BLM Spent $6 Million Buying A California Mansion: Report

Ben JohnsonApril 4, 2022

The leadership of Black Lives Matter spent nearly $6 million in donations to purchase a 6,500-square-foot California mansion with the help of a high-powered Democratic Party law firm, a new investigative report has uncovered. Newly released internal messages show the leadership scurrying to explain how the charity intends to use the home.

Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) purchased a seven-bedroom home, known as the “Campus,” in October 2020. The sprawling complex includes “several fireplaces, a soundstage, a pool and bungalow, and parking for more than 20 cars, according to real-estate listings,” wrote Sean Campbell in New York Magazine late Monday morning.

“The transaction has not been previously reported, and Black Lives Matter’s leadership had hoped to keep the house’s existence a secret,” added Campbell, who said he had seen leaked internal memos, emails, and messages about the heretofore unknown real estate purchase.

BLMGNF reportedly spent some of the $90 million in donations acknowledged in its 2020 Impact Report to purchase the Campus in secretive and contorted ways that Campbell says “blur, or cross, boundaries between the charity and private companies owned by some of its leaders.”

BLMGNF made the nearly $6 million purchase through an intermediary named Dyane Pascall, who is financial manager for an LLC owned by BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors and her wife Janaya Khan. Pascall transferred the home to an LLC established by the Perkins Coie law firm. As this author has reported:

Starting in April 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee used Perkins Coie to funnel campaign funds to Fusion GPS, which in turn hired British intelligence agent Christopher Steele to produce his salacious “dossier.”

Among the most lurid fabrications of his report, which BuzzFeed published in January 2017, is the claim that Donald Trump hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on a bed that Barack Obama once slept in.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller eventually noted his “investigation did not establish” the dossier’s allegations, and Special Prosecutor John Dunham has indicted at least one person with connections to the dossier.

The use of Perkins Coie’s Delaware-based LLC shielded the Campus’ ownership from public scrutiny.

Campbell writes that he asked BLMGNF about the Campus on March 30, then cites private emails and messages between BLMGNF principals attempting to account for the property’s use. The BLMGNF’s leadership said in one such message: “Our angle — needs to be to deflate ownership of the property.” Another suggested the group portray the Campus as “part of cultural arm” of BLM, an “influencer house” where “based content is produced by artists & creatives.” Still another message tried to portray the Campus as a “safehouse” for BLM leaders who feel their lives are endangered.

BLM has consistently said exposés such as the New York Post story revealing Cullors’ purchase of four homes for $3.2 million in 2021 could lead to her murder, a tactic increasingly common among left-wing activists. Cullors accused the paper “of being ‘abusive’ and putting her at risk” — charges that social media sites used to prevent users from sharing the story, the Post noted in an editorial.

In a chilling aside, Campbell notes that Bowers has authorized private detectives to investigate “BLMGNF detractors and journalists, including me.”

The BLM’s leaders appear conscious of the fact that competing claims over whether the Campus would be open to a bevy of public artists and creators or kept under rigid security contain internal contradictions. Campbell reports that the memo states, “Holes in security story: Use in public YT [YouTube] videos.”

For instance, Cullors used the Campus’ kitchen to shoot a video for her personal YouTube channel, capturing her attempt to make her aunt’s peach cobbler recipe. She and other BLM members also shot a video complaining about press reports of Cullors’ real estate spree. (Cullors, who left her BLM leadership position last year, has always said she used her own funds in those purchases.)

The BLMGNF said publicly on April 1 that the mansion will serve as a cultural center. A statement from board member Shalomyah Bowers said that the mansion will “serve as housing and studio space for recipients of the Black Joy Creators Fellowship.” The newly created fellowship, which BLM announced on April 2, “provides recording resources and dedicated space for Black creatives to launch content online and in real life focused on abolition, healing justice, urban agriculture and food justice, pop culture, activism, and politics.”

This $6 million mansion should not be confused with another $6 million mansion purchased with BLM donations. In July 2021, the group transferred millions of dollars to its Canadian chapter, which spent $6.3 million (U.S.) to buy the former headquarters of the Communist Party of Canada. BLMGNF claimed the Canadian property would serve as “a transfeminist, queer affirming space politically aligned with supporting [b]lack liberation.”

The mansion would also be used as the headquarters of BLM’s Canadian chapter, which is led by Janaya Khan.

BLMGNF has faced allegations that it has failed to account for the tens of millions of dollars in donations it has received, and to share the wealth with its local chapters, since its founding. This author outlined the full history of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s financial scandals Sunday on a special episode of The Daily Wire’s news podcast, “Morning Wire.”

This is a developing story … check back for updates.

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