Huckabee solicits funds from embattled televangelist

[AlCzervik]

Huckabee solicits funds from embattled televangelist
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2008 3:59 PM PT
By Lisa Myers, Jim Popkin and Rich Gardella, NBC News

Gov. Mike Huckabee, vastly outspent so far in his bid for the presidency, has turned for funding to a controversial televangelist who is under active Senate investigation. Late last month, Gov. Huckabee held a fundraiser at the Texas estate of millionaire televangelist Kenneth Copeland, his spokesman tells NBC News.

The U.S. Senate currently is investigating Copeland, and five other televangelists, amid allegations that they are improperly using millions in charitable donations for their personal benefit, and, in the process, fleecing their flock. Copeland and the other televangelists have strongly denied those allegations.

“The Huckabee Event was not hosted by Ken Copeland or anyone employed by the church,” a spokesman for Kenneth Copeland Ministries tells NBC. “The Huckabee campaign rented a room at our facility and hosted a private function,” the spokesman says.

The event raised about $100,000 for Huckabee's campaign and nearly $1 million more in pledges, according to a blog report by Doug Wead, a former Republican strategist with close ties to the evangelical community. A Huckabee spokeswoman did not dispute those figures but would not disclose any amounts. "Any funds raised by Mr. Copeland will be fully and properly disclosed in Governor Huckabee's FEC report," a Huckabee spokeswoman tells NBC.

At the time of the private fundraiser, Copeland was hosting a national ministers’ gathering at his headquarters. Hundreds of evangelical ministers were in town. Copeland’s spokesman says the fundraiser took place at the same location, but while the ministers’ gathering was out of session. “The Huckabee event was convened by his campaign and occurred while the church conference was not is session,” the spokesman says.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sent lengthy letters last November to Copeland and five other televangelists seeking hundreds of documents. Grassley, the lead Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, says he is following up on complaints from the public and the news media about the popular ministers. “The allegations involve governing boards that aren’t independent and allow generous salaries and housing allowances and amenities such as private jets and Rolls Royces,” Grassley writes.


More at link
http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/08/649745.aspx

[and-justice-for-all]

1. Private function sponsered by COPELAND. nt

[TwilightGardener]

2. Is that a tax-exempt organization, I wonder? I can't believe anyone thought

this yahoo might be Preznit.

[islandmkl]

3. Copeland...was that the dude who was going blind from all the ink in the 'prayer letters'...

which was like raising money because you were afflicted from raising money.