Right-Wing Legal Crusades Have Made This Ex-Trump Lawyer Super Rich

Andrew Perez
·9 min read
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Evangelical lawyer Jay Sekulow, who defended Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial, is still cashing in on the former president’s misdeeds. 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.”

Nonprofit lawyers and ethics watchdog groups have for years raised questions about the business relationships between Sekulow’s nonprofit network and companies owned by family members, as well as its spending on private jets and homes used by the Sekulow family.

“To me, this one screams of a problem,” said Bob Lord, a senior adviser on tax policy at Patriotic Millionaires, a nonpartisan organization concerned with inequality. “Basically, what this guy has done is he’s used a charity to make himself rich.”

Sekulow and his nonprofit network did not respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment. He and the network have long dismissed concerns about the business relationships.

Sekulow, 67, one of the most influential evangelical lawyers in the country, was raised Jewish on Long Island. After his family moved to Atlanta, he attended a local bible college. He converted after his future wife, a Christian, invited him to attend an event with “Jews for Jesus.”

When the late conservative televangelist Pat Robertson founded the American Center for Law and Justice in 1990, he hired Sekulow to be its chief counsel. Today, the ACLJ acts as a conservative litigation hub and also broadcasts the Sekulow family’s TV and radio shows.

Most of the money that flows into ACLJ is raised by another organization called Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism. The organizations are tax-exempt charities, and donations to the groups are tax deductible. Sekulow serves on ACLJ’s board of directors; he and three of his relatives sit on the CASE board.

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.

One of the homes is based in Washington, D.C., next to the ACLJ office. The second home is in Virginia Beach. According to Accountable.US, CASE spent $2.7 million to buy, renovate, and furnish those homes. CASE sold the third home, in North Carolina, to Sekulow’s wife in 1997, and loaned her the money to purchase it, Legal Times reported.

Sekulow told the news outlet that the homes are not exclusively used by his family.

Under IRS regulations, charities must operate for public benefit, and not the benefit of private individuals. As such, charities are prohibited from providing “excess benefits” to “insiders” who have control or influence over their operations. This means that while charities can do business with such individuals, they cannot be paid more than fair market value for their services.

“In my view, anytime you see that number of related-party transactions, and you see a large amount of assets going to the same person or the same family over a considerable period of time, that is something the IRS should review,” said Marc Owens, a lawyer at Loeb & Loeb LLP who previously served as director of the exempt organizations division at the IRS.

A Sekulow spokesperson said in 2017 that “the IRS has previously conducted audits of the ACLJ and CASE and found them to be in full compliance of all applicable tax laws.”

Nonprofits are not required to publicly disclose their donors, so the extent to which Sekulow’s charities rely on support from the ultra-wealthy is not clear. However, unlike many conservative legal groups — which are often funded by billionaires, titans of industry, or their heirs — Sekulow’s network aggressively courts small donors.

In 2009, amid the fallout of the global financial crisis, telemarketers for CASE were directed to press poor and unemployed respondents to “make a small sacrificial gift of even $20,” as part of contracts that were signed by Sekulow, The Guardian has reported. The donations, according to a telemarketing script, were needed to fight efforts by liberal activists “to undermine our traditional Christian values.”

Over the course of his legal career, Sekulow has personally argued a dozen cases before the Supreme Court, including two cases seeking to reduce limits on protests outside abortion clinics.

ACLJ frequently files amicus briefs, known as “friend of the court filings,” with the Supreme Court, providing justices with legal rationales to rule certain ways and take up specific cases. These briefs carry significant weight now that conservatives have a 6-3 supermajority on the high court, after Trump appointed three justices.

Some of the biggest recent conservative victories at the Supreme Court have featured briefs from ACLJ, including Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the case in which justices overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban abortion. ACLJ also filed briefs in the cases where the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in college admissions, blocked Biden’s plan to cancel $430 billion in federal student loan debt, and struck down a New York law requiring a license to carry concealed weapons in public places, a common gun-control measure.

In cases the Supreme Court will hear this term, ACLJ has filed briefs urging justices to limit the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone and either “repudiate or overrule” the so-called Chevron doctrine, a landmark administrative law principle that empowers federal agencies to interpret and implement statutes.

ACLJ also called on the Supreme Court to review the corruption conviction of a mayor who took a $13,000 gratuity in connection with a garbage truck contract. The court, which has worked to narrow the definition of corruption, decided to take the case.

Sekulow is now hoping to argue his most consequential case yet before the Supreme Court. Last week, he and ACLJ petitioned the court, on behalf of the Colorado Republican Party, calling on justices to review and overturn the Colorado secretary of state’s decision to keep Trump off the state’s 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot, on the grounds that the former president engaged in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution by inciting the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Supreme Court is widely expected to hear the case, which could have a major impact on the presidential race. While many of the efforts to disqualify Trump under the 14th Amendment have been dismissed, a dozen states still have pending challenges, and Maine’s secretary of state blocked Trump from her state’s ballot last week.

“We filed at the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday, fighting for the rights of Americans to vote for the candidates of their choice,” Sekulow wrote last week on X (formerly Twitter). “This battle requires immense resources. We need you. If you donate today, your tax-deductible gift is TRIPLED. Donate now.”

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