Black Lives Matter PAC spent most of its money in 2023 paying its own treasurer for ‘consulting’

A political action committee (PAC) affiliated with the nation’s primary Black Lives Matter organization spent the majority of its 2023 expenditures paying a consulting firm owned by the PAC’s treasurer, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.

Black Lives Matter PAC paid $90,000 to Bowers Consulting Firm in 2023 for “strategic consulting services,” according to FEC disbursement filings. Shalomyah Bowers is both the treasurer of Black Lives Matter PAC and the founding president of Bowers Consulting Firm.

Super PAC treasurers, like Bowers, have the legal authority to authorize expenditures on behalf of a political committee, according to the FEC.

Bowers Consulting Firm received about 61% of the $146,679 Black Lives Matter PAC spent in 2023, according to FEC filings. The rest of the PAC’s 2023 spending, save for approximately $10,000 spent on advertisements, went toward administrative expenses like legal fees, compliance services, payment processing fees, and bank expenses.

Black Lives Matter PAC claims that donations to the organization “will help us elect progressive community leaders, activists and working-class candidates fighting for Black liberation,” according to its ActBlue donation page.

While the Black Lives Matter PAC tells potential donors that their funds will go toward electing left-wing candidates, the committee’s filings told a different story in 2023.

Black Lives Matter PAC reported spending $0 on independent expenditures supporting or opposing candidates and $0 on federal election activities in 2023, according to FEC records. After a year of sending money to its treasurer’s consulting firm while not engaging in political activity, Black Lives Matter PAC was left with just $3,575 in cash on hand at the end of 2023.

The PAC took in $134,328 in donations during 2023, according to FEC records.

“The fact that BLM PAC funneled almost $100,000 back to their leader, all while spending nothing to support or oppose candidates, shows they are nothing more than a scam PAC,” Americans for Public Trust Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This is the latest example of self-enrichment from a network already facing a litany of complaints about their murky finances.”

2023 was not the first year the Black Lives Matter PAC paid Bowers’ consulting firm.

Between 2021 and 2022, the PAC sent $135,600 to its treasurer’s consultancy, FEC records show.

Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at the nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen, told the DCNF that committees frequently pay businesses owned by their officers and that the practice is usually legal.

While the practice is legal, Holman said that “such expenses raise serious ethical concerns.”

“[The] self-enrichment of having campaigns pay for services from businesses owned by the candidate or even campaign staff is an unnecessary loophole in the campaign finance law,” he continued.

Bowers’ pattern of steering funds to his consultancy extended beyond his role at the Black Lives Matter PAC.

Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), the 501(c)(3) nonprofit associated with the Black Lives Matter PAC, paid over $2 million to Bowers Consulting Firm between July 2020 and June 2021, according to tax documents. Bowers was listed as the nonprofit’s principal officer during that period.

Melina Abdullah, a former BLMGNF activist, sued BLMGNF in 2022, accusing Bowers of using the nonprofit to enrich himself by sending millions of dollars to his consulting firm. She argued that a new group she had founded was entitled to compensation from BLMGNF.

Abdullah’s lawsuit accused Bowers of using BLMGNF as a “piggy bank.”

“Mr. Bowers continues to fraudulently raise money from unsuspecting donors passing himself off as the organization that is doing the work of BLM, padding his own pockets and that of his associates at the cost of BLM’s reputation,” the suit said.

A judge struck down the lawsuit in July 2023, determining that Abdullah failed to establish that her new group was entitled to any of BLMGNF’s funds.

Bowers Consulting Firm and BLMGNF did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment. Black Lives Matter PAC could not be reached for comment.

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