Rep. Elijah Cummings’ wife, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, continues to face ethics concerns after more financial documents show overlapping business between her consulting firm and her nonprofit.
Documents that were obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show that Rockeymoore Cummings’ for-profit consulting firm, Global Policy Solutions LLC, was paid more than $250,000 by her charity, the Center for Global Policy Solutions.
The Daily Caller also notes that in the period between 2013 and 2015, the charity paid Rockeymoore Cummings’ for-profit firm “management fees” more than $250,000. In addition, the nonprofit and for-profit entities had a cost-sharing contract highlighting their joint property, as the two entities are housed at the same address.
As previously reported, Rockeymoore Cummings’ nonprofit faces an IRS complaint filed by the National Legal and Policy Center. The center alleged that Rockeymoore Cummings may be “self-dealing,” or using the charity for personal benefit.
NLPC highlighted a $1 million federal contract awarded to Rockeymoore Cummings’ consulting firm to oversee the “Leadership for Healthy Communities” program in 2017 — of which Rockeymoore Cummings’ nonprofit was listed as the “national program office.” Tom Anderson, the NLPC’s Government Integrity Project director told the Washington Examiner that he believed this was “self-dealing,” which is why the IRS a filed complaint.
Although the NLPC’s complaint was focused on Rockeymoore Cummings’ 2017 business transactions and the congressman’s potential influence, Anderson believes that the documents obtained by the Daily Caller from show the same illegal behavior.
“It’s self-dealing. It’s taking the charity’s resources and turning them into personal profits. IRS law doesn’t allow a charity for this purpose. This isn’t for the public interest, this is for her personal interest. You can’t do that.” Said Anderson for the Caller.
The financial overlap is also concerning considering several companies with business before Cummings’ House Oversight Committee made donations to Rockeymoore Cummings’ nonprofit.
“When a powerful chairman of a committee of the House of Representatives has a wife that is bringing in money from entities with interests before his Committee and she is not providing the transparency mandated by the IRS, there’s a serious problem,” Anderson also noted after filing the original IRS complaint.
As previously reported, the husband and wife have denied that there has been any personal benefit or wrongdoing from the overlapping business or Cummings’ position on the House Oversight Committee.
