Casting the Deciding Vote For “COVID” Bill Turned Into Money for Social Justice Group Warnock Founded and Profits From
Washington, D.C. – By most standards, a conflict of interest in Congress is when a bill you are voting on will knowingly benefit someone or some organization with whom you are associated.
Apparently, Raphael Warnock has not heard of such a thing. A social justice organization he founded received $75,000 thanks to a wasteful “COVID” bill that helped inflation reach record highs. What’s more, the same organization that benefited from Warnock’s vote helps fund his more than $100,000 per year outside salary.
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Warnock Voted For COVID Bill That Sent $75K To Social Justice Group He Founded
By Alana Goodman
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) voted for a COVID-19 relief bill that steered $75,000 to a nonprofit social justice group he founded that’s run by the church that supplements his Senate salary to the tune of more than $100,000, according to government records.
The Martin Luther King Sr. Collaborative, a community activist group that Warnock led as CEO until at least 2020, sought and received COVID relief funding from the American Rescue Plan in September 2021, according to Georgia financial records. The Martin Luther King Sr. Collaborative was founded by the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Warnock is still employed as lead pastor and which paid him $120,000 last year in addition to his Senate salar
Warnock voted for the American Rescue Plan in March 2021, two months after ousting Republican Kelly Loeffler in a special Senate election. The bill passed on a 50-49 partisan split, with Warnock giving Democrats the 50th vote necessary to put it over the top.
“We were able to deliver on our promise to Georgia to pass historic COVID-19 relief. Georgia in a very real sense is delivering relief to the whole country,” Warnock said at the time, calling the bill “historic legislation.”
The funding raises questions about whether Warnock or his employers used Warnock’s position as a senator to benefit from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that some leading economists have blamed for skyrocketing inflation. Americans for Public Trust, an ethics watchdog group, said the federal relief funding adds to concerns that Warnock’s outside work poses a financial conflict. Warnock receives a housing allowance from Ebenezer Baptist Church that amounts to nearly $7,500 per month, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“It’s not a great look to learn that a U.S. senator cast the key vote that awarded his former nonprofit tens of thousands of dollars,” said Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust. “And now that it’s been revealed that Warnock is receiving a housing allowance from Ebenezer, this arrangement seems rife with potential conflicts of interest.”
Read more that the Washington Free Beacon
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