Influence of Obama's brother Abongo felt in Washington
IRS delivers response to tax-exempt designation request in 30 days
President Obama's half-brother, who runs a foundation that collects funds in the United States, was able to get approval of a tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service in an unheard-of time period of only a month, records reveal.
Barack Obama's half-brother Abongo Malik Obama, also known as "Roy" Obama, appears to have received the sudden IRS approval to operate as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization in only 30 days. The result was made retroactive for three years.
The Barack H. Obama Foundation, which runs out of a commercial mail drop in Arlington, Va., has solicited tax-deductible contributions on the Internet since 2008.
But it first submitted an application for its tax exemption in May and was granted the status in June, according to records.
Abongo Malik Obama continues to serve as the founder and president of the Barack H. Obama Foundation, which, since it was set up in 2008, has asked for tax-deductible contributions on the Internet, listing addresses and telephone numbers both in the U.S. and Kenya, but without disclosing the group lacked an IRS determination letter.
This week, the IRS confirmed to WND that the Barack H. Obama Foundation received a determination letter in June, awarding the group tax-exempt 501(c)3 status, retroactively to 2008.
When did the foundation file with the IRS?
Yet, as recently as last May, Alton Ray Baysden, a former State Department employee and director of the Barack H. Obama Foundation, at whose home the charity was founded in 2008, told the New York Post that the foundation had neglected to apply for tax-exempt status with the IRS.
"We haven't been able to find someone with the expertise to do this," Baysden told New York Post reporters Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein for a story published May 8.
"We are scouting for an executive director, someone who knows how to register the charity," he said.
The New York Post also reported that the foundation was not registered in Virginia at the time the article was written in May, despite a Virginia legal requirement that an organization register before soliciting donations in that state.
"Since one of the Obama Foundation's founders and directors, Mr. Alton R. Baysden, stated publicly in May 2011 that the foundation had not even applied for tax-exempt status, it is inconceivable that the IRS can now claim that the status was granted in June 2011, retroactive to 2008," Ken Boehm, the head of the National Legal and Policy Center, told WND.
In May, Boehm's group, also a 501(c)3 organization, filed an official complaint with the IRS asking for an investigation of why the Barack H. Obama Foundation was being allowed to solicit tax-deductible contributions from the public even though the foundation had not applied for or received an IRS determination.
"This appears to be political favoritism to the president's brother," Boehm told WND. "It cries out for an investigation."
Boehm said that receiving an IRS determination letter typically takes as long as six months after an organization seeking tax-exempt status has filed a formal application with the IRS.
The concern of the National Legal and Policy Center was that the foundation may have violated federal and/or state postal and tax laws by soliciting via the Internet and U.S. mail tax-deductible contributions without having made required filings and without having received necessary IRS tax-exempt determinations.
An automated voice message machine answered a WND phone call to the foundation's headquarters in Arlington, Va., to seek comment. WND received no return phone call.
Foundation's limited financial reporting
An IRS Form 990-EZ required for tax-exempt organizations was filed on May 23, only days before the IRS determination letter was sent.
The Form 990-EZ appears to have been hand-written by Abongo Malik Obama himself, complete with an unorthodox page of calculations evidently included to evidence the amounts entered into the form.
The form reported the foundation had received $24,250 total gross income for 2010, derived from contributions, gifts and grants.
"We were not very successful this year because of limited contributions," Abongo Malik Obama reported on the Form 990. "The Foundation sponsored a Youth Tournement (sic) and embarked on construction of community bridges."
The Form 990 listed Samuel Andika Obiero of Arlington, Va., and Andrew Mboya of Hackensack, N.J., as directors, in addition to Abongo Malik Obama.
The Form 990, filed only 12 days after the New York Post article referenced above was published, did not list Baysden as a director.
First page of foundation form 990
GuideStar.org, the private website that posts for public view IRS documents regarding nonprofit organizations, said for the Barack H. Obama Foundation no audited financial statements were available.
WND was unable to find any financials for the Barack H. Obama Foundation, going back to its origin in 2008, other than the five-page Form 990 filed for 2010.
As seen in Exhibit 1, the website homepage of the Barack H. Obama Foundation prominently features a photograph of Barack H. Obama Sr. and a statement that the foundation is "a fully tax-exempt (501(c)3) charitable organization."
Exhibit 1, Homepage of the Barack H. Obama Foundation
Born in Kenya to Kezia
Born in Kenya, on March 15, 1958, Abongo Malik "Roy" Obama was the first child born to Barack Obama Sr.
The son of Kezia, Obama Sr.'s first wife, Abongo Malik "Roy" Obama was only 18 months old when Barack Obama Sr. arrived in New York on a BOAC flight on Aug. 8, 1959, in transit from Kenya to begin his undergraduate studies at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.
Having abandoned Kezia in Kenya, Obama Sr. subsequently married Stanley Ann Dunham, Barack Obama Jr.'s mother, while in Honolulu.
In September 1962, Obama Sr. abandoned Stanley Ann Dunham and his second son, Barack Obama Jr., as he headed for Cambridge, Mass., to begin graduate studies in economics at Harvard University.
As WND previously reported, Barack Obama Sr., on Aug. 17, 1962, in filling an Immigration and Naturalization form requesting to extend his temporary stay in the United States, listed Roy Obama as his only child, neglecting to list Stanley Ann Dunham as his wife or Barack Obama, Jr. as his son.
A convert to Islam
Abongo Malik "Roy" Obama is a major character in Obama’s autobiography, "Dreams from My Father."
A key passage in the autobiography concerns Obama's reaction to his half-brother when Roy joins Barack to be the best man at his wedding to Michelle.
Noting that Roy had converted from Christianity to Islam, Obama wrote on page 441 that Roy had "sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol."
Obama continued: "Abongo's new lifestyle has left him lean and clear-eyed, and at the wedding, he looked so dignified in his black African gown with white trim and matching cap that some of our guess mistook him for my father."
Pointedly, Obama observed that Roy was "prone to make lengthy pronouncements on the need for the black man to liberate himself from the … influences of European culture."
As seen in Exhibit 2, Roy Obama was featured in a family portrait taken in one of Obama's earlier trips to Kenya, before he returned in 2006, as U.S. senator.
Exhibit 2, Obama family portrait taken in Kenya, Abongo Malik "Roy" Obama stands to Barack Obama Jr.'s immediate left
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Roy Obama surfaced, dressed in African garb and holding a photograph of Barack Obama, also wearing African garb, as seen in Exhibit 3.
Exhibit 3, Abongo Malik "Roy" Obama displays a 1980s-era photograph of Barack Obama in Kenya, wearing African garb
Roy Obama in Kenya, in a more recent photograph continues to display the 1980s-era photo of Barack Obama Jr. in Kenya wearing African garb.
Roy Obama still displays a 1980s-era photograph of Barack Obama in Kenya, wearing African garb
Earlier this year, Roy Obama caused a scandal in Kenya when at 52 years old he took as his third wife a 19-year-old girl.
According to "The Voice," an African news magazine in the Netherlands, Obama claimed that he is legally married to the woman and that the mother of the teenager had given her permission.
The mother, however, told the news magazine that here daughter abandoned her "to live with a man old enough to be her father."
A valid Social Security number
WND has determined that he has a valid Social Security number, issued in Washington, D.C., between 1985 and 1987, and associated with both the names "Roy Obama" and "Abongo Malik Obama," names that he appears to use interchangeably in the U.S.
A private investigative report commissioned by WND shows that Roy Obama has been identified since 1988 with 22 different rental addresses in the Washington, D.C., area, including addresses in Prince Georges County and Montgomery County, Md.
According to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times, Roy Obama, a frequent traveler between the U.S. and Kenya, has declared himself to be the "president" of Kyangoma-Koeglo, the family's ancestral village in Kenya.
WND was not able to determine the legal status of Roy Obama to live and work in the U.S.
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