CLEVELAND, OH – As the manager of a 501.c3 non-profit organization that receives tax deductible contributions, chief executive officer Daniel P. Moulthrop, an award winning journalist according to his biography, is supposed to know the federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) laws the City Club of Cleveland cannot violate.
The Berkeley University graduate has been on the job since 2013 or 9 years. If he has not mastered the limited number of federal laws and regulations that apply to his $182,000 a year job after 9 years, Moulthrop’s answer to his board once they learn of and read the IRS complaint will be telling. With all his education and the few federal laws associated with running a “free speech citadel,” Moulthrop would be hard pressed to admit to the City Club’s board he didn’t know he was creating a tax liability.
At 12:17 p.m. on April 21, 2022, I called 216-621-0082 and left a message for Moulthrop that I was filing a complaint with the IRS that identified acts of campaign intervention he had engaged in as the manager of one 501.c3 non-profit; and board chairman of another. I emailed the complaint to the IRS at 2:53 p.m. At 3:54 p.m. I emailed a copy to Moulthrop as an FYI. It had been 3 hours and 37 minutes since I’d left him a voice message. He emailed the following words at 3:56 p.m. within two minutes.
“Wow. You didn’t even give me a chance to call you back. Have good day.”
I informed the IRS that I am a legally-qualified Republican candidate for Congress in the 11th Congressional District. Moulthrop scheduled a City Club forum for Nina Turner on April 8 and United States Representative Shontel Brown on April 15. Both events were broadcast over public airwaves WVIZ was granted License No. 0000148052 to use on September 8, 2021 until it expires on October 1, 2029.
In this case Moulthrop’s campaign intervention draws WVIZ into another FCC drama. This time over reasonable access and equal opportunities that provide each candidate with equal time. In 1997 Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition filed an equal employment complaint against WVIZ with the FCC.
What I am alleging is that Moulthrop, a Democrat, violated federal “campaign intervention” prohibitions on 501.c3 non-profits. He also caused WVIZ to misuse the public airwaves to introduce the two “Democrats” to the City Club’s members and fans while denying equal access to the two legally qualified Republicans. Each Democrat, Turner and Brown, has already been given free public airwaves access to the City Club’s members and fans before the May 3, 2022 primary election. Neither spoke up for the federal laws and constitutional rights Moulthrop was violating.
My only communication with Moulthrop is the “Wow” email I received two minutes after he received my IRS complaint. It ended with “have good day” and not with a remedy to his campaign intervention violations of 501.c3 non-profit laws.
The complaint offers the additional Republican-suppressing proof of Moulthrop’s role as board chairman for the Ohio Debate Commission that was granted non-profit status in 2020. In that capacity Moulthrop’s organization scheduled a debate between two non-incumbent Democratic candidates for governor, John Cranston and Nan Whaley, while canceling one between two legally-qualified, non-incumbent Republican gubernatorial candidates, Joe Blyestone and Ron Hood.
Governor Richard Michael DeWine’s decision not to attend brought a cancellation from candidate and former United States Rep. Jim Renacci. Moulthrop decided the remaining two Republican candidates would not be heard like he did my opponent and I. The bottom line to my IRS complaint is that Moulthrop is misusing the non-profit status of two organizations, and the public airwaves, to intervene in partisan political campaigns in favor of the Democratic Party’s candidates.
On April 14, 2022, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel accused Commission on Presidential Debates board members of the type of partisanship Moulthrop is engaging in to help Democratic candidates. I forwarded her correspondence to the Commission to the IRS.
Moulthrop’s response to learning of my IRS complaint was to cast himself as a victim because I did not think of delaying it until he decided to return my call. The only statutorily-authorized relationship between Moulthrop and me as a candidate required him to offer me and my opponent equal access to WVIZ’s link to public airwaves. It required him to reach out to us and not the other way around.
A copy of the IRS complaint was forwarded to the Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com’s editorial staff. Notably AdvanceOhio Vice President Chris Quinn. The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com sponsor the City Club of Cleveland as a tax deductible write-off.
If the IRS agrees that Moulthrop dragged the 501.c3 non-profit into a campaign intervention the City Club of Cleveland loses it’s tax deductible status and has to pay taxes on its income. The tax break donors got is gone. The same with the Ohio Debate Commission.
My political affiliation is irrelevant. I’m an American with names of relatives who were Americans before the Civil War. The politically sneaky games Moulthrop’s playing are not American or in compliance with IRS laws. WVIZ carries the signal of federally-funded PBS so it has FCC issues because of Moulthrop.
