Bill Berkowitz
September 1, 2006

Minuteman money mystery

Anti-immigrant group turns to Alan Keyes and his right wing groups to handle money and media

In late April, Chris Simcox, the head of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), the anti-immigration organization that thrust itself into the national spotlight last year when it set up citizen patrols along the U.S.-Mexico border, showed up in Bellingham, Washington to testify at a Washington Human Rights Commission hearing. According to a post by David Neiwert at Orcinus, Simcox, who seemed to have undergone an extreme makeover -- sans cosmetic surgery -- was "rather impressive: clean-cut, very straightforward seeming, very smooth. He seemed almost preppy with his new clean-shaven look and crew sweatshirt."

The old Simcox, "who liked to alternate between camos and jeans and sport an American-flag ballcap, spout endless conspiracy theories and quasi-racist fearmongering, and demonstrate his utter idiocy to anyone familiar with gun safety by holstering his pistol down the front of his jeans," was "it appears ... ancient history ... buried under the careful coaching of the D.C.-based public relations firm that Simcox hired," Neiwert noted. "They've done a pretty good job of making Simcox over completely."

Three months after cleaning up his act, it was no longer Simcox's makeover that was drawing interest. Several former Minuteman comrades have gone public with charges that Simcox has not been accountable for the money the organization had raised. In addition -- and apparently unbeknownst to many of its members -- the organization has taken to calling itself "a project" of the Declaration Alliance, a group controlled by Black conservative Alan Keyes.

And despite his recent appearance with the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, where he assured the talk show host that everything was on the up-and-up financially, all is not well in the border-vigilante community.

Simcox has forged close political ties with a gaggle of conservative Christian organizations including Renew America (website), an organization that supports "the ‘Declarationist' ideals" of Keyes; Response Unlimited (website

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, "Earlier this year, Response Unlimited -- "the nation's best and most comprehensive source of mailing lists for conservative and Christian mailers and telemarketers" -- began offering for sale a list of 61,000 Minuteman Civil Defense Corps donors at a price of $120 per thousand names.

"These donors realize that a porous border potentially means unfettered access for illegal drugs and terrorists to infiltrate our country," Response Unlimited says in its pitch. "Count is expected to increase rapidly over the coming months."

Former members want to know what happened to the money

Since its founding, the Minutemen has recruited hundreds of volunteers and raised a substantial amount of money. According to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon-owned Washington Times, several of the group's "leaders and volunteers are questioning the whereabouts of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars in donations collected in the past 15 months, challenging the organization's leadership over financial accountability."

Concerned not only about where the money has gone, and questioning why the money was "funneled through" Keyes' Virginia-based operation, a number of key Minuteman officials "have either quit or are threatening to do so, saying [that] requests to Minuteman President Chris Simcox for a financial accounting have been ignored," the newspaper reported in late July.

Simcox told the Washington Times that the group had raised about $1.6 million in donations, and all of it has been "handled" by the Herndon, Virginia-based Declaration Alliance, which was founded and is chaired by Keyes. Simcox "said the donations, solicited on the group's Web site and during cross-country appearances, included $1 million directly to MCDC and $600,000 for a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border."

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project described the "Minuteman Border Fence" as "a slick fundraising campaign with a stated goal of $55 million." The money was supposed to be earmarked for the construction of "a high-tech security barrier along 70 miles of private ranchland on the Arizona border." The Minuteman Civil Defense Corp sent out direct mail solicitations and has placed "full-page color advertisements in the Washington Times "promot[ing] the Minuteman Border Fence as an ‘Israeli-style' barrier ‘based on the fences used in Gaza and the West Bank.' Fundraising illustrations depict a 6-foot trench and coils of concertina wire backed by a 15-foot steel-mesh fence crowned with bulletproof security cameras. Estimated cost: $150 per foot."

The SPLC also reported that since Memorial Day, volunteers have "erected just over two miles of five-strand barbed wire attached to short metal posts. What they built is a standard cattle fence, costing about $1.50 per foot, or about one one-hundredth the cost of the advertised ‘Israeli-style' barrier."

The story in the Washington Times pointed out that "The Minuteman organization has not made any financial statements or fundraising records public since its April 2005 creation. It also has sought and received extensions of its federal reporting requirements and has not given the Minuteman leadership, its volunteers or donors any official accounting." Evidently, Simcox failed to follow through on his promise to deliver a financial statement to the Times by May.

"I agree that the Minuteman volunteers and those who donated money to us have a right to know how much has been collected and on what it has been spent, and I know there is a lot of concern in the ranks regarding finances," Simcox told the Times. "That's why I sought capable accountants to get those answers, and I intend to make them public as soon as they are available.

"'I can't wait for the final audit to answer and embarrass our critics, those who have tried to destroy this organization,' he said, blaming the concern about his leadership and accountability on open borders and anti-rule of law lobbyists, racists and 'those who were terminated from MCDC for violating our code of conduct.'"

According to the Washington Times, "Keyes has financially endorsed and supported the Minuteman organization as programs of Declaration Alliance and the Declaration Foundation, another Virginia-based charitable organization that he heads. He accused internal MCDC critics of being ‘decidedly racist and anti-Semitic,' saying they had been removed as members of the Minuteman organization.

"'I personally applaud Chris Simcox for his diligent adherence to a rigorous standard that weeds out bigots from the upstanding, patriotic mainstream Americans who participate in the Minuteman citizens' border watch effort that I am proud to support,' Keyes said.

"Keyes said that MCDC is in the process of applying to the IRS for nonprofit status and that those responsible are ‘adhering to all relevant federal regulations.' He called concerns over finances and accountability ‘groundless,' saying they were being ‘bandied about by members of anti-immigrant and racialist groups, and other unsavory fringe elements attempting to hijack the border security debate to further their individual agendas.'

"He also said Declaration Alliance's involvement with the Minuteman organization is based on his belief that border security is a fundamental issue affecting national security, sovereignty and public safety.

"'I have wished to do all in my power to assist the Minutemen's growth into a national civic movement as quickly as possible - as the public exposure of the lawless state of our southern border is a matter of utmost urgency,' he said, adding that his ‘organizational team has an established history of effective issues advocacy, grass-roots activism, political campaigning, financial accountability, regulatory compliance and fundraising.'"

Through examining the financial records of Minuteman PAC, Inc., a political action committee formed this year and chaired by Simcox that is registered with the Federal Elections Commission and is therefore required by federal law to file periodic financial reports, the Southern Poverty Law Center's investigative team found the Minuteman PAC "received $214,015 in donations [by mid-July] -- money above and beyond what MCDC raised -- and disbursed $97,076, leaving cash on hand of $116,939."

Of this total, only $5,000 was given out "in campaign donations at the time of the FEC filing. The vast majority of Minuteman PAC expenditures -- $87,432 -- went to pay direct-mail fundraising and advertising bills."

The SPLC reported that "The five politicians who received Minuteman PAC donations of $1,000 each are U.S. Reps. John Hostettler (R-Ind.), Tom Tancredo (R-Co.), and Steve King (R-Iowa); Arizona congressional candidate Randy Graf; and Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist, who ran for Congress last year in Orange County, Calif., and lost."

A mid-August update by the Washington Times indicated that the group's financial state is still a mystery. The newspaper reported that the Stafford, Texas-based American Caging Inc., the firm "that manages hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps" said that it had "not been authorized to divulge a detailed accounting of the funds, despite assurances" by MCDC President Chris Simcox "that it would do so."

According to the Washington Times, American Caging "manages money collected by nonprofit groups, their telemarketers and direct-response agencies," which "give[s] nonprofit organizations the ability to receive and disburse donations without having to hire a staff.

"In addition to MCDC, the firm's clients include Declaration Foundation, Declaration Alliance and the Declaration Alliance Political Action Committee. It also has handled funds for ... Keyes' unsuccessful political campaigns, including his failed 2004 senatorial race in Illinois, for which it was paid $30,530.

"American Caging also handles other clients aligned with MCDC, ... Keyes and the Alliance organizations, including Diener Consulting Inc., which serves as the Minuteman group's public-relations arm, as it did in Mr. Keyes' unsuccessful presidential and senatorial campaigns; and Renew America, a fundraising organization founded by Mr. Keyes that provides a link for donations to MCDC through Declaration Alliance."

American Caging clients also includes Response Unlimited and RightMarch.com, "which raised $500,000 for Mr. Keyes' 2004 senatorial campaign and helps raise Minuteman donations through a link on its Web page to Declaration Alliance."

Keyes' long strange trip

For more than two decades Alan Keyes -- one of the earliest of the modern day Black conservatives raised up and promoted by the conservative movement -- has been more than a just a mere curiosity.

Despite a long string of electoral defeats, he continues to be one of the hard right's most dependable and outspoken Black social conservatives.

In the 1980s, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Keyes was appointed Ambassador to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations and then became U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations. In 1987, according to Wikipedia, "Keyes vehemently defended the Reagan policy against the imposition of economic sanctions on South Africa as punishment for apartheid."

Keyes' electoral ambitions have been consistently thwarted by a series of resounding defeats: In 1988, he was badly beaten by Senator Paul Sarbanes in the race for Maryland's Senate seat. Four years later, Democrat Barbara Mikulski trounced him as he managed to garner only 29 percent of the vote. In its profile of Keyes, Wikipedia pointed out that he "was criticized when reports came out that he had paid himself a salary from campaign funds of approximately $8,500 each month, for a total of around $100,000."

In 1996 and 2000 Keyes waged unsuccessful campaigns for the Republican Party's presidential nomination. While many on the Religious Right considered him to be the most articulate and conservative candidate in the field, here too, questions were raised about Keyes financial management: "Federal election documents and court records showed that Keyes owed $524,169 from his two presidential campaigns, as well as $381 in unpaid state income taxes in Maryland," Wikipedia noted. "All charges were dismissed or settled in 2004 before Keyes accepted an invitation by the Illinois Republican Party to run for office in that state." Keyes was humiliated by Barack Obama in that state's Senate race.

Keyes remains extremely active. In early July, he was in Florida campaigning for Randall Terry, the longtime anti-abortion activist who is hoping to win the Republican primary to run for a seat in the state Senate. In mid-August, he was the keynote speaker at the Christians Against Human Cloning rally in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Organized by Rick Scarborough of Vision America, the rally was geared toward building support for defeating the state's upcoming stem-cell research ballot initiative.

Keyes has hosted radio talk shows, and for 23 weeks he hosted a talk show on cable television's MSNBC, which was cancelled due to dismal ratings in June 2002.

Financial scandals, dismal television ratings and a host of electoral defeats have not stymied Keyes. By latching on to Chris Simcox, he has apparently found another movement that has fit his political agenda as well as filled his coffers.