GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s Sept. 28 appearance during a Pennsylvania stop on Lance Wallnau’s “Courage Tour” may have broken nonprofit tax law.
Ziklag, the deep-pocketed but little known nonprofit that helped underwrite the Pentecostalism-meets-politics swing state tour, may also face trouble, ProPublica reported.
And the Department of Justice has informed Elon Musk that his $1 million giveaways to registered voters may violate federal election law. Musk, who has been embraced by Focus on the Family and other conservative groups, is using his social media site X and a $75 million PAC to elect Trump, who has said he would appoint Musk to a post in a second Trump administration.
Screenshot from Courage Tour website
As BNG reported, the Courage Tour is a get-out-the-vote road show featuring Christian nationalist historians (David and Tim Barton), far-right GOP officials (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene) and election deniers (Mark Finchem) that is visiting swing states that will decide who wins the 2024 election. Promo materials said the tour marks “the dawn of our nation’s Third Great Awakening.”
In Pennsylvania, tour organizers superficially distanced the tour from JD Vance’s appearance, including keeping Wallnau offstage and changing up the logos on stage, but tour advertising promoted the tour and Vance’s appearance together, raising red flags.
IRS regulations say 501(c)(3) organizations like Wallnau’s “are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” However, enforcement actions are rare.
Depending on who paid for Vance’s appearance, it may also qualify as an illegal in-kind donation to the Trump-Vance campaign, another violation of election laws.
The Courage Tour was underwritten by a $700,000 gift to Wallnau’s nonprofit from another 501(c)(3) nonprofit named Ziklag, which plans to spend $12 million influencing the 2024 elections for the GOP.
In the Old Testament, Ziklag is the Philistine city where David stayed before succeeding Saul as Israel’s king.
Today’s Ziklag is a secretive nonprofit funded by wealthy conservative Christian donors.
Today’s Ziklag is a secretive nonprofit funded by wealthy conservative Christian donors (including Hobby Lobby’s Green family and the billionaire Uihlein family) who want to make Seven Mountains Dominionist theology a practical reality in America by supporting a Christian takeover of politics and other areas of cultural influence.
Politico profiled Ziklag in July after accessing the group’s plans for the 2024 election, which include rallying conservative and Christian voters while working to suppress voting among other groups.
One private Ziklag video accessed by ProPublica and its partner Documented shows the group’s plans for rallies targeting white evangelicals: “Our plan is to mobilize grassroots support in seven key swing states through large-scale rallies, each anticipated to attract between 5,000 and 15,000 participants. These ‘Fire and Glory’ rallies will primarily target counties critical to the 2024 election outcome.”
Wallnau, a Ziklag adviser, said “Fire and Glory” sounded too much like “a Pentecostal rally,” and the Courage Tour was born.
Ziklag sees its $12 million voter mobilization effort as a “spiritual battle” and targets people in battleground states through three operations, Politico reported:
- Checkmate funded “election integrity groups” that seek to suppress voting and influence election results (Ziklag also has funded groups that worked to overturn the 2020 election results).
- Steeplechase partnered with Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, and other groups to use churches and pastors in their efforts.
- Watchtower galvanized voters with hot-button culture war “wedge” issues, including contrasting “transgender rights” with “parental rights.”
One Ziklag document says: “Transgender acceptance = Final sign before imminent collapse.”
Billionaire Elon Musk has been using both his personal wealth and his social media platform X to promote Trump and bash Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. But he halted his experiment in giving away $1 million each day to a registered voter who entered his “sweepstakes” after the Justice Department told him the scheme may violate election law.
X has been a font of election-related misinformation, including AI-generated deepfakes about Harris and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, according to The New York Times. Musk, who has 2 million followers on X, also has amplified partisan posts from groups accused of aiding Russia’s election misinformation campaigns.
Musk embraces neither orthodox Christian beliefs nor the family values of groups like Focus on the Family, but Focus’ Daily Citizen praised his “daring spirit.” “Musk’s boldness can and should inspire us,” said the article, which did not mention Musk’s work with Trump.
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