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Watchdog Asks Maryland Attorney General To Investigate Charity Run By Elijah Cummings’s Wife

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Andrew Kerr Investigative Reporter
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A watchdog group filed a complaint Tuesday with Maryland Democratic Attorney General Brian Frosh to investigate whether the wife of House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings used her charity for her personal benefit.

The complaint, filed by the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), is the second action filed against Maya Rockeymoore Cummings’s Maryland-based charity, the Center for Global Policy Solutions (CGPC), by watchdog groups since May.

Rockeymoore Cummings is the principal officer and sole staffer of her charity, which between 2013 and 2015 paid $250,000 in “management fees” to Global Policy Solutions LLC, a for-profit venture in which she holds 100% ownership, according to audited financial statements first reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

FACT’s complaint notes that Rockeymoore Cummings’s charity and consulting firm are involved in similar projects and share the same address and phone number. (RELATED: Elijah Cummings’s Wife Used Her Charity To Pay Her For-Profit Company, Documents Show)

Rockeymoore Cummings’s charity receives funding from by companies with interests before her husband’s congressional committee, according to the Washington Examiner, which first reported FACT’s complaint.

“The overlap between the non-profit and for-profit organizations, along with the potential improper financial benefit to Ms. Cummings and her husband, Representative Cummings, is serious and demands an investigation,” said FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold in a statement Tuesday.

Rockeymoore Cummings did not respond to a request for comment.

FACT’s complaint is in the same vein as an IRS complaint filed in May by the government the watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), which alleged that companies with interests before the House Oversight Committee are potentially buying favorable treatment from Cummings through their donations to his wife’s charity.

“It’s self-dealing. It’s taking the charity’s resources and turning them into personal profits,” NLPC investigator Tom Anderson previously told the DCNF of the charity’s payments to Rockeymoore Cummings’s consulting firm. “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.”

Cummings pushed back against the NLPC’s complaint in May, saying the allegations are a “fabricated distraction.”

“These baseless claims come from a group funded by right-wing mega-donors known for their political hit jobs,” Cummings said in a statement. “I am confident that they will be exposed for what they really are — a fabricated distraction from the important work being done on behalf of Americans, such as lowering the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs.”

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