Frist’s charity paid fees to his political buddies
WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful’s nonprofit.
The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by the Associated Press, also show the charity raised the lion’s share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help fund Frist’s efforts to fight AIDS.
The tax forms, filed nine months after they were first due, do not identify the 18 major donors by name.
Frist’s lawyer, Alex Vogel, said Friday that he would not give their names because tax law does not require their public disclosure. Frist’s office provided a list of 96 donors who were supportive of the charity, but did not say how much each contributed. The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.
World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare, and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans – Franklin Graham’s Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes’ Esperanza USA, for example.
The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist’s longtime political fund-raiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo.
The charity also hired the law firm of Vogel’s wife, Jill Holtzman Vogel, and Frist’s Tennessee accountant, Deborah Kolarich. Kolarich’s name recently surfaced in an e-mail involving Frist’s controversial sale of stock in his family founded health care company. That transaction is under federal investigation.
Jill Holtzman Vogel, who is raising money for a run for the state Senate in Virginia in 2007, has received thousands in contributions this year from Catignani & Bond and from her husband, among numerous other sources, according to data released by the Virginia Public Access Project.
Alex Vogel said Frist picked people to work on his charity whom he trusted and knew, such as Vogel’s wife, and was proud that overhead costs amounted to less than $1 of every $5 raised. “It’s leaner than the average charity,” Vogel said.
Frist is listed as the charity’s president and his wife was listed as secretary. Neither was compensated.
Political experts said both the size of charity’s big donations and its consulting fees raise questions about whether the tax-exempt group benefited Frist’s political ambitions.
Kent Cooper, the Federal Election Commission’s former public disclosure chief, said the consulting fees were “excessively high” and the fact that they were “paid to primarily political consultants also raises questions about the long-range strategic benefits for the 2008 presidential race.”
A charity could lose its tax-exempt status if it is found to be involved with political activity, said Marcus Owens, a former director of the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations Division. Frist formed the charity in 2003. It drew attention in August 2004 when it held a benefit concert in New York during the Republican National Convention at which President Bush was nominated for re-election.
Vogel said Catignani was paid the fees because he helped arrange the concert that featured country stars Brooks & Dunn, handling both the event arrangements and fund raising.
Samaritan’s Purse spokesman Jeremy Blume said the $490,000 that World of Hope donated to Samaritan’s Purse in 2004 was spent on AIDS programs in Africa.