By: Mike Mustiglione
The IRS has agreed to look into an allegation that the Whitney Museum created a “smear campaign” to oust longtime board member, Warren Kanders, because his company makes tear gas canisters and other law enforcement equipment. As reported by the NY Post, Neal Sher, formerly a federal prosecutor and well-known Nazi hunter, requested that the IRS to revoke the museum’s tax-exemption status, accusing it of buckling under pressure from an anarchist group that wanted Kanders out.
Kanders was coerced to resign from the museum board last year, because of his company, Safariland Group, a police equipment supplier, which protesters claimed supplied the tear gas used on rioters, Mexican immigrants at the US border, and in Gaza against civilians. The group targeted and protested against Kanders and his family for months. The Jacksonville, Fla.-based company has since agreed to sell off two of its business segments, which dealt with tear gas and other crowd control products.
Sher complained, writing two letters to the IRS in May and June, alleging that the Whitney board “pressured” Kanders, who had served as the museum’s vice-chairman, to resign after Decolonize This Place, a radical group, demanded he be ousted. Decolonize This Place has been dubbed by Police Commissioner Dermot Shea as a “criminal” group. Its members had gone on a rampage in subways in January, stranding hundreds of commuters, spray painting obscenities against police and leaving $100,000 in damages.
The same anarchists were permitted to protest for months outside and inside the Whitney Museum of American Art, located in Lower Manhattan, and had also harassed Kanders outside his home in Gramercy Park, Sher said. Kanders had donated over $10 million to the museum. His wife, Allison, who was the co-chairwoman of the painting and sculpture committee, also resigned together with her husband.
“Those who support the Whitney have every right to expect, indeed to demand, that their donations be used for legitimate charitable purposes, rather than be hijacked to advance unrelated political causes,” said Sher.
