Misrepresentations from Move America Forward/Troopathon call charity into serious question

Hot Air ^ | 05 August 2014 | Ed Morrissey

[Lorianne]

As a donor and sponsor of Troopathons going all the way back to my days at Captain’s Quarters, this exposé from ProPublica and The Daily Beast disappoints profoundly. We helped raise money to take care of the troops on the front lines, and we were hardly alone; lots of people joined in, including celebrities from the political and entertainment worlds in order to send care packages through Move America Forward to men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the investigation by ProPublica is correct, though, a significant amount of the money raised went into the pockets of organizers rather than into those care packages:

According to its five most recent tax returns, Move America Forward paid out more than $2.3 million to Russo or Russo, Marsh and Associates for services including “program management and advertising.” That’s about 30 percent of the charity’s overall expenditures over that time.

“It was just so shady,” said Kelly S. Eustis, a former consultant for the Tea Party Express, also known as Our Country Deserves Better. “With PACs, I know it’s dirty money–it’s politics. But this is a charity that’s supposed to be helping the troops.”

Russo is Sal Russo, the man behind Tea Party Express. TPE was one of the organizations accused by the Washington Post and the Sunlight Foundation in April of raising money mostly for itself. The report showed that TPE took in almost $3 million while spending just a little over $200,000 in ads, bus tours, and direct donations to candidates. Russo explained that most of the rest went to staffing for those tours and rallies:

[JimRed]

Moving America Forward? Anything with the word “forward” in its title should be suspect.

If in fact money donated to TPE has been misused, we must demand the same accountability we would from a leftist group that did the same.