Right-Wing Nonprofit Lavishes Millions on top Brass
In the last five years, the ACU, the group behind the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) poured $4 million into companies belonging to two of its directors including into firms controlled by Vice Chairman Charlie Gerow currently a candidate for governor of Pennsylvania.
Joan Harrington, an attorney who heads the social sector ethics department at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, said this raised special concerns since he was paid through the ACU Foundation, which enjoys a special tax status dependent on its abstaining from electoral campaigns.
"Everybody is intertwined and getting money from different places, and you and I cannot figure out what is going on,” Harrington said. “If it’s not transparent to the public how money is flowing to these organizations and companies, that's concerning.”
Joan Harrington, director of social sector ethics, quoted in Daily Beast.