as the WFB found serious improprieties.
For example, it reported that the New Georgia Project submitted its 2021 Form 990 financial disclosure to the IRS in January. That is two months after the due date. Then, three months later, the board fired Abram’s hand-picked CEO, Nse Ufot. Even worse, the financial disclosure revealed a $533,846 consulting payment and a $67,500 grant to the Black Male Initiative, an obscure charity partially run by Ufot’s brother, Edima, who was a former employee of the New Georgia Project.
That would be bad enough given how the parties are related, but it gets even worse: the Black Male Initiative has denied receiving any consulting payment. It even provided WFB with its financial disclosures, which showed no income from consulting in 2021. So either it lied on its form or the money went “missing,” neither of which are great for those involved now that Georgia is looking into it.
Alan Dye, a nonprofit attorney, told the WFB “This is something that the Internal Revenue Service should be interested in, particularly with the added element of the former officer possibly pocketing the money.” He also noted, “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.”
And Abrams herself is in a tight spot too, as her campaign is somehow $1 million in debt despite raising over $100 million for the race against Georgia Governor Brian Kemp in 2022. He won by a large enough margin this time that Abrams didn’t even claim fraud like she did in 2018.
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