Backing for Astroturf Police Group for Harris Intentionally Hard to Trace

Backing for Astroturf Police Group for Harris Intentionally Hard to Trace


To paraphrase Bill Clinton lying under oath, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘protect’ is.” (The ‘Gander Newsroom/Facebook)

“National law enforcement group endorses Kamala Harris for president,” USA Today claimed Monday. “A group of national law enforcement leaders have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris weeks after the National Fraternal Order of Police backed former President Donald Trump.”

What group? And how do they square representing police with Harris having praised defunding them?

Police Leaders for Community Safety, calling itself “a new force in the policy debates around policing, crime and public safety issues. We have been on the front lines and we know what works – and what needs to change.”

So, who are these “nonpartisan national law enforcement leaders”?

They profile their board of directors and their national advisory board, and if Chair Sue Riseling, retweeting posts from Occupy Democrats, Joe Biden, and Robert Reich is a good indicator of prevailing political sentiments, we’re basically talking about career trough-feeders/armed leftists with a badge. And more than that.

“Police Leaders for Community Safety endorsement of HARRIS looks like an Ops,” X poster Futurist claims, backing up the allegation with documentation of “more FBI backgrounds among their leadership. This is a law enforcement ops to create a last minute false endorsement of Harris. Why hasn’t the media shared any of this public information?”

And their thoughts on armed citizens? Predictable.

“We are calling on Congress to make our communities safer by enacting laws to keep guns out of dangerous hands,” they declare. “Police Leaders for Community Safety supports universal background checks and extreme risk protection (ERPO) laws to prevent individuals who are a danger to themselves or others from possessing firearms. We support regulating military style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines and stopping the proliferation of untraceable ‘ghost’ guns – firearms put together by individuals with unregulated components.”

When it comes to the Second Amendment, they’re also oath breakers. And they’re not done:

“Police Leaders advocates for the aggressive prosecution of gun crimes, and proper funding of law enforcement agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Centers for Disease Control’s research on gun violence,” they add.

So, they’re not just collectivist gun-grabbers, they’re “Only Ones,” a term I coined after DEA Agent Lee Paige informed a classroom full of school kids he was “the only one in this room professional enough” to carry a gun — and then shot himself in the leg trying to holster it. I curate such stories to amass a credible body of evidence to present when those who would deny our right to keep and bear arms use the argument that only government enforcers are professional and trained enough to do so safely and responsibly.

While we know some of the personalities involved, what we don’t know is who is funding them, and that looks deliberate. Their website is registered through a proxy, and no entry appears on Candid’s Guidestar nonprofit reporting site.

Acting on a hunch (Riseling is from Wisconsin, as is Treasurer David Mahoney) I checked the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions corporate records, and there it was, with an interesting entity type: “Foreign Non-Stock Corporation” — a corporation organized under the laws of another jurisdiction (in this case, Delaware), and a physical address going to a UPS store in Madison.

They’re not particularly interested in being straightforward about who’s behind them, and the secrecy is reminiscent of a series of reports I did back in 2013-2014 about how Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group had quietly been registering its lobbying efforts in several states. The Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Group, a 501(c)(4) corporation, had registered with numerous states, and curiously, in Delaware.

Also curiously, per Delaware’s Department of Corporations entity search, the registered agent for both Police Leaders for Community Safety and the Everytown Federal Victory Fund is the Corporation Trust Company in Wilmington. In fairness, that may just be coincidental, as CTC is the go-to player in registration that, per Atlas Obscura, services corporate behemoths like “Google, Apple, Walmart, American Airlines, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Coca-Cola,” and companies registered to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Here the trail doesn’t exactly run cold but takes a time-consuming detour that cannot be completed in time for this report. To find out more about Police Leaders, site visitors can obtain “more detailed information including current franchise tax assessment, current filing history,” but there’s a caveat:

“Officer and Director names and addresses are maintained on the images of the annual reports and are not available through this application. If you wish to order a copy of an annual report please call 302-739-3073 for more information.”

I called, and was directed to access “Services,” then “Document Filing and Certificate Request Information” on the website, which display the prominent message:

“Due to the high volume of request, it is taking longer than normal to process requests.”

All we can say at this time is tying Police Leaders into a specific larger gun prohibition group like Everytown is potentially coincidental and circumstantial: It does fit their past M.O., and they are still ramrodding gun-grabs through the states, as exemplified by a CBS “News” piece featuring “reporter” Jennifer Mascia of the Bloomberg-seeded The Trace bemoaning the lack of state ballot initiative gun grabs. It nonetheless reveals a major divide-and-conquer game plan going forward.

What’s clear is somebody with resources and connections is behind them and they’re keeping the “who” close to the vest on purpose. And some in the type of media Tim Walz wants to ban as “not protected by the First Amendment misinformation” are catching on to it, as some recent reports in “conservative” venues reveal:

“Harris endorsement by ‘police leaders’ group is really a bait and switch by radical liberal activists,” Invest USA concludes. “Law Enforcement Group Backing Kamala Harris Exposed as a Sham,” PJ Media weighs in.

Such reports are vital, but their reach is limited to niche audiences interested in being informed with truth. As for what the majority of the voting public will be exposed to, simply enter “Police Leaders for Community Safety” and search under Google’s “News” tab:

  • National law enforcement group endorses Kamala Harris for president
  • Newly-formed national law enforcement org endorses Harris for president
  • Harris-Trump showdown: Leading law enforcement group takes sides in presidential election
  • Harris gets stunning endorsement from group that normally backs Trump

You get the picture. But anyone relying on those sources, meaning most voters, won’t, and that’s the plan. They’ll think police back Kamala Harris and remain oblivious to a special interest shadow group trying to swindle them out of their rights by manipulating information to influence the election, with the full backing of “the media.”

They mean to “win” this election by hook or by crook. And if they get away with it, they mean to rule the same way.


About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

David Codrea






Source link