The anarchists have rich friends

Maxine Bernstein at the O does a heck of a job. If only this town had 10 of her.

Today she turns up an interesting angle on the anarchist rioter story, although you have to scroll down quite a way to find it. Perhaps the most notorious alleged rioter of them all, a guy from Indiana named Malik Muhammad, made bail thanks to a nonprofit organization called the Portland Freedom Fund, which apparently is being run out of Milwaukie, Oregon, of all places. They put up more than $200,000 in cool cash to spring the guy.

The $212,500 provided to bail Muhammad out of jail was the largest donation that the Portland Freedom Fund made in a single case to get someone out of custody pending trial, according to its president Amanda Trujillo. It was substantially higher than the prior largest donation of $35,000, she said. The fund has posted bail for just under 100 people since the beginning of 2020, she said...

The fund’s website describes it as a “volunteer-run abolitionist organization” that is dedicated to “reducing harms perpetuated against our Black, Brown and Indigenous neighbors by the criminal justice system through posting bail so they may navigate their case from a position of freedom.” The fund is supported through donations and grant support, and its fiscal sponsor is Northwest Alliance for Alternative Media and Education, according to its president.

Trujillo, based in Milwaukie, said by email, that the fund has an estimated $600,000 “wrapped up with the state right now.”

All arrestees have a right to bail, within limits, and if people want to give money so that this seemingly dangerous guy can roam around a free man before he goes on trial, it's their right, too. But who are these people? I mean, the ones writing the checks.

I tried to get more information on the Northwest Alliance for Alternative Media and Education, which at least at one time was on the IRS list of charitable organizations. But the last IRS filing I can find is from 2009. The Portland Freedom Fund is not registered with the IRS at all; though it does file corporate annual reports with the state, they don't show much.

On its website, the Northwest Alliance for Alternative Media and Education describes itself this way:

The Northwest Alliance for Alternative Media and Education is a non-profit dedicated to creating alternative media content, connecting local media makers and capacity-building amongst community groups dedicated to social justice. The organization’s mission is to amplify the work of alternative radio, print, film, and strategic media makers in the Pacific Northwest.

It's not easy to see how pungling up $200,000 to bail out the guy from Indiana fits that description. Wild stuff, to be sure.

Who's in charge of regulating nonprofits in Oregon, anyway? Oh yeah, that's right, yoo hoo!