While he was a sitting U.S. Senator, Barack Obama attempted to steer $10 million in taxpayer money to a Chicago nonprofit under investigation for potential fraud, according to an email sent by the nonprofit’s then-director of operations.
Former Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) director of operations Vincent Davis sent an email dated June 10, 2007 to Eric Brandmeyer, an official at an Illinois hospital trying to implement SALF’s controversial first-aid training programs at a local school district. Davis assured Brandmeyer that public funding for SALF would remain strong in the aftermath of a local media report on the group’s potentially fraudulent activities.
“Naturally, I am aware of the recent press from ABC of Chicago and am concerned about SALF funding. Please give me your thoughts on the future of SALF funding in our area,” Brandmeyer wrote to Davis on June 5, 2007.
“All is ok regarding funding, and we are getting Obama to help push through our legislation for an additional 10 million which is part of the Homeland Security bill,” Davis wrote in his June 10 reply email.
SALF officials believed that their organization would be the intended recipient of at least $10 million in federal funding from the Community Response System Initiative (CRSI) Act of 2006, introduced by then-Minnesota senator Norm Coleman.
Davis’ email also disparaged the reporting of ABC of Chicago reporter Chuck Goudie and whistleblower Peter Heimlich, who helped bring SALF’s potential fraud to light in 2006.
“I’m not surprised that Mr. Davis would make false and absurd allegations about me and reporter Chuck Goudie,” Heimlich told The Daily Caller. “Since hardly any kids received first aid training, what happened to the millions of tax dollars awarded to SALF for that purpose?”
Davis did not immediately return a request for comment for this story, but he told the Dubuque Telegraph Herald that his email does not necessarily mean that Obama was more invested in SALF’s future than other Illinois politicians of the time.
“Some supported it, others didn’t. As far as any specific person supporting it, I don’t recall at this point which ones did and which ones didn’t,” Davis said. “There was probably other emails (that mentioned other legislators). There was nothing special about this one.”
As The Daily Caller reported, Democratic Illinois senator Dick Durbin, a former SALF “Advisory Council” member, also urged a U.S. Senate subcommittee chairman to appropriate $1 million in federal funds for SALF in 1999
The Save-A-Life Foundation is reportedly under investigation for misappropriating potential millions of dollars in taxpayer money by the Illinois Attorney General’s Charitable Trusts Bureau.