Our Revolution, a nonprofit started by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in 2016, lost $242,000 of funds raised to support a Standing Rock Sioux Native American tribe protest from an email hack, according to a Thursday Politico report.
The theft reportedly happened in December 2016 but was not discovered until the following month, so the loss was recorded in 2017 tax filings released earlier this month.
Per Politico, the FBI has classified the hack as “CEO impersonation,” meaning that the hackers made what looked like an ordinary wire transfer request from a vendor that often works with the group.
The organization ended up giving the tribe the money—raised to aid in the tribe’s protest of an oil pipeline being constructed nearby tribal lands—by shifting around other parts of the budget, though the original quarter million was never recovered.
I’m sorry to hear they got swindled but admire them for stepping up and finding the promised funds elsewhere.
So this is the new way the pipeline company is trying to suppress the protest?
They receive what looks like a bill from a vendor for a quarter of a million dollars and they pay it without blinking an eye?
His nonprofit must be used to handling large sums of money - hopefully they’ve now instituted better controls over their financial transactions.
A quarter million would have been a nice down payment on Bernie and Jane’s next summer home.
How much money do they have stocked up, in escrow or whatever the term is?