Since early 2021, the nonprofit Conservative Partnership Institute, which has seen a surge in funding after becoming a hub for President Donald J. Records show he was paid at least $3.2 million.
In its most recent tax returns, the nonprofit’s three highest-paid contractors all had ties to insiders.
One was led by the institute’s director, Edward Corrigan, and the other by its chief operating officer. The third contractor’s board members included the group’s senior legal fellow Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who supported Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Last year, the Conservative Party Partnership Association hired a fourth company with insider links, a fundraising firm run by Mr Corrigan’s brother Patrick Corrigan. The company received the contract three weeks before it was legally incorporated, according to public filings.
The Conservative Partnership Association applied to and was approved by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. That means donations to the group are tax deductible, just like donations to food banks or the American Red Cross. It also means, by law, that money must serve the public good, not private interest.
The nonprofit organization has pushed its boundaries by aligning itself with just one faction of American politics. It pays high salaries to some of Mr. Trump’s former top officials, hosts training camps for Republican lawmakers at its local grounds, and funds efforts to vet people and ideas for Mr. Trump’s second term. .
Legal experts say such insider trading also raises concerns about self-dealing. Although hiring insiders is permitted with certain safeguards in place, the payments take funds out of the shadows and allow nonprofit leaders to help manage them. was transferred to an opaque organization.
“There are no checks and balances,” said Michael West, an attorney with the New York Council of Nonprofits. “The potential for overpayment here is enormous,” West said, because there is no real third party to determine whether insider-driven companies are charging nonprofits a fair price.
Mr. Corrigan, the institute’s director, did not respond to questions about what steps the organization had taken to ensure it was not overpaying corporate insiders. The companies did not disclose fees.
Only one of the insiders, who held dual roles at the nonprofit and its vendor, responded to questions from The New York Times. Wesley Denton, the institute’s chief operating officer and a former Trump administration official, also said he was paid by one of its vendors, Compass Professional.
Mr. Denton’s annual compensation from the institute was $391,735, including benefits. He declined to say how much he received from Compass Professional. He served on both the vendor and laboratory boards.
“I am proud to have supported the launch of a new independent, not-for-profit service provider that provides high-quality professional services,” Denton said in a written statement.
The institute’s donors include conservative businessmen as well as Republican political activists. One major donor, former Texas aviation entrepreneur Robert Bruce, said the nonprofit’s leaders did not tell him about the use of vendors with insider connections.
“I’ve never had that conversation,” Bruce said in a phone interview.
He estimated he had donated “several hundred thousand” dollars to the institute. Bruce said there is no concern that nonprofit leaders are misusing the funds. “I’ve known them for a long time,” he said. “They are good people.”
The Times tracked the group’s leaders and their relationships with their vendors by examining charity and corporate filings with the federal government, five states, and the District of Columbia.
Records do not indicate what portion of the $3.2 million went to the institute’s top leaders and their families, but that the money went to companies in which they were owners or directors. only is shown. In at least one case, the company did not flag the connection as required in the state filing.
The Conservative Partnership Institute was founded in 2017 by former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), who was ousted as chairman of the conservative nonprofit Heritage Foundation. The group’s purpose was to help conservatives wield power and guide them “through the swamps of Washington without catching Potomac fever,” DeMint said in 2017. .
In fact, the institute’s fundraising improved when conservatives lost power.
With Democrats in charge in Washington in 2021, the institute has hired former Trump staffers, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. He began soliciting donors as allies and advocates for Trump’s ambitions.
Funding has jumped from $7 million in 2020 to $45 million in 2021. The newly formed nonprofit has purchased a 2,200-acre retreat on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and a series of commercial buildings near the U.S. Capitol, with plans for a restaurant. School and TV studio. The group also began holding workshops and seminars for conservative lawmakers and staffers, as well as starting a new conservative nonprofit organization.
As the money flowed, the institute’s leaders began establishing a series of companies in Delaware.
The first one was Compass Professional. Its first annual report included a list of directors, including Edward Corrigan and Denton.
Next is Compass Legal Services. The initial filing listed the names of directors, including Ms. Mitchell and one of the institute’s directors, Charlotte Davis.
The group paid its affiliates a total of $639,259 through the end of 2021, according to an audit filed with state-level charity regulators.
Federal law allows such nonprofits to hire insiders as long as they properly disclose payments and ensure that the insiders do not overcharge. Legal experts still advise against this, as it is tempting for insiders to abuse their power over charitable funds.
“You have a duty to act in the interest of the organization,” says Linda Suzin, a professor of nonprofit law at Fordham University. “The problem is, if you’re on both sides of a deal, we’re skeptical that you’re going to put the organization’s interests ahead of your own.”
Sujin said the institute could have reduced risk by soliciting bids from competitors to assess whether insiders were charging market rates. He said the institute could have asked leaders to refrain from making decisions to hire their companies.
Corrigan and other leaders did not respond to questions about whether their group had taken such steps.
If a nonprofit is found to have given an improper advantage to an insider, the insider could be fined by state or federal regulators. In extreme cases, the IRS may revoke a group’s tax exemption.
In 2022, a third company, Compass Property Management, was formed in Delaware. The company’s corporate filings list Mr. Denton as its president.
That year, the nonprofit paid a total of $2.6 million to three companies with insider ties, according to an audit filed with the state. The institute said these payments were “for the use of facilities, personnel, human resources and other professional services.”
How much of that went to insiders on the boards of those vendors?
Mr. Denton provided only a partial answer.
He said vendors don’t pay board members just because they’re on the board.
But, as in Denton’s case, he said companies may pay board members for other reasons because they “performed employment work for these organizations outside of their board duties.” Ta. Compass Legal’s president issued a statement saying the company does not pay “outside directors” but did not specify which directors would be counted as “outside directors.”
Compass Professional and Compass Legal have also worked with other clients, including Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and Gun Owners of America, according to federal campaign and charity filings. Management of both companies did not respond to questions about how much of their business came from the Conservative Party Partnership Association.
The most recent data on how much the Institute paid to three former insider-affiliated companies is from 2022. Since then, the companies’ board members have changed hands, but Conservative Partnership Institute leaders or their family members have remained on each company’s board of directors, according to company filings. .
Last year, the institute entered into a funding agreement with a company partially owned by Patrick Corrigan of Compass Direct LLC, paying $180,000 over the next year.
The contract began on July 1, 2023, the institute said in its North Carolina filing. But Patrick Corrigan’s company was only formed on July 24, three weeks after winning the contract.
In a filing with the state of North Carolina, Patrick Corrigan’s company said his client, his brother’s nonprofit organization, had “an officer, director, trustee, or employee’s parent, spouse, They were asked if they were related as children or siblings.
The company said no to the 2023 and 2024 applications. Patrick Corrigan signed the papers.
After the Times pointed this out, Patrick Corrigan responded in a one-line email: “North Carolina’s filings have been updated.” He did not answer other questions.
robert draper and julie tate Contributed to the report.
