Trump's anti-LGBTQ lawyer facing trouble for alleged steering of $60 million in donations

Jay Sekulow

One of Donald Trump's lawyers, Jay Sekulow, has been the media's eye repeatedly. A lot of folks aren't aware of exactly who he is. However, I am because I used to watch his appearances on The 700 Club in the late 80s and early 90s.

Sekulow has an extensive history of being one the religious right's hardcore weapons against the LGBTQ community.

According to The Advocate:

Jay Sekulow, who joined Trump’s team this month, is chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a far-right legal group founded by no less than Pat Robertson and based at Robertson’s Regent University in Virginia. Sekulow holds a Ph.D. from Regent and is a professor at its law school. His law degree is from another university that claims to promote “Judeo-Christian” values, Georgia’s Mercer University. He’s a frequent commentator on Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and Fox News Channel. 

The ACLJ has represented many anti-LGBT and antichoice clients and causes. “ACLJ’s materials are often explicitly homophobic, and their fundraising emails signed by Sekulow have warned that the homosexual agenda is ‘bent on destroying our communities’ and ‘the family as we know it,’” the Human Rights Campaign reported in a 2014 press release. 

And it gets worse, according to Right Wing Watch:

Sekulow and the ACLJ have been active in the U.S. and overseas in opposing legal equality for LGBTQ people. Sekulow has said that the state has a “compelling interest to ban the act of homosexuality” and the ACLJ argued on behalf of state laws criminalizing gay sex that were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2003. Sekulow said the Supreme Court overturning the Defense of Marriage Act meant that “we’re now living in a monarchy.” The ACLJ and its international affiliates engage in anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice culture wars in the U.S., Africa, Europe and Russia. In Africa, it worked to shape constitutional language in Zimbabwe, where it has fought to maintain criminalization of homosexuality, and Kenya, where it lobbied to eliminate an exemption to an abortion ban to save a woman’s life. Both the European Center for Jaw and Justice and the Slavic Center for Law and Justice supported Russia’s notorious anti-gay “propaganda” law, which has been used against journalists and gay rights activists.

You know I'm leading to a delicious finish and here it is:

Sekulow was recently the subject of an explosive article by The Guardian which claims that his charity steered $60 million in donations from the poor into the pockets of him and his family.

Talking Points Memo reported:

Documents obtained by the Guardian show that, in the midst of the Great Recession, Sekulow signed off on contracts that instructed telemarketers for Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism (CASE) to urge retirees on fixed incomes and others who said they could not afford a donation to find it in their hearts to contribute a “sacrificial gift.” CASE raises tens of millions of dollars every year, primarily through small direct-mail donations. The Guardian reported that money goes directly to Sekulow, his wife—who has made more than $1.2 milion as CASE’s treasurer and secretary—his sons, brother, sister-in-law, and other firms associated with the family, as well as to finance loans and media-production ventures associated with the family.

Don't shake your head yet, It's getting really good. According to Wednesday's edition of The Guardian, Sekulow is now facing investigations in two states because of the original article on his alleged bilking:

Authorities in two states are looking into a nonprofit led by an attorney to Donald Trump, after the Guardian reported it had steered tens of millions of dollars to the attorney, his family and their businesses. Josh Stein, the attorney general of North Carolina, and Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, said on Wednesday they would be examining the operations of Jay Sekulow’s group Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism (Case). Stein said in a statement: “The reports I’ve read are troubling. My office is looking into this matter.” Amy Spitalnick, a spokeswoman for Schneiderman, said in an email: “We’re reviewing their filings.”

At press time, Sekulow has not comment. I, on the other hand, happen to have a few.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Sekulow is typical of Franklin Graham, Todd Starnes, Tony Perkins, the Family Research Council, Mat Staver, the American Family Association, and every so-called traditional values group or organization which is always spouting off about Judeo-Christian heritage or whatever.

Certainly I'm not saying that these folks are illegally steering money like Sekulow is being accused of doing.

But I AM SAYING is that the next time any of them whine  about "protecting Christians," or claiming that "Christians are under persecution,' or that the "gay agenda is going to swallow America," make an attempt to check their finances.

What you may find there will probably make you wish someone was "persecuting" you.