Two weeks ago I launched a national campaign to Flip The Senate.
Last week Rihanna announced that I was being honored at her Diamond Ball.
And every day since, I’ve been called a scammer, a fraud, a thief, and a grifter – and not just by random trolls and conservatives, but by real people, who’ve said that I was “getting rich off of fundraising for families impacted by police brutality,” that I was “stealing and scamming with our campaign to Flip the Senate,” and that I am “stealing from gullible people who are just frightened in the age of Trump.” All complete fabrications.
It hurts. It has impacted my wife, my children, my actual places of employment, my fundraising for families and candidates, and so much more.
So, on the latest episode my podcast, The Breakdown, which you can find on any podcast platform, but also on my Instagram page, I answered the 7 top questions about my fundraising, my personal finances, and more. It’s embarrassing to have to do this, but it’s necessary.
I get specific about every single penny I’ve ever raised for families, for campaigns, for charities, and so much more.
Please listen, share, and know the truth.
- Since the Black Lives Matter movement began, I’ve raised over $10 million for families and causes. That doesn’t even count the millions of dollars I’ve raised for dozens of political campaigns. Never have I received a single penny from any of it. Never have I been paid on the side. Not on the low. Never have I gotten any favors as a result. I did it all for the love. On the podcast I talk about all of the people and families that have been helped across the years. And what’s wild is that as I started to have success fundraising for families, the lies started right away – with Trayvon Martin, with Mike Brown, and at first the lies were literally coming from white supremacists. All the way back in September of 2014, just a month after Eric Garner was murdered, they started lying and saying I was stealing from his family, but I literally never raised money for his family. And that’s how I ended up becoming good friends with his daughter, Erica Garner, as we bonded over the crazy lies that people told about us. I’ve raised money for flood victims, for people whose houses burned down, for 50 different families who were impacted by police brutality, last summer we provided 20,000 new pairs of shoes to kids all over Chicago. I spent weeks doing that. It took over my whole life. I didn’t receive a dime, I didn’t get a pair of shoes on the side, none of that. I did it for the kids.
And here’s what’s ugly, because of these lies, I am literally getting people to walk up to me on the street, I’m getting people interrupting my speeches demanding to know what I’m doing with money I’ve raised for families – all based on lies they saw on Twitter – from people who didn’t even take 2 minutes to research before they posted them.
- Two weeks ago when we started our campaign to Flip The Senate, people started saying it was a fraud and that I was stealing from it. I don’t receive a single penny from The Action PAC or Flip the Senate. We decided that months ago. Not a salary, not a stipend, nothing. We have a paid staff of nearly 15 people and I am not one of them. We have to submit quarterly reports to FEC. We’ve posted over a dozen quarterly reports for Real Justice – the PAC we have to help elect new District Attorneys across the country – and not a single soul ever reads them or cares about them. Every day though people continue to post that it’s a scam and I’m stealing from it. It’s awful that we live in the age where people can do this. And what people don’t understand is that what they are accusing me of is not just shady, it’s a crime. It’s a crime to raise money for a cause or a family and keep that money for yourself.
And what’s wild is that not a single family or cause or campaign is saying this about me. It’s literally just Twitter. When I raise money for causes or campaigns or families I don’t even start the fundraiser. I don’t have the username or password. The funds have never, not once, gone into a bank account that I even manage or have access to. People are literally just sending me links and I promote them like my life depends on it.
