Posts on Minutemen

Earlier this month, it was announced that Bob Barr, Tom Tancredo, Alan Keyes, and Chuck Baldwin would be joining together for an anti-immigration press conference organized by the Minuteman during the Democratic Convention in an attempt to inject the issue back into the presidential campaign.

So how did it go?    

A rally by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps featuring Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr drew just a few dozen people.

Held at a Denver park a few miles away from the Democratic National Convention, the rally was more of a picnic, where even some counter-protesters shouting obscenities at the anti-illegal immigration activists failed to stir much emotion.

…

Even Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican who launched a short-lived presidential bid earlier this year largely based on his call for an immigration overhaul, showed up late to the rally wearing a golf shirt and loafers and started his remarks by quipping, "I'm like yesterday's news."

Tancredo added, though, that the public interest in immigration issues has been understated by the media and even his own political party.

"I don't care how many times people tell me this issue is no longer important, that voters don't care about it anymore, it's still out there," Tancredo said.

Maybe so, but many of the anti-illegal immigration activists seemed unconvinced the topic would influence this fall's campaigns.

After independent presidential candidate Alan Keyes addressed the group, he was surrounded by supporters — who asked about abortion.

Minutemen organizers insisted the rally was a success, and that the immigration debate hasn't faded.

The reason nobody showed up, said Minuteman President Chris Simcox, was because the media, the Republicans, and the Democrats are colluding to keep the issue out of the campaign and away from the public eye. But Simcox is undaunted:

"This is a national movement," said Minuteman President Chris Simcox, who said membership was either holding steady or increasing across the country. "This is just the beginning."

“[O]n the pro-control side, the pro-borders side, the kooks and the racists are at the fringes,” said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies on CNN’s Glenn Beck show last week. “They're nuts, you know, living in their mother's basements.”

Krikorian, fellow guest Jim Gilchrist, and host Mike Brooks were complaining that the California Department of Transportation is moving the adopt-a-highway sign of the San Diego Minutemen to a less prominent area. But if these anti-immigrant commentators wanted to make the point that the anti-immigrant fringe is not part of their side of the debate, perhaps they would have been more convincing had they not been defending one of the most militant and radical vigilante groups in the country.

On this blog we’ve seen the San Diego Minutemen:

• on film aggressively harassing day-laborers,
• conducting an over-the-top protest of a Catholic church that offered breakfast to day-laborers (see photo),
• and ransacking a campground where a number of migrant workers lived—also on film.

A profile of the San Diego Minutemen by the Southern Poverty Law Center notes that the group was disowned for extremism by both major national Minutemen factions—including the Minuteman Project, founded by Gilchrist. But on CNN, Gilchrist said the dispute over SDMM was a matter of “those opposed to immigration law enforcement.”

CNN’s panel—composed of three anti-immigrant activists—was timely evidence for the importance of a new project from the National Council of La Raza to stop the increasing appearance of hate groups and extremists as “experts” in the immigration debate. Indeed, Gilchrist is listed on the site as a “suspect spokesperson,” a self-proclaimed vigilante featured as an immigration expert, and Glenn Beck is named as one of the prominent media hosts of extremism.

“We're going to win South Carolina,” said a confident Mike Huckabee last week, even as he saw his solid lead in the polls dissipating. Perhaps hoping to broaden his base beyond those looking to elect pastor-in-chief, Huckabee is once again repositioning himself further to the right on immigration.

Huckabee’s first rightward stab on immigration last month caused quite a bit of confusion. He adopted a plan from the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies and announced the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minutemen. Dozens of anti-immigrant activists soon denounced Gilchrist’s endorsement—Chris Simcox, the other Minutemen co-founder, called Huckabee’s plan “duplicitous.”

Last week, Huckabee made another attempt by convincing Gilchrist that he supported a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship. This, too, was met with confusion, as Huckabee quickly denied that he would push such an amendment, but left open the claim that he would advocate a fringe interpretation that simply writes it out of the Constitution.

Now Huckabee has signed a “no amnesty” pledge from another right-wing group, Numbers USA (through its advocacy arm Americans for Better Immigration). From the Washington Times:

The pledge, offered by immigration control advocacy group Numbers USA, commits Mr. Huckabee to oppose a new path to citizenship for current illegal aliens and to cut the number of illegal aliens already in the country through attrition by law enforcement — something Mr. Huckabee said he will achieve through his nine-point immigration plan. …

yesterday's pledge — signed at a press conference with Numbers USA Executive Director Roy Beck — was an effort to provide answers. It's a major reversal from less than two months ago, when Mr. Beck told The Washington Times that Mr. Huckabee was "an absolute disaster" on immigration during his time as governor. Americans for Better Immigration, another group Mr. Beck runs, has rated Mr. Huckabee's record as "poor." …

But Mr. Beck yesterday said Mr. Huckabee has made a number of key promises going forward, including to not grant illegal aliens long-term legal status; to reject a guaranteed right of return for those who go home voluntarily under his nine-point plan; and to not increase green cards as a way of allowing them to come back more quickly.

"Probably, this is the strongest no-amnesty, attrition plan of any of the candidates," Mr. Beck said.

And as part of a tag-team effort, Gilchrist is back defending his endorsement, similarly promising that Huckabee supports “no amnesty whatsoever.”

These efforts may help Huckabee in South Carolina against John McCain, who continues to take heat for supporting comprehensive immigration reform in the past. But they are still not enough to convince William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, who has been a leading anti-immigrant critic of Huckabee. Gheen has launched an attempt to draft Lou Dobbs, the CNN host with some far-right views on immigration, as a candidate. The dim possibility of a Dobbs candidacy was talked about back in November, but Gheen said his group is prepared to “camp outside his office” to make it happen.

With his career as an anti-immigrant activist stalled and his unemployment running out, Ted Hayes has announced that he is running for Congress against Los Angeles Rep. Maxine Waters (D).

Hayes first came to our attention in 2006 as a spokesman for Choose Black America, a front group assembled by the Federation for American Immigrant Reform, a mainly-white anti-immigrant organization that has, as the Southern Poverty Law Center noted, taken “more than $1 million from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation that funds writers seeking to prove that black people aren’t as smart as whites.”

“This illegal invasion, in my opinion, is the greatest threat to American black citizens since chattel slavery itself,” said Hayes, who also headed his own anti-immigrant “Crispus Attucks Brigade.” According to Hayes, the idea behind these groups is to put a stop to solidarity between blacks and Latinos struggling for civil rights: “They got some brothers running around here like Jesse Jackson and them talking about brown and black unity and ignoring the real issue,” he said. That issue, apparently, is immigrants supposedly taking away the civil rights of blacks: “Don't come here telling us about our civil rights. These aren't yours; these are ours. And you can maybe holler human rights here, and we'll give you some wiggle room on that. But you can't have them civil rights, brother.”

(Hayes embracing Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist. AP photo via SPLC.)

Before converting to the Republican Party a few years ago and joining the anti-immigrant movement, Hayes was famous as a homeless activist who started the Dome Village shelter in L.A. But his divisive immigration rhetoric—along with his Minuteman connections and confrontational protest style—failed to catch on. A Los Angeles Times article from just two weeks ago noted his events haven’t drawn crowds and his groups haven’t gotten many members or donations. Meanwhile, Dome Village shut down, and Hayes is almost broke, with his unemployment benefits set to run out this month.

But in announcing his congressional campaign, Hayes was hardly looking to move on from the anti-immigrant rhetoric that’s defined him for the past two years. Instead, immigration is the focus of his run:

Hayes says it is unfortunate that many of the new residents have become very belligerent to the blacks. "As the numbers increase, they begin to take on a whole other mindset," says Hayes, "[that implies] 'get out Negro, this is now Mexico' -- and they're threatening people and forcing them out of the community with violence, in fact. In the high schools, they begin to have an intimidating presence and they begin to attack the black children."

The congressional hopeful says he is challenging Waters this fall because blacks are feeling the ill effects of illegal immigration more than any other group. According to Hayes, illegal aliens are taking jobs that used to go to black citizens. "They'll take less than half the amount of money that we normally should be paid. They're forcing us out of our homes. They're forcing us out of our hospitals. They're claiming that what they're doing is their civil right to do so," he offers.

Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minutemen, got into some hot water with his fellow anti-immigrant vigilantes after he endorsed Mike Huckabee for president last month. Minuteman Civil Defense Corps leader Chris Simcox rushed to repudiate Gilchrist, as did another Minuteman splinter group, the Patriots Border Alliance. Dozens more groups, from local vigilante outfits to sideshow acts like Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, piled on in a joint letter to “denounce” the endorsement. And Jerome Corsi, who co-authored a book with Gilchrist, seemingly tried to trick the latter into reversing his support for Huckabee.

Perhaps it’s easy for anti-immigrant activists to be picky in a Republican field competing to “out-Tancredo” each other, and despite Huckabee coming out with an immigration plan restrictive enough to attract Gilchrist—one that gives undocumented immigrants 120 days to exit the country—other activists latched on to the candidate’s feel-good rhetoric, such as his statement that “We’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did.”

But, as if to prove himself wrong, Huckabee is now reaching for a fringe proposal that targets immigrant children in particular, according to Gilchrist.

Apparently spooked by the backlash of his Huckabee endorsement, Gilchrist caught up with the candidate and pinned him down on some red-meat anti-immigrant positions, reports the Washington Times. Along with making the pardon of right-wing folk heroes Ramos and Compean his “first act as president,” Huckabee promised to put an end to birthright citizenship, by hook or by crook, Gilchrist said.

After Minutemen co-founder Jim Gilchrist endorsed Mike Huckabee last week, other anti-immigrant border vigilantes rushed to repudiate their erstwhile comrade. Chris Simcox, who split with Gilchrist in 2005, dismissed the latter’s influence and criticized Huckabee’s “duplicitous” immigration program. The leader of another Minutemen splinter group called the endorsement “disturbing.”

A variety of anti-immigrant groups also came out of the woodwork to pile on Gilchrist in a letter distributed by Americans for Legal Immigration: “We denounce Jim Gilchrist's solo endorsement of a pro-amnesty and Open Borders candidate for President. Mr. Gilchrist does NOT speak for us!” Signatories included representatives of a number of local Minutemen franchises, a FAIR front group, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, Save Our State, California Coalition for Immigration Reform, and many more.

This week, Gilchrist is facing heavy pressure from WorldNetDaily reporter Jerome Corsi, the premier advocate of the “North American Union” conspiracy theory. Corsi’s approach, rather than simply denouncing Gilchrist, was to confront him with the claim that Huckabee’s immigration program contained some element making it unacceptable to them. In response, Gilchrist “backtracked” on his endorsement, according to a Corsi article titled “Minuteman reconsiders Huckabee endorsement.”

The only problem with Corsi’s friendlier approach—helping Gilchrist along with his retraction of the endorsement—is that Gilchrist denies it:

But Gilchrist says Corsi's article is not accurate. "I am holding firm. I am endorsing Governor Mike Huckabee for president. I'm not wavering or waffling," he states.

And as for the WorldNetDaily report? "I have to say that Mr. Corsi really made me feel like he was interrogating me like a police investigator or a prosecuting attorney, rather than interviewing me," Gilchrist asserts. "He kept insisting that I was waffling -- and I did not say that; he kept saying that. And apparently he had an agenda."

But Corsi says he sticks by his story. "If Jim can't keep his story straight from one day to the other, ... I'll be happy to play back [for him] the recordings I made of him each day and Jim can listen to himself saying that he was going to reconsider the endorsement of Huckabee," he says.

What’s strangest about this exchange between Corsi and Gilchrist—with misunderstandings, hurt feelings, agendas—is that the two know each other very well. They wrote a book together on the Minutemen last year. Now, sadly, it seems they are no longer on speaking terms: Corsi’s latest article, which accuses Gilchrist of going soft, ends with the poignant line, “Gilchrist declined to comment.”

Yesterday we wrote that Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist’s endorsement of Mike Huckabee might be more of a hand up for the struggling anti-immigrant activist than for the cresting presidential candidate, given Gilchrist’s troubles maintaining leadership of his own group, much less a movement.

Sure enough, other anti-immigrant groups are rushing to dispute Gilchrist’s relevance. Chris Simcox, who split with Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project in 2005 to form the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, rushed out a mass e-mail dissing his rival:

No National Minuteman Group has endorsed Mike Huckabee. One individual Minuteman has personally endorsed him. For the sake of clarity, it is important to note that the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), the nation's largest Minuteman organization, is a 501(C)4 non-profit organization and cannot and does not endorse any candidate for public office. MCDC is not associated with Mr. Jim Gilchrist, who today endorsed Mike Huckabee for president. Jim Gilchrist’s erstwhile Minuteman Project is itself an organization which by its own representations as a non-profit civic group cannot legally endorse candidates. It does not have any volunteers who observe illegal border activity. It has no border fence building projects. Jim Gilchrist here speaks only for Jim Gilchrist, he does not speak for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, nor is he nationally representative of most patriots in the "Minuteman movement" – who under no circumstances could ignore the failed record nor endorse the duplicitous “plan” recently rolled out by candidate Mike Huckabee. The national media needs to recognize that Jim Gilchrist’s endorsement is his own personal statement, nothing more.

Another splinter group, the Patriots Border Alliance, called the endorsement “at best disturbing.” Group leader Bob Wright said, “[Huckabee’s] past rhetoric about the goals of Minutemen everywhere has been vicious — parroting the tired and discredited foolishness that an American citizen's desire to see the law enforced is somehow racist or xenophobic." A group called Americans for Legal Immigration also sent a mass e-mail warning against Huckabee.

While Tom Tancredo continues his efforts to push the Republican presidential race further and further towards anti-immigrant extremism, it’s important to remember that the candidates who are following his lead are the ones with a chance of winning the party’s nomination. Rudy Giuliani is attacking Mitt Romney over his landscapers, and Romney is running an ad in Iowa attacking Huckabee over past support of education programs for undocumented immigrants.

Not to be outdone, Huckabee apparently borrowed his immigration platform from an anti-immigrant group, the Center for Immigration Studies. And this week he announced a surprising endorsement: Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minutemen border vigilante movement. Lest anyone forget that Huckabee is the far-right candidate who’s “not angry about it,” the former governor said at the press conference, "I'm not angry at anyone. I'm angry at the government. I'm not angry immigrants want to come here."

Gilchrist, whose Minuteman Project split from Chris Simcox’s Minuteman Civil Defense Corps back in 2005, has been struggling since his own board ousted him over alleged financial mismanagement, and the extent to which he remains an influence over the fractious Minuteman phenomenon is unclear.

So while Gilchrist may give Huckabee some kind of anti-immigrant credibility among the right-wing base, it may be that Huckabee is giving a much greater boost to Gilchrist. Huckabee, whose “nice guy” persona contrasts starkly with the armed-and-dangerous image of the Minutemen, even went out of his way to apologize for perceiving the vigilantes as fringe activists:

"There are times when I, probably in the early days of the Minuteman, I thought, 'What are these guys doing . . . what are they about?' " he told Gilchrist during their press conference in Iowa. "I confess, I owe you an apology for even questioning why in the world you guys would do it. As all of us have seen, the federal government has failed to secure the borders -- they failed to bring a policy that is good for everybody involved."

With such generous pandering in play in this election cycle, anti-immigrant activists and groups are likely to stick around. Indeed, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (like the Center for Immigration Studies, part of John Tanton’s network of anti-immigrant “grassroots” groups) is planning to bring right-wing radio talkers to Iowa just days before the caucuses, as the group releases a report purporting to show “rapidly escalating costs resulting from illegal immigration” in the overwhelmingly white state.

Handily, the Southern Poverty Law Center has just published an article on FAIR’s connections to racist hate groups. Now, if we could only get it into the hands of Republican presidential candidates …

(Image from Noam Scheiber at The New Republic.)

This summer, we noted that the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps’ project to build their own fence along with U.S.-Mexico border was falling short of promises, while contributors raised questions about where all the money went. One major donor sued the anti-immigrant vigilante group, and a number of the group’s officials and state coordinators challenged MCDC leader Chris Simcox’s financial management, only to have Simcox fire them all.

Now CNN has picked up the story, sending a reporter down to look for the much-vaunted high-tech “Israeli-style” fence, and finding little more than a cattle guard on one ranch and a short stretch of mesh wire on another.

The Minutemen quickly responded to the negative press—with a fundraising e-mail:

It's not news that the Minutemen have critics and are under constant assault from the liberal media and open border alliance organizations. But in spite of all this, the Minutemen press on! Giving leadership and hope to America since our patriots sounded the first national call in 2005 to Secure Our Borders NOW, our committed and courageous Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers are showing that good people CAN make a difference in the defense of our nation’s security, sovereignty, safety and prosperity.

According to the MCDC, the vigilante group is only trying to do a job the “feckless federal government” won’t do, but its complaint sounds more like the criticism of its own fence:

[The government] is long on talk and short on performance, selling the American people short as it has for decades. The Feds are stalling, wasting time, putting up inferior fencing at vast expense on delayed timelines—all in the hopes that the people of this country will be won over by their political grandstanding and public relations.

Would the real anti-immigrant vigilante group please stand up?

This summer we noted the apparent meltdown of both factions of the national Minuteman movement, anti-immigrant vigilantes that rose to stardom during an armed “border vigil” in 2005. Back then, disagreements about funding caused the group to split, with Chris Simcox heading the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) and Jim Gilchrist heading the Minuteman Project. More recently, Simcox faced criticism over dubious financial management, with his own volunteer leaders complaining that promised money wasn’t arriving and his IRS filings showing revenue mostly going towards “personnel services.” When several of his officers and 14 state coordinators demanded a meeting with Simcox to address their concerns, he promptly fired them all for insubordination.

Meanwhile, Gilchrist’s smaller outfit had its own trouble: The ostensible board ousted Gilchrist over money management. Gilchrist sued to regain the group’s paltry assets, and, giving up, started a new group called Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project.

On Saturday, the ex-Minutemen who were booted from MCDC by Simcox assembled a “border vigil” near Palominas, Arizona, calling themselves the Patriots’ Border Alliance. Joining them is Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project.. Coincidentally, the defectors’ 30-day project, called “Operation Allied Minutemen,” began just one day after MCDC’s own 30-day “vigil,” “Operation Secure America.”

In response, reports the Washington Times, Simcox reiterated his claim that members of this new faction were terminated from MCDC for "purposefully undermining the national operations" of the organization, and that others "failed in their roles as national directors ... fixated on a conspiracy theory that our finances are not in order, and voluntarily tucked their tails between their legs and quit."

Mr. Simcox also said that while the PBA's operational procedures are in violation of county ordinances in Arizona, "We wish them luck. We continue with our extremely successful mission of ensuring our borders are secured."

As the two bickering Minutemen factions compete for the scarce media coverage of their events—a far cry from the circus of 2005—we can only imagine the scene on the border:

While the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and the Minuteman Project, national anti-immigrant groups formed around “border vigils” in 2005, have been struggling with financial mismanagement and internal strife, the “Minuteman” brand has been a steady presence in many localities, with franchises – affiliated or not – independently focusing nativist anger on the immigrant and Hispanic population in cities and small towns.

Emblematic of such groups is the San Diego Minutemen: We noted their over-the-top protests against a Catholic church last month, and last year pointed to a web site by the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation that provides video of Minutemen aggressively harassing day-laborers and others.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s magazine has an in-depth profile of the group, describing how it’s under investigation for allegedly ransacking a long-term campsite used by migrant workers.

Then, this Jan. 27, the men and women who remained in the McGonigle shantytown returned from a day's work to find their homes and meager possessions sliced to ribbons. Pants had their seats cut out. Shirts had been cut in half. Sleeping bags were sliced open. Tarp roofs, always scant protection against the chilly winter rains, drooped from their supporting frames in tatters.

Roberto Peña, a migrant who lived in the canyon, told police that he came back to his shack early that afternoon and spotted a group of four men and women using knives to cut up migrant property while a tall, blonde woman videotaped them. The men, he told police, chased him with knives. Peña ducked into the bushes. He lay there, according to a police affidavit, "watching the group destroy his property [when] he heard them saying, 'Fuck Mexicans'."

Minuteman leaders denied involvement, but the video they shot of themselves has been posted to the Internet by Voice of San Diego (via SPLC’s new blog):

While the national Minuteman organizations nominally reject this chapter, it’s clear that the San Diego Minutemen – called by its enthusiastic founder “the strongest Minuteman group in the nation” – is a major player in the anti-immigrant vigilante movement, and like dozens of other local start-ups, a way in which the Minuteman brand remains a force beyond the control its weakened founders.

While the national anti-immigrant Minuteman groups – Chris Simcox’s Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project – are apparently devolving due to financial mismanagement, it’s important to remember that the Minuteman brand persists in the scattered and often incendiary local outfits bearing the name. A case in point is the recent protests of a Fallbrook, California Catholic church that – for 15 years – has offered breakfast to day laborers seeking work at a nearby intersection.

For the last three weeks, members of the San Diego Minutemen have staged vociferous Saturday protests against an informal labor center run by the church. The protests have involved shouting through a bullhorn, displaying an effigy of a priest wearing a devil's mask and waving picket signs against illegal immigration.

One of the protests took place last month as children left the church after celebrating their First Communion, a traditional Roman Catholic ceremony, said Claudia Smith, an immigrant rights advocate who was at the church during the protests. "It was incredibly disrespectful to spoil a child's First Communion," Smith said. "It was a new low."

Jeff Schwilk, founder of the San Diego Minutemen, said the church attracted his group's attention because it allows day laborers to gather on its property looking for work. He said his group believes most of the workers are illegal immigrants and that the church is breaking federal laws by helping them find jobs.

The San Diego Minutemen are the same activists caught on film harassing day-laborers and potential employers last year. Their use of an effigy of a priest with devil horns (saying “More illegal aliens = more $$$”) prompted an angry response from far-right activist Bill Donohue of the Catholic League:

“Showing how incredibly debased and uncivil they are, the San Diego Minutemen have sought to paint all priests as pedophiles and have pledged to continue their incivility all summer long. To top it off, the xenophobes are illiterate. ‘With all the pediphelia [sic] problems going on in the church,’ a posting on its Internet site says, ‘it makes no sense to have 50 loitering men watching little children playing on the playground each morning.’

“There are legitimate ways to protest. This is not one of them. By succumbing to anti-Catholic bigotry and harassment, the San Diego Minutemen have discredited their cause and have no moral grounds upon which to make their appeal. They should be opposed not only by Latino Catholics, but by all Catholics.”

Photo from North County Times.

The 200 activists gathered in San Antonio, Texas to protest the conviction of two Border Patrol agents involved in a shooting and cover-up fell short of the 1,000 expected, but the rally – with organizers including anti-immigrant groups American Freedom Riders, U.S. Border Watch, and Minuteman Civil Defense Corps – still had its sparks. The San Antonio Express-News reports:

David Marlett of Dallas climbed into the back of a white pickup and told the crowd that there are "four kinds of boxes — the soap box, the jury box, the ballot box and the cartridge box." "We have seen a misuse of the jury box," he said. "We're going to use the ballot box to get rid of you. But don't test our use of the last box."

With a small group of immigrant rights supporters posted across the street, much of the two-hour rally was tense and fraught with racial undertones.

"We as American patriots won't step aside and allow that flag to be any color other than red, white and blue," said Curtis Collier, president of U.S. Border Watch.

When the anti-immigrant Minutemen emerged onto the national scene, Washington Times reporter Jerry Seper wrote glowing profiles of the border vigilantes, but over the past year, relations have soured as Seper investigated allegations of shady finances from within the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. In Seper’s reports, one mysterious factor has been the numerous ways MCDC is intertwined with a host of non-profit and for-profit organizations associated with Alan Keyes. While Chris Simcox, head of MCDC, responded once last year with some unconvincing filings, the groups and leaders implicated have remained silent.

Now, one Keyes group is responding. Although only briefly mentioned in the Times, RenewAmerica – a web site featuring writing by Keyes and like-minded commentators – calls a recent article “an obvious (and unprovoked) effort to discredit the organization.” In the article, Seper examines the FEC filings of the Minuteman PAC and discovers that 97 percent of the money it spent went to “operating expenses,” including many payments to for-profit consulting and fundraising companies associated with Keyes. These filings – as well as filings for a second Minuteman PAC – are publicly available.

In listing some of these PAC expenditures, Seper mentions RenewAmerica in passing:

Politechs Inc., a Los Angeles-based political consulting firm headed by Mary Parker Lewis, a key adviser to MCDC and a top official in several tax-exempt fundraising organizations led or founded by Mr. Keyes. In the report, the Minuteman PAC said it paid $10,000 for fundraising to Politechs. Mrs. Lewis served as chief of staff for Mr. Keyes' 1996 and 2000 presidential runs and in his 2004 senatorial race against Barack Obama in Illinois. She also is executive director of Declaration Foundation and chief of staff at Renew America, another tax-exempt fundraising group founded by Mr. Keyes.

According to RenewAmerica counsel Steven Voigt, “Ms. Lewis--a longtime colleague of Alan Keyes--is in fact Keyes' Chief of Staff, not RenewAmerica's. She's not an officer of RenewAmerica.”

What’s more interesting, though, is Voigt’s angry denial that RenewAmerica is even a non-profit at all. “RenewAmerica is not tax-exempt,” he writes. This may come as a surprise to those who have donated to the company. In the fine print, the group says that “to avoid federal government intrusion, your donation to RenewAmerica.us is NOT tax deductible.” Registered non-profits, which don’t pay taxes, are required to report publicly their revenue, their expenditures, and the salaries of the top officials.

Voigt parlays this mention of RenewAmerica – as a biographical detail of Keyes associate Mary Lewis – into a broadside against Seper’s “bad journalism,” and adds suggestively, “I am left to wonder whether the rest of his article is equally unreliable.” But since the Keyes groups actually implicated in this article on the Minutemen’s suspicious finances have yet to respond (perhaps preoccupied with drafting Keyes to run for president), and Voigt is unwilling to look into it (“I am not counsel to any of the other organizations mentioned in that article, so I don't know”), Voigt’s editorial raises more questions than it settles.