The Daily Caller – by Charles C. Johnson
The “charity” run by President Barack Obama’s half-brother that was fast-tracked for IRS tax-exempt status is based at a Virginia UPS store, according to its website.
The organization’s IRS filings list another Virginia address that is actually a drug rehab center where the foundation does not appear ever to have been based.
The Barack H. Obama Foundation is run by Abon’go “Roy” Malik Obama, the half-brother of Barack Obama.
As first reported by The Daily Caller, the foundation was speedily approved for IRS exemption by Lois Lerner, the IRS senior official at the center of the targeting of conservative organizations that have waited over two years to receive tax exempt status.
The charity was even given retroactive tax-exempt status despite never having bothered to apply for it. And its history of soliciting donations before receiving tax-exempt status was apparently overlooked.
The address listed on the site barackhobamafoundation.org is 107 S. West St. #401, Alexandria, Va., which houses a UPS store on a street that includes a tailor, a Catholic Charities thrift shop and a Gold Works jewelry store.
“They probably just rent a mailbox here or receive mail here,” said a UPS employee when asked if the store was the address for the Barack H. Obama Foundation. She did not know if Malik Obama, who his website says divides his time between Kenya and Virginia, had been in to the store.
A visit to the UPS store revealed that there is a mailbox numbered 401.
The address listed in the group’s IRS filings — 4201 Wilson Blvd. Ste 110-152, Arlington, Va. 22030 — is even more suspicious, as it is a marketing center for A Better Today Recovery Services — a drug-and-alcohol treatment organization.
A receptionist who answered the phone at A Better Today said neither she nor anybody in the office had heard of the Barack H. Obama Foundation. She said A Better Today had been located at the Arlington address for “a couple years.” The IRS filings that list the Arlington address as the foundation’s headquarters were dated May 2011.
“I don’t know if it’s listed wrong or what’s going on, but we have never heard of that,” the receptionist said, adding that A Better Today had never received calls or correspondence related to the Barack H. Foundation.
Although the future president’s 1995 book “Dreams From My Father” depicted the foundation’s namesake, Barack H. Obama, Sr., as a heavy drinker who lost both legs in a car accident, the foundation does not appear to take any interest in addiction treatment.
The foundation’s mission statement is “to provide people everywhere with resources to uplift their welfare and living standards in memory of Barack H. Obama: in the region of his birth, Kenya, and beyond.”
Its guiding principle is “the inherent belief that no one can truly enjoy the riches he has reaped if his neighbor suffers. … We seek to elevate the human condition so that everyone can live in dignity and truly enjoy having one another as neighbors.”
Despite raising more than $250,000, the alleged charity doesn’t seem to have done much. Its website claims the organization has built a madrassa and was building an imam’s house as well as some “proposed latrines,” but there is no other evidence that the nonprofit was working to “mitigate social-shortcomings in areas of education and literacy, health and well-being, poverty, and lack of community infrastructure in such basic needs such as water, electricity, shelter and sustenance,” as the site says.
Alton Ray Baysden, a former Department of State employee and registered Republican who helped to start the foundation, declined to comment before seeing copies of this reporter’s passport and government ID, along with a description of the article’s “motivation” and “slant.”
Repeated phone calls to the Barack H. Foundation went to the organization’s voicemail and were not returned.