What the Hell, Mike Gravel?

Former Senator Mike Gravel (who read the Pentagon Papers leaks into the public record) had been actively involved in the 9/11 truth and justice movement for the last year.

That is over now.

Mike Gravel has taken money donated to the 9/11 Citizens Commission (9/11CC) and re-distributed those funds elsewhere without permission from either the 9/11CC board or its donors.

The organization he redistributed the donations to is an organization that he founded and chairs – and it has nothing to do with 9/11.

The timeline of discussions can be found and read in whole starting with:

1. On Dec. 26^th, the 9/11CC board wrote a letter to its endorsers, advisors and major donors. That letter was abbreviated and sent out to all donors on Jan 21^st.

2. Mike Gravel wrote a response to the 9/11CC board on February 3^rd

The above details are discussed further below.

(1):

On January 21^st, the 9/11CC board sent an email out to all donors to the organization. That email was posted to a related thread at TruthAction within a week, and after being posted on a FaceBook page. Among many details in the letter from the board, the following is highlighted here:

….. we have a responsibility to relate to you some very serious and unfortunate news: There has come a parting of the ways of Senator Mike Gravel from the rest of the 9-11cc team. Briefly, the pivotal event of that parting came to our attention in mid-December when we found that our bank account, under the sole control of Mike Gravel, was being tapped for large, unauthorized expenditures paid to promote an unrelated campaign of Mike’s – his National Initiative for Democracy (NI4D). When this disturbing item was put on our Campaign Team’s agenda for the next team meeting, Mike Gravel, for the first time, declined to participate, and instead sent a long letter in which he expressed his intention to dissolve the legal entity that our 9-11cc organization had established to enable us to collect funds. Mike Gravel further informed us of his plan to transfer the 9-11cc’s funds to his own, unrelated NI4D campaign. Both of Mike’s proposals were rejected by all other members of the board. Although as a Board we had been in discussion for several months about refinements to our path going forward, these radical, unilateral decisions by Mike Gravel came as a complete shock to us. Shortly thereafter, our treasurer, George Ripley, made an unsuccessful attempt to have our accountant freeze our bank account to prevent further unauthorized and unaccounted-for expenditures. As our Board prepared to meet two nights later to consider our response (a meeting Mike Gravel again chose not to attend), we found that $25,000 more had been withdrawn that same day from our bank account, leaving only about a $6,000 balance (now ~$1000).

We tried in vain up to and throughout the Christmas holidays to use reason and peer pressure to get Mike Gravel back into productive communication with the rest of the Board, and to persuade him to return the donated funds to the Citizen’s Commission Campaign….

The 9/11CC Board obviously made a mistake by allowing the money to be in the sole control of Mike Gravel. That mistake does not excuse Mike Gravel’s actions.

(2):

Two weeks later on February 3rd Mike Gravel responded to the 9/11CC board email. Gravel’s response was posted to the Truth Action forum again. The important points from Gravel’s response are covered below:

In May 2011, Ken Jenkins and George Ripley were pushing me into a leadership role within the 911 movement that I was reluctant to take on…

…The forms creating the California Recipient Committee called the “Citizens 911 Commission” were filed on May 13, 2011 and received by the Secretary of State on May 16th. My name as the “sole principal” is the only name associated with the entity in California. I secured an EIN number from the IRS on that basis and opened an account at Wells Fargo. No other names or persons are legally associated with this California entity or its bank account. As the authorized signer who opened the account at Wells Fargo, I made provisions with the bank for Jenkins, Belitsos and Ripley to access the account only to view its activity in real-time…

…

As a California Recipient Committee, we had no operable bylaws and none were required to be filed by the state. I subsequently drafted Articles and Bylaws in anticipation of creating an IRS C4 corporation, which was the planned next step in our logical growth, going from a working group of volunteers into a legal corporate entity.

Initially, our intent was to file an initiative in California. I visited and worked with the attorneys at the State’s Legislative Council in Sacramento, drafting my concept into a legally acceptable initiative proposal. However, it became obvious that a California initiative campaign was out of the question at this time; it would take several million dollars to qualify an initiative for the ballot and more to wage a viable enactment campaign.

Since we planned no political activity in California and were limited in accepting foreign contributions, it was understood by all those involved (Jenkins, Freeland and Ripley) that we would dissolve the Recipient Committee before the end of the year or face extensive and expensive reporting requirements that were irrelevant to our national and global activity. In the event of dissolution, California law is very clear; whatever monies are in the Committee’s bank account must be donated to a government recognized charity or returned to the donors on a pro rata basis….

A pro rata return to donors would have been expensive accounting-wise and of de minim{i}s impact to all but one donor. I chose to donate all the funds in the account to the Democracy Foundation, a 501 c 3 charity recognized under federal law. The Democracy Foundation, which I founded and chaired, is the educational sponsor of the National Citizens Initiative, an initiative that when enacted into law will empower citizens to make laws in every government jurisdiction. The process to enact the National Citizens Initiative can be undertaking in any country where citizens are allowed to vote. Obviously, if we able to enact the National Citizens Initiative, it would provide an excellent opportunity to enact a federal law creating a new Citizens 911 Commission with federal powers far superior to anything we would expect to secure with a state initiative.

…All told we raised around $85,000 in 2011; and more than half has been spent on travel and overhead…

Mike Gravel simply chose to redistribute the funds to an organization he founded and chairs without permission from the donors.

Maybe Gravel thought people were donating to him and not to the organization of an idea for a citizens 9/11 investigation? That would have been the wrong assumption: Gravel was given donations by 9/11 activists, plain and simple.

The irony of giving stolen money to a “Democracy Foundation” that the thief founded and chairs is not lost here. Is this Gravel’s idea of Citizen Power?

Gravel states further that the process of redistribution to donors would have been “expensive accounting-wise” and “de minimis,” or too insignificant to be worthy of concern “to all but one donor.”

Is Mike Gravel trying to downplay the impact of his actions by stating only one person will be greatly affected? Hogwash!

Before publishing this letter, I contacted a 9/11CC board member to see if I could learn more. A message came back with the following information:

The biggest donor put in nearly $48K. The next biggest donor was $10K. Next was $2.5K. There were several more donors at $1K and up. There were some others at $500 and up. I do not consider any of those amounts “small”.

The economy is in the pits and more than a quarter of the US is out of work. 9/11 activists are up against enough walls without Mike Gravel thinking it’s too insignificant to be worthy of concern that he redistributed their donations, without consent.

Even that discussion becomes a distraction for the sad fact that Mike Gravel could have chosen a much more graceful and respectful way to distance himself from something he was “reluctant to take on” as he says, if that was ever really the case: During personal interactions he always seemed not so reluctant about the 9/11CC.

More to the point and simply put: Mike Gravel is a thief and a liar.

The 9/11CC board confronted Mike Gravel only after noticing that money had been withdrawn in November without permission. After asking Gravel about the missing money, did he take another $25,000 without permission in December and cease contact with the 9/11CC board.

Mike Gravel has not returned the money to the 9/11 CC board or its donors.

I hate to say it, but the one thing that comes to mind is an old Steve Miller song.

Mike Gravel should return the money, plain and simple.