JD Vance and Far-Right Christians Accused of Violating Tax and Election Laws
Yes, that's plural. JD Vance and far-right Christians have been accused of potentially violating tax and election laws via a campaign event with Ziklag and the 'Courage Tour'.
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A Christian Dominionist organization called Ziklag and the ‘Courage Tour’ are charities that are prohibited from political campaigning, so when they held a campaign event for JD Vance last month in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, it might have broken tax and election laws, according to experts who spoke to ProPublica.
The Courage Tour is (my bold) “a series of swing-state rallies hosted by a pro-Trump Christian influencer that combine prayer, public speakers, tutorials on how to become a poll worker and get-out-the-vote programming.”
ProPublica noted that tax law red flags had already been raised about the charity’s involvement in the 2024 election and “The Vance event, they said, raised even more red flags about whether a tax-exempt charity had improperly benefited the Trump-Vance campaign.”
The Courage Tour is run by Lance Wallnau Ministries Inc., a 501(c)(3) charity led by Lance Wallnau, a pro-Trump “influencer.” Ziklag is “a secretive organization of wealthy Christians, funds the Courage Tour, according to previously unreported documents obtained by ProPublica and Documented. A private donor video produced by Ziklag said the group intended to spend $700,000 in 2024 to mobilize Christian voters by funding ‘targeted rallies in swing states’ led by Lance Wallnau, the pro-Trump influencer.”
The issue is even though an employee tried to disclaim a connection by peeking “out from behind a curtain” to say during the event, “I just wanted to clarify: You said they came to the Courage Tour. They didn’t. For legal reasons, the podcast hosted that. It was very separate. I don’t need the IRS coming my way.”
ProPublica reports:
Vance’s campaign appearance at the Courage Tour raises legal red flags for several reasons, according to experts in tax and election law. Both Lance Wallnau Ministries and Ziklag are 501(c)(3) charities, the same legal designation as the Boys & Girls Club or the United Way. People who donate to charities like these can deduct their gift on their annual taxes. But under the law, such charities are “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,” according to the IRS.
What Kind of Christian Breaks the Law?
Wallnau is the embodiment of a right-wing “Christian,” in that he has hurled sexist and racist insults, including the Jezebel trope, at Vice President Kamala Harris. These are not people who attract healthy people to their churches. These are people who are comfortable and feel entitled to flout the law to their own end and for their own power.
Our much beloved, long-time opinion columnist RMuse described Dominionism for us on PoliticusUSA thusly in 2014, “There is a relatively large contingent of disgruntled citizens who seriously hate this country with a passion, and yet instead of fleeing America for their concept of Utopia, are Hell-bent on transforming America into a land Europeans emigrating to America sought to escape.”
Sarah Palin’s Tea Party influence and personal family drama after she and Senator John McCain lost 2008 serve as an effective quick primer on Christian Dominionism. It’s an attack on the Constitutionally protected freedom from religion being imposed by our government, being waged by some of the most corrupt, dysfunctional, self-aggrandizing, delusional people the far-right manages to dredge up from their populism factories (often also misleadingly called “churches”) and from successful reality TV show con artists like Donald Trump.
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