Carlene.
She stared at Michelle, the fingers of her free hand finally wiggling in a fractional wave as Michelle steered the car onto the street, turning right, away from her.
Gary’s way of saying that he was always watching.
Chapter Seventeen
It turned out it was perfectly legal to shield the identity of donors in a 501(c) organization from the public.
She’d copied the “Disclosures” file onto her new flash drive. Thought about trying to copy the DonorSoft files but decided against it, for now. Without the password, she was only guessing what files might be useful, and she had no way to open or make sense of them.
And Michelle had plenty of material to keep her busy tonight.
She leaned back into the pillows she’d propped against the headboard of her bed and put down her iPad for a moment. Took a sip of her wine.
She’d thought over the last few years that she’d gone beyond being surprised by much of anything. She’d known that politics was a manipulation by the powerful to get what they wanted. But she’d figured in this case she was looking for something more, well, illegal. Money laundering, bribery, things like that. Not something so obviously corrupt that was hiding in plain sight.
Of course, donors’ identities did have to be reported to the IRS. And she had little doubt that something illegal, in that it was against the letter of the law, was happening with Safer America. But this system just made it so easy to get away with.
No wonder they called it “Dark Money.”
Safer America Action was a 501(c)(4). A “social welfare” organization that was allowed to do political work. It could lobby, it could support or oppose candidates, thought it could not legally coordinate with candidates’ campaigns. A 501(c)(4) could work for or against legislation, as Safer America was doing in California. It could also contribute funds to a 527, an organization whose only purpose was politics and that could actually field candidates. But 527s were required to disclose their donors. So a 501(c)(4) donating to a 527 was a way to get around that requirement.
There were all kinds of ways to manipulate this, she thought, to shield who was advocating or attacking. One 501(c)(4) could donate to another, which could then donate to another, and eventually to a 527 to directly support a candidate. A tide of Dark Money could be transferred from organization to organization, and no one would know where or who it came from.
Companies and corporations could donate as much as they wanted, too. That check box for “Person” was what they marked as well. It seemed ludicrous, but she double-checked, and that was how it was done.
And how hard would it be to disguise that money? If, say, the Boys wanted to contribute something? They had all kinds of shell companies to funnel money through. Donations to a 501(c)(4) weren’t tax deductible, but why would they care about that?
They cared about buying influence. About purchasing elections.
Would an IRS auditor reviewing a 501(c)(4) look at a contribution from, say, a Blue Sky Enterprises and bother to check where that money came from, how Blue Sky had gotten it, as long as the paperwork looked okay?
“SAF” stood for “Safer America Foundation.” It was a 501(c)(3), so not involved in political work. She’d hardly started to dig into those forms yet, so she wasn’t entirely sure what Safer America Foundation did. The mission statement was almost the same as Safer America Action: “To advocate for the victims of crime in the United States and to research and implement effective strategies to reduce crime and build safer communities.”
Caitlin was president of both organizations.
Even with more time and a greater understanding of what these organizations were and how they were supposed to function, she still couldn’t tell if Safer America was doing anything illegal from these forms. Things like “office expenses” and “other salaries and wages” and “total lobbying expenditures” and “other exempt purposes expenditures,” “temporarily restricted net assets,” “endowment funds” and “leasehold improvements”-none of these entries was broken out in any way. It was impossible to look at this paperwork and know how Safer America received and spent its money.
There were a couple of entries that she had to wonder about. “Land” and “buildings” listed under assets. Safer America Foundation owned some property, she could tell that much. One million dollars in land and some $650K in “buildings.”
Caitlin was receiving a housing allowance. It was listed on the Schedule J for Safer America Foundation, $50,000. And if she was reading the instructions correctly, this should have been listed in Column F, “other compensation,” for the Safer America Foundation.
But it wasn’t. The numbers didn’t add up.
Maybe it was included as part of the over $500K of “other employee benefits” that weren’t broken out in any way that she could tell.
And why was a woman already making a nearly $300K salary receiving a housing allowance in the first place? For a house that she owned?
Safer America owned $1,650,000 in land and buildings.
How much was a house in River Oaks worth?
She did a quick Google search. That amount wasn’t out of line.
Was it possible that Safer America Foundation owned Caitlin’s home?
But there was no way to tell from this public disclosure what the property was. Just that Safer America Foundation owned it.
The one thing she could be sure of was that Caitlin made decent money from this charity. And so did Porter Ackermann.
“I don’t know, maybe there’s some way we can work together,” Caitlin said suddenly.
“I’m sorry?”
Caitlin and Michelle were finishing up their workout on the treadmill at the fancy River Oaks gym where Caitlin had a membership. “Except I never use it,” she’d said with a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ll have Porter sign you up. You shouldn’t have to pay for it on my account.”
It was a nice, clean gym, not crowded, obviously expensive, with its brand new equipment and track lights and wooden lockers. A big black dog greeted them in the foyer, “the gym mascot,” Caitlin explained.
A neighborhood gym in a very wealthy neighborhood.
“Troy Stone and me. Well, Safer America.” Caitlin blushed. Or maybe it was just the cardio.
“Oh? What would you want to do?”
“I’m not sure. It’s just that…” Caitlin’s steps slowed down a fraction. “You know, he has a point. If we really want to build safer communities, maybe we should be looking more to what we can do to strengthen them. Instead of just locking people up for longer and longer times.”
“But on Prop. 391, on legalizing marijuana…”
“I’m not sure we’re going to agree on that. But on the sentencing guidelines? I think he’s right. It costs too damn much to keep so many people in prison for such a long time.”
“Oh.”
It wasn’t that Michelle disagreed. If she was being honest with herself, she’d barely thought about the whole issue. It was only now, with Danny in jail, with her doing so many things that were so far from legal, that any of this had seemed relevant to her own life.
It’s not my fault, she told herself. It wasn’t like she deserved to be in jail.
She was just taking payoffs from drug cartels, that’s all. Thanks to a black ops agent embedded with a cabal of powerful men trying to run the country from deep in the shadows.
But god forbid she should get caught with a joint in Texas.
“Something on your mind?” Caitlin asked.
“Not really, just…” She hesitated. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“Safe? What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean… Troy. What do you know about him?”
“Oh, honey, I’ve already started checking into him. His organization looks legit. He’s gotten some nice press coverage the past couple of years, too, for the work they’re doing.”