Bowers Consulting Firm, a company run by BLM board member Shalomyah Bowers, was the highest-paid BLM PAC vendor during the first quarter of 2022, having received $45,000 from the PAC for “strategic consulting services.”
Elias Law Group, the law firm run by Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, received $8,000 for legal services rendered to BLM PAC during the period, and the Perkins Coie law firm received $8,350 for compliance services.
“BLM PAC’s donors would be surprised to know their contributions are being paid to BLM insiders and consultants rather than electing their favorite candidates for the mid-term elections,” said Paul Kamenar, counsel to watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center.
BLM PAC is affiliated with the BLM Global Network Foundation, the national BLM group that has weathered months of escalating criticism for spending millions of its charitable dollars on mansions in Los Angeles and Canada while simultaneously stonewalling the release of its financial disclosures to the public.
The national BLM group voluntarily shut down its ability to raise charitable funds on Feb. 2 following a Washington Examiner investigation into its lack of financial transparency, which prompted multiple states to issue demands to the group to cease its fundraising activities.
The revelation that BLM PAC is also in dire financial straits comes after the group hit the scene with a splash in October 2020 and raised $1.05 million by the end of the year.
BLM PAC claimed to be a force to be reckoned with in a February 2021 report, saying the $746,000 it spent on the Georgia Senate races in 2020 played a pivotal role in securing victory for Democratic Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
When cash was flowing into BLM PAC’s coffers in 2020, the group paid $150,000 to an art firm run by the father of BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors’s only child to co-produce an election night livestream that industry experts said should have cost a fraction of the price to produce.
