The Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit that has seen a surge in funding after becoming a hub for President Donald J. Trump’s allies in Washington, has recorded paying at least $3.2 million to companies led by its own leaders or their relatives since the start of 2021. It is listed in .
The nonprofit’s three highest-paid contractors all had insider connections, according to its most recent tax filings.
One was led by the Institute’s Director, Edward Corrigan, and the other was led by the Chief Operating Officer. The third contractor’s board of directors included the group’s senior legal fellow, Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who supported President Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Last year, the Conservative Partnership Institute hired a fourth company linked to insiders – a fundraising firm run by Mr Corrigan’s brother, Patrick Corrigan. According to public filings, the company signed the contract three weeks before the company was legally incorporated.
The Conservative Partnership Institute applied to the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization and was approved by the agency. This means that donating to organizations, like donating to a food bank or the American Red Cross, is tax deductible. This also means that under the law, funds must serve the public interest rather than private interests.
Nonprofits have overcome these limitations by being tied to only one faction of American politics. It pays some of Trump’s former officials high salaries, hosts retreats at rural compounds for Republican lawmakers and funds efforts to vet people and ideas for a second Trump term.
Legal experts say this insider trading also raises concerns about self-dealing. Hiring insiders was acceptable if certain safeguards were in place, but the payments shifted funds to opaque entities that the nonprofit’s leaders helped control.
“There are no checks and balances,” said Michael West, an attorney for the New York Council of Nonprofits. “The potential for overpayment here is enormous,” Mr. West said, because there is no real third party to determine whether the insider-led company charged the nonprofit a fair price.
The Chairman of the Institute, Mr. Corrigan did not respond to questions about what steps the group had taken to ensure it was not overpaying insider companies. The companies did not disclose what fees they charge.
Only one insider with dual roles at nonprofits and suppliers responded to questions from The New York Times. Wesley Denton, the lab’s chief operating officer and a former Trump administration official, said he also received a salary from one of its suppliers, Compass Professional.
Mr. Denton’s annual compensation, including benefits from the institute, was $391,735. He declined to say how much he received from Compass Professional. He served on the boards of vendors and research institutes.
“We are proud to have helped launch a new, independent, not-for-profit service provider providing high-quality professional services,” Mr. Denton said in a written statement.
The institute’s donors include several Republican political campaigns and conservative businessmen. One of the major donors, retired Texas aviation entrepreneur Robert Bruce, said the nonprofit’s leaders did not tell him about using a vendor with insider connections.
“I’ve never had that conversation,” Bruce said in a phone interview.
He estimated he had donated “hundreds of thousands” of dollars to the institute. Mr. Bruce said he was not at all concerned that the nonprofit’s leaders were misusing the money. “I’ve known them for a long time,” he said. “They are good people.”
The Times traced relationships between group leaders and suppliers by examining charity and corporate filings filed with the federal government, five states and the District of Columbia.
The records do not show what share of the $3.2 million went to the institute’s top leaders and their families, only that the money went to companies where they served as owners or directors. In at least one case, the company failed to show that connection as required in its state filings.
The Conservative Partnership Institute was founded in 2017 by former South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint, who was ousted as president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative nonprofit organization. The group’s goal was to help conservatives wield power, and in 2017, Mr. DeMint said, “guide them through the Washington swamps without being infected with Potomac fever.”
When conservatives lost power, the Institute’s fundraising actually improved.
With Democrats in charge of Washington in 2021, the institute has hired former Trump aides, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. He began courting donors with a voice representing President Trump’s allies and ambitions.
Fundraising jumped from $7 million in 2020 to $45 million in 2021. The newly flushed nonprofit has purchased a 2,200-acre resort on Maryland’s eastern shore and a series of commercial buildings near the U.S. Capitol and plans a restaurant. School and TV studio. The group also holds workshops and seminars for conservative lawmakers and staff and has begun discovering new conservative nonprofits.
As the money flowed, the institute’s leaders began forming a series of companies in Delaware.
The first was Compass Professional. The first annual report included Edward Corrigan and Mr. A list of directors is given, including Denton.
Next up was Compass Legal Services. The initial filing lists directors including Mitchell and Charlotte Davis, one of the institute’s board members.
The group paid the company a total of $639,259 through the end of 2021, according to an audit filed with state charity regulators.
Federal law allows nonprofits like these to hire insiders as long as they properly disclose payments and ensure insiders are not overcharged. Legal experts still advise against this because of the temptation for insiders to abuse their power over charity funds.
“You have a duty to act in the best interest of the organization,” said Linda Sugin, a nonprofit law professor at Fordham University. “The problem is that when you’re on both sides of a deal, I’m skeptical that you’ll put the organization’s interests ahead of your own.”
Sujin said the institute could have reduced risk by soliciting bids from competing companies to gauge whether insiders were charging market rates. Her institute could have asked its leaders to recuse itself from the decision to hire her own firm, she said.
Mr. Corrigan and other leaders did not respond to questions about whether their group had taken such action.
If a nonprofit is found to have provided improper benefits to insiders, those insiders may face financial penalties from state or federal regulators. In extreme cases, the IRS can revoke a group’s tax exemption.
In 2022, a third Delaware company, Compass Property Management, was formed. Corporate filings list Mr. Denton as president.
The nonprofit paid a total of $2.6 million to three companies linked to the insider, according to an audit filed with the state. The institute said the payments were “for use of facilities, personnel, human resources and other professional services.”
How much of that went to insiders on those supplier boards?
Mr. Denton gave only a partial response.
He said suppliers do not pay board members just because they are board members.
But as in his case, Mr. Denton said companies may pay board members for other reasons “for performing employment duties for these organizations in addition to board work.” Compass Legal’s boss said in his statement that his company did not pay salaries to ‘outside directors’, but did not specify which directors were considered ‘outside directors’.
Compass Professional and Compass Legal have worked for other clients, including President Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and Gun Owners of America, according to federal campaign and charity filings. The company’s leaders did not respond to questions about how much of its business came from the Conservative Partnership Institute.
The most recent data on amounts paid by the Institute to the original three insider-linked companies is from 2022. Company filings show members of the company’s board have changed since then, but Conservative Partnership Institute leaders or their families remain on each board. .
Last year, the institute also hired a company partially owned by Patrick Corrigan, Compass Direct LLC, on a fundraising deal that will pay it $180,000 over the next year.
In a filing in North Carolina, the lab said the contract began July 1, 2023. But Patrick Corrigan’s company was not established until July 24, three weeks after it was awarded the contract.
In its own filing in North Carolina, Patrick Corrigan’s company was asked whether he was involved as a client of his brother’s nonprofit “as a parent, spouse, child or sibling of any officer, director, trustee or employee.”
In its 2023 and 2024 filings, the company said “no.” Patrick Corrigan signed the form.
After The Times pointed this out, Patrick Corrigan responded with a one-line email: “NC filings have been updated,” he wrote. He did not answer any other questions.
robert draper and julie tate contributed to the report.
