Jay Sekulow is not just another conservative lawyer. As the man who runs the American Center for Law and Justice, a religious right legal group started by TV preacher Pat Robertson, Sekulow has positioned himself as one of the most politically-connected lawyers in the conservative movement.
Indeed, Sekulow has become such an insider that he's one of a small handful of conservative activists who literally has helped advise the White House on judicial nominees, including Supreme Court vacancies.
But there's more to Sekulow than advising Rove and fighting for state-sponsored Ten Commandments displays. Tony Mauro wrote a devastating piece for the Legal Times this week explaining that Sekulow has hidden ethics difficulties that could undermine his career permanently.
But there is another side to Jay Sekulow, one that, until now, has been obscured from the public. It is the Jay Sekulow who, through the ACLJ and a string of interconnected nonprofit and for-profit entities, has built a financial empire that generates millions of dollars a year and supports a lavish lifestyle — complete with multiple homes, chauffeur-driven cars, and a private jet that he once used to ferry Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
That less-known side of Sekulow was revealed in several interviews with former associates of his and in hundreds of pages of court and tax documents reviewed by Legal Times. Critics say Sekulow's lifestyle is at odds with his role as the head of a charitable organization that solicits small donations for legal work in God's name.
For example, in 2001 one of Sekulow's nonprofit organizations paid a total of $2,374,833 to purchase two homes used primarily by Sekulow and his wife. The same nonprofit also subsidized a third home he uses in North Carolina.
At various times in recent years, Sekulow's wife, brother, sister-in-law, and two sons have been on the boards or payrolls of organizations under his control or have received generous payments as contractors. Sekulow's brother Gary is the chief financial officer of both nonprofit organizations that fund his activities, a fact that detractors say diminishes accountability for his spending.
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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle
