Ex-Trump Lawyer Jay Sekulow Rakes in $145 Million in Donations, Begs Supporters For More Cash: Report

As states consider whether to disqualify Trump from their ballots for engaging in insurrection, Sekulow and his family have been working furiously to raise money for their campaign to keep the Republican primary frontrunner on state ballots — a fight he’s now brought before the Supreme Court. 

“This is a judicial emergency — we need you to stand with us,” Sekulow said last week on a radio show he hosts with his son, calling on viewers to donate as part of his nonprofit network’s giving drive. “We’ve got the biggest Supreme Court case in our history, right here at the end of the year. We’ve got one set of briefs filed; there’s going to be multiple more. The work does not stop.”

This latest Trump defense project is being led through Sekulow’s right-wing litigation and advocacy machine, which has made the lawyer and his family very wealthy. Since 2001, the nonprofit network has funneled more than $145 million to Sekulow, his relatives, and companies affiliated with the family, according to research compiled by the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US. 

In recent years, the family’s nonprofit legal network has helped lay the groundwork for Supreme Court decisions overturning federal protection for abortion rights, invalidating a common gun control measure, ending affirmative action at universities, and striking down President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan. 

“Jay Sekulow is the latest case of textbook right-wing MAGA grift,” said Accountable.US president Caroline Ciccone. “These extremists will stop at nothing to force their radical, unpopular agenda on everyday Americans while personally profiting — this time to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.” 

Telemarketers for the nonprofit, Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism (Case), were instructed in contracts signed by Sekulow to urge people who pleaded poverty or said they were out of work to dig deep for a “sacrificial gift.”

“I can certainly understand how that would make it difficult for you to share a gift like that right now,” they told retirees who said they were on fixed incomes and had “no extra money” – before asking if they could spare “even $20 within the next three weeks.”

In addition to using tens of millions of dollars in donations to pay Sekulow, his wife, his sons, his brother, his sister-in-law, his niece and nephew and their firms, Case has also been used to provide a series of unusual loans and property deals to the Sekulow family…

For years, the nonprofits have made a notable amount of payments to Sekulow and his family, which were first reported by Law.com. Since 2000, a law firm co-owned by Sekulow, the Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group, has been paid more than $25m by the nonprofits for legal services.

During the same period, Sekulow’s company Regency Productions, which produces his talk radio show, was paid $11.3m for production services.

Sekulow also personally received other compensation totalling $3.3m. Pam Sekulow, his wife, has been paid more than $1.2m in compensation for serving astreasurer and secretary of Case. Sekulow’s brother, Gary, the chief operating officer of the nonprofits, has been paid $9.2m in salary and benefits by them since 2000.

Gary Sekulow has stated in Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filings that he works 40 hours per week – the equivalent of a full-time job – for each of the nonprofits. Filers are told to specify if any of the hours were spent on work for “related organizations.” He does not.

Meanwhile, a company run by Gary’s wife, Kim Sekulow, has received $6.2m since 2000 in fees for media production services and for the lease of a private jet, which it owned jointly with Jay Sekulow’s company Regency Productions. The jet was made available for the use of Jay and Pam Sekulow, according to corporate filings.

Jay’s two sons, and Gary’s son and daughter, have also shared at least $1.7m in compensation for work done for the nonprofits since 2000. Federal law bars insiders at a nonprofit from receiving “excess benefit”, which is defined as payment exceeding the fair market value for goods or services the insider provides.

If the IRS finds that an excess benefit has been paid, the recipient may be fined 200% of the benefit’s value, and the nonprofit could be stripped of its valuable tax-exempt status.

CASE and ACLJ have together paid about $28 million in salaries to Sekulow and members of his family since 2001, according to the Accountable.US research. That figure is just the beginning: The charities have paid tens of millions of dollars to companies owned or co-owned by Sekulow family members. 

Since 2003, ACLJ has paid nearly $81 million to the Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group, a law firm co-owned by Sekulow, according to Accountable.US. CASE paid another $2.3 million to the firm for legal, TV, and radio production services between 2003 and 2005.

ACLJ’s 2022 tax return lists $8.4 million in payments to the Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group. That document, filed in August 2023, says Sekulow owns 50 percent of the firm. “This entity has been reviewed by an expert independent third party, and the fees were found to be reasonable for the type of services provided to the organization,” the document states. 

CASE has paid $21 million since 2001 to Regency Productions, a company owned by Sekulow that produces his radio show, according to Accountable.US. Those payments were mostly for TV, radio, and media production, although some of it went toward aircraft and property leases. 

Since 2003, CASE has paid roughly $14 million to PFMS of Georgia, a company owned by Sekulow’s sister-in-law. The bulk of the money went toward radio and TV advertising services; the company also paid for aircraft and storage space leases. 

The Associated Press previously reported that CASE had entered into “an unusual arrangement” where the nonprofit was paying to lease a plane co-owned by “for-profit companies controlled by Jay Sekulow and his sister-in-law.” According to Accountable.US, CASE has paid $2.8 million to Regency Productions and PFMS of Georgia for aircraft leases.

“The financial arrangements between ACLJ, CASE, and other entities have been reviewed by outside independent experts and are in compliance with all tax laws,” a Sekulow spokesperson told The Associated Press.

In 2005, Legal Times published a report titled “Jay Sekulow’s Golden Ticket,” which detailed how his family’s charities had supported “a lavish lifestyle.” Among the findings: CASE had paid millions to buy two homes used by Sekulow and his family, and helped his wife purchase another home.