Sean Hannity living large on military charity donations?
March 19, 2010 by William K. Wolfrum
What makes these allegations stronger is who they are being made by – unrepentant rightist Debbie Schlussel. And she definitely painted a dark picture of what Fox News Host Sean Hannity is doing with his “Freedom Concerts.”
“Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concerts are just a giant con,” wrote Schlussel.
I began investigating these claims, and lo and behold, I discovered that Freedom Alliance gives very little money to the children of slain troops to pay for college and even less to wounded troops. The stories of injuries to troops and how much Freedom Alliance gives them–$200 for a soldier from a poor neighborhood who lost three limbs–is heartbreaking. Soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, severe wounds to the face from disfiguring burns and explosions, and multiple amputations got $1,000 or less, with only a handful of exceptions.
The tax forms available to the public for the Freedom Alliance–for the years 2006-2008–paint a tragic story, a story of a charity that makes gazillions and spends very little for the purposes it claims, a charity that spends millions more on its small staff and crony consultants than it ever gives in scholarships to the children of the fallen or severely injured troops or in aid to the injured troops themselves. While Hannity’s Freedom Concerts take in millions, only a few hundred thousand go to the claimed intended recipients.
If a liberal made these claims – even doing the amount of research Schlussel did – they would be discarded and never brought up again. But Schlussel can’t just be waved away by the right. By breaking the story loudly, Schlussel will likely get tremendous support from both the left- and the right-wing blogospheres.
A good read from Schlussel, who gives you a look at the research she did to come up with her conclusion. Read it here and perhaps look at Sean Hannity’s schtick in a whole new way.
–WKW
I read it. I’m disgusted, yet somehow unsurprised by this. My initial thought was, “A right-wing ‘charity’ paying millions to the staff and withholding benefits? Surely not! Next thing you’ll try to tell me is that televangelists can’t heal me through the TV screen! Blasphemy!”
But then I read the actual article. And I feel sick. It’s absolutely disgusting.
[...] some puppies,” said Leading Republican Rush Limbaugh. “It’s not like he started a charity for U.S. Veterans and embezzled from it, or [...]
I always thought Hannity was a greedy elitist pig. He has a very charitable attitude about himself & nothing but contempt & disdain for the poor & worki g class. Unfortunately, Sean seems to have the working & poor duped into believing that he is speaking for them. They are such fools. This man to me is a spineless, bigoted, idiot with his little nose in the air and making the little people seem & feel smaller. It’s up to them to call him on it.
And her blog is down at the moment.
It looks like the blogger is exaggerating the squandering a little. They brought in about $21 million from 2006-2008, and $3.4 million was spent on scholarships. The blogger fails to mention that they have a Scholarship Trust Fund set up that now contains $15 million. Assuming that they brought in another $7 million in 2009, that would mean they squandered less than 35%, not the 70-80% that the blogger claims. I believe that setting up all those concerts probably cost about that much.
Not that I support Hannity, but it really isn’t his organization. He is just the one that brings all the donors in. The blogger says that they use the funds for things like private jets for Hannity, but he already has his own jet.
Of all the things to go after Hannity for, I don’t think this is one of them.
that would mean they squandered less than 35%
That’s still pretty bad. I do think it is perfectly fair to pay for all the legitimate costs of the organization; and I certainly wouldn’t consider that to be money wasted.
But these type of charitable organizations are ripe for cronyism and abuse and it’s something worth looking into. Plus Sean Hannity is a dick, so…
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