Matthew Whitaker made $1.2 million working for organization supported by undisclosed donors

Matthew Whitaker.
(Image credit: Steve Pope/Getty Images)

Over the course of three years, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker received more than $1.2 million working for a charity called the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, The Washington Post reports, a conservative nonprofit that does not reveal its donors.

Whitaker started at FACT in 2014, and served as president. The organization says its mission is to expose unethical conduct by public officials, and Whitaker made regular appearances on political TV and radio shows, often criticizing Hillary Clinton and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The New York Times reports that since 2014, FACT has raised nearly $3.5 million, with its largest single expense Whitaker's salary.

The Post analyzed incorporation and tax filings, and found that in 2012, FACT was created under a different name and applied for tax-exempt status by saying the organization would study how environmental regulations impact businesses. A man named in the IRS filings as a board member told the Post this incarnation of FACT "only existed on paper."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

A conservative foundation named DonorsTrust, which gives other conservative foundations cover to hide their giving, handed over $1.1 million to FACT between 2014 and 2015, but the source of that donation is unclear, the Times reports. A spokesman for FACT who asked that his name not be used told the Post that as a nonprofit, FACT "does not and is not required to release its donor information." He said the IRS was notified of FACT's name change, but did not respond to questions about whether, as required by IRS rules, FACT notified the agency about how its mission changed. Read more about FACT and its mysterious funding at The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.