Thread: Claire McCaskill Used Undisclosed Foundation to Pay for Dinner at Russian Ambassador’

She and hubby now have the Shepard Family Foundation??? Sounds a lot like the Clinton Foundation.

Claire McCaskill Used Undisclosed Foundation to Pay for Dinner at Russian Ambassador’s House

Missouri Democrat didn't disclose role in foundation to Senate until June 2017



Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) / Getty Images


BY: Brent Scher
June 28, 2017 3:22 pm

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) used a personal foundation to pay for a dinner she attended at Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak's Washington, D.C., residence. The senator had failed to disclose her role in the foundation until earlier this month.

McCaskill came under fire this March after she told the Washington Post she never had a "call or meeting" with Kislyak even though she had publicly announced both a call and meeting with him. This week, CNN reported that McCaskill also attended a black-tie reception at Kislyak's D.C. residence in November 2015.

McCaskill's attendance at the dinner was accompanied by an $873 payment to the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation, where Kislyak serves on the board of directors as honorary chairman.

The payment to Kislyak's foundation was not made directly by McCaskill—it was made through a foundation, the Shepard Family Foundation, that she set up with her husband Joseph Shepard in 2013 but failed to disclose in filings to the Senate ethics committee until three weeks ago.

The sudden disclosure of McCaskill's role in the foundation—which had to be inserted into disclosures covering 2014, 2015, and 2016 through amendments on June 6—came as part of an attempt to distance herself from investments in an opioid manufacturer.

McCaskill said the investments were listed as part of her personal holdings by mistake, and that they actually belonged to the foundation. The senator announced she was spearheading an investigation into the opioid industry weeks earlier.

It was during the process of correcting the investments that McCaskill discovered she had failed to disclose her position on the foundation's board of directors in Senate filings, her office said.
A McCaskill spokesman said the senator's decision to use the then-undisclosed foundation to pay for the dinner was not part of an attempt to hide it.

"Senator McCaskill and her family support a variety of causes through the Shepard Family Foundation, including this donation at a nonprofit event honoring a beloved Missouri Congressman," said John LaBombard.

LaBombard also noted the foundation’s contributions to Missouri nonprofits such as College Bound, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and Mission St. Louis.

The payment to Kislyak's foundation was properly disclosed in the foundation's 2015 tax filing, which also lists a $10,000 contribution to Planned Parenthood.
McCaskill has said the contributions to Planned Parenthood are because of one of her daughters.

"One of my daughters believes very strongly in the charitable side of care given by Planned Parenthood," she said. "I could have said no, but that's not the way we do this."

Events held by the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation have been attended by high-profile Republicans and Democrats alike, but McCaskill's criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions for meeting with Kislyak has put the spotlight on her.

McCaskill has quoted a Democratic colleague on the Senate Armed Services Committee who said he "would never dream of meeting with the Russian ambassador without the State Department there because we know they spy on us."

McCaskill has given a detailed list of the foundation's contributions to local reporters because of increased interest in the foundation since her involvement was disclosed to the Senate.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/claire-mccaskill-used-undisclosed-foundation-pay-russian-ambassadors-foundation/

Sen. McCaskill’s Family Foundation Pays the Russians

by Michael E. Hartmann
JULY 20, 2017
This article is crossposted from Philanthropy Daily – dated July 19, 2017

As if Washington didn’t have enough Russian scandals, or supposed scandals, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has provided another one. TheWashington Free Beacon’s Brent Scher recently reported that Sen. McCaskill used a philanthropic foundation that she and her husband, Joseph Shepard, created in 2013—the Shepard Family Foundation in St. Louis—”to pay for a dinner she attended at Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s Washington, D.C., residence” in honor of a Missouri congressman in 2015.

The Shepard Family Foundation supports many nonprofit organizations, most of them in Missouri. But in 2015 it also paid $873 to the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation, Scher reports, where Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak is honorary chairman of the board.

Thereport is interesting to many because, while McCaskill is a stern critic of the meetings, contacts, or conversations that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had with Kislyak, she claimed in March that she’d never had any similar meetings or conversations with Kislyak.

Sessions’ contacts were not formally reported in a timely enough manner for her and others, so it’s also interesting to learn that McCaskill did not report her foundation’s payment for the Russian dinner to the Senate ethics committee until very recently. McCaskill’s office maintains that the failure to disclose the payment was a mistake, and that it was corrected when she realized it. She also says the $873 contribution was part of an intended $1,000 donation, which was reduced when she and her husband paid for their own meals at the dinner.

But another question arises: Whether technically for their own meals or not, is such a payment a proper use of nonprofit-foundation funds?

That question is similar to the questions being raised about the propriety of particular payments by the Donald J. Trump and Eric Trump foundations by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

“My interest in this issue really is in my capacity as regulator of nonprofits in New York state,” Schneiderman told CNN’s Jake Tapper in September 2016. “And we have been concerned that the [Donald J.] Trump Foundation may have engaged in some impropriety from that point of view,” added Schneiderman.

Schneiderman is right: state attorneys general do regulate nonprofits in their states. In fact, in March 2016, the aggressive New York law enforcer led a high-profile conference of his fellow state attorneys general, all of them keen to delve into which nonprofits under their jurisdictions were doing to “deny” global warming, and what could be done about them. Subpoenas soon followed.

Maybe Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley should look into the McCaskill foundation’s initially undisclosed payment to the Russians related to a dinner at their ambassador’s house.

https://capitalresearch.org/article/...dation-russia/

Giggles. These Democrats are a phony and fake as the Russian Meddling and Russian Collusion crap they've spun on Congress and the voters.

Isn't it time all these 'foundations' are investigated - really investigated?

Originally Posted by nntrixie

Isn't it time all these 'foundations' are investigated - really investigated?

It's time to pass the FairTax and shut down all these phony 501 C 3 "charities". No one needs a "foundation" to meet and greet Russians or anyone else in the United States. Throw a party and send out a guest list, leave taxpayers out of the equation. You want it, you pay for it.

Originally Posted by nntrixie

Isn't it time all these 'foundations' are investigated - really investigated?

It is past time. The Family Foundation scam could be the Dems popular way to hide an influence slush fund..