Jackson Denies Pressuring for Donations

Facing a barrage of questions about the finances of his tax-exempt organizations at a boisterous news conference Thursday, Jesse Jackson emphatically denied that he rewards or punishes big corporate donors on the basis of their cash contributions to his movement.

Jackson also angrily dismissed claims of irregularities in his 1999 tax returns for his nonprofit groups, saying the omission of his former mistress’ name from one return was an accounting mistake. He portrayed himself as a victim of a right-wing conspiracy but vowed to continue to fight for black inclusion in mainstream business.

Referring to the corporations whose grants and sponsorships accounted for 97% of the $17 million in total revenues received last year by Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and three other interlocking organizations, Jackson said: “They don’t relate to us out of fear, they relate to us out of hope.” Jackson has been accused of pressuring companies into making large donations to his movement under threat of black boycotts.

In a continuation of an extraordinary week in which Jackson answered questions about his previously private finances and those of his organizations, the veteran civil rights leader formally released a 102-page internal audit and financial report intended to quell mounting criticism and scrutiny of his nonprofits’ receipts and expenditures following disclosure of a $40,000 payment to a staff member with whom he fathered a child in an extramarital relationship in 1999.

Jackson said the 1999 Internal Revenue Service return for his Citizenship Education Fund will be amended to show the wages of the staff member, Karin Stanford, who aides said had a $120,000 annual salary.

Billy Owens, Rainbow/PUSH and the education fund’s chief financial officer, said the omission of Stanford’s name and salary and those of four other senior staff members was an “oversight that is in the process of being corrected.”

Said Owens: “We’re not aware of any improprieties or any other wrongdoing in our operations.”

Most of Jackson’s remarks at the 90-minute news conference, and in a preceding interview in his office, were in response to allegations by the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group in McLean, Va., that Jackson has threatened to lead boycotts and protests against corporations engaged in merger talks but has backed off after the firms pledged money to his groups.

The watchdog group filed a 17-page complaint with the IRS last week charging that the CEF strayed from its nonprofit, tax-exempt purpose by extracting millions of dollars from corporations and, in effect, has been providing a business service for a fee. It asked the IRS to investigate the CEF for violation of its tax-exempt status.

The Alexandria, Va.-based American Conservative Union also filed a complaint with the IRS, charging the CEF with using charitable funds “for personal inurement” by paying off Stanford.

Among the mergers that the policy center said Jackson threatened to boycott against was between GTE Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp., now called Verizon, which in 1999 granted or pledged $1 million to Jackson’s groups. Another was the merger of telecommunication giants SBC Corp. and Ameritech Corp., to which Jackson announced his opposition in 1998 and then endorsed in 1999--the same year the merged companies gave $500,000 to CEF, according to the internal finance report released Thursday.

Visibly angered by the mention of the National Legal and Policy Center, Jackson called it “an extreme, right-wing group who you should not even give credit for being a normal public interest group.”

When asked directly whether he rewarded or punished companies on the basis of how much they contributed, Jackson replied, “No, you negotiate with them on the basis of the quantity and quality of change. . . . If there’s change, you take it to the next level.”