Prayer and poultry: Foundation picked up tab for lawmaker’s travel — with support from chicken producer

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), who has traveled to 10 countries courtesy of the Fellowship Foundation and its major funder, Mountaire Corp.
(AP Photo/The Huntsville Times, Bob Gathany)

With just 156,000 citizens, the Balkan city of Podgorica is no Istanbul or Jerusalem — or even Baku. Members of Congress rarely travel to the capital of Montenegro, a former Yugoslav republic. And yet there was Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) — chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture — last May, at no charge to him or the U.S. government.

The trip, which cost a total $6,204.21 for Aderholt and his wife, according to congressional records, came courtesy of an organization called the International Foundation, which does business as the Fellowship Foundation and is the well-heeled sponsor of the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Aderholt’s mission, which he began 11 years ago: Help the Fellowship launch prayer groups in Balkan parliamentary chambers, according to the records. He’s made nine trips to foreign countries on the Fellowship’s tab in pursuit of that goal since 2008.

And while few doubt that religious belief is a motivating force behind the Fellowship, in this case, the faith comes with feathers. Public documents and tax records collected by OpenSecrets Blog show that at least three years ago, an Arkansas-based poultry company, Mountaire Corp., became a major funder of the Fellowship. In fact, a Mountaire executive, W. Dabbs Cavin, was president of the Fellowship’s board at least as early as 2012 and was the organizer of Aderholt’s journeys. It was Cavin who signed the congressman’s travel forms beginning in that year, which were approved by the House Ethics Committee; Cavin wrote that “no other entity or grant [covered] any portion” of the Montenegro trip.

The trips are an example of how a loophole allowing charity groups to sponsor travel for lawmakers can be exploited, according to Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington and an expert in congressional ethics who reviewed several documents at OpenSecrets Blog’s request.

“The information you have compiled raises questions as to whether the Fellowship Foundation is acting as a conduit for a poultry company with the head of the Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee,” she said.

Prayerful and prosaic

On the Fellowship Foundation’s tab, Aderholt has visited, in addition to Montenegro, Greece, Albania, Croatia, Colombia, Bolivia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Romania and Guatemala between 2008 and 2015 at a cost of just under $60,000, the records show. A relatively quiet lawmaker seen as a devout Christian who lets savvier senior aides do the work of Hill politics, Aderholt is practically the only lawmaker for whom the Fellowship has funded trips. The group has sponsored one trip apiece for two other members.

It all makes for a close association between the chicken company and a lawmaker whose actions can have a far-reaching impact on the agriculture industry. As a former Mountaire president put it in 2011, even the smallest spike in something like corn prices can make or break a business in agriculture: “If corn goes up $1 a bushel, our costs go up $900,000,” he said.

Despite pouring millions into federal elections, though, Mountaire — the 19th largest poultry processor in the world, with sales of more than $2 billion a year — does not lobby the federal government directly and never has, according to federal lobbying records. The company does, however, contribute to the National Chicken Council, a trade association that has spent nearly $3.5 million since 2007 to lobby in Washington, including on appropriations legislation sponsored by Aderholt.

And Mountaire’s wealthy philanthropist owner, Ronnie Cameron, understands how politics works. Cameron rose to prominence this year, at least in the money-in-politics world, with a $3 million contribution to the super PAC backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Mountaire had previously given $3 million to Freedom Partners Action Fund, which made it the largest corporate donor to the super PAC connected to Charles and David Koch’s political money network.

Secretive by design

Given the records in the public domain, it is unclear exactly when Mountaire and Cameron began supporting the Fellowship through a pass-through private foundation, the Jesus Fund. The Fund had initially left federally required disclosure information about where it sent its money — specifically, $26 million in funds from Mountaire Corp. and Cameron himself — off its tax filings. After OpenSecrets Blog requested the missing information, a lawyer for the Jesus Fund provided documents for 2012 and 2013, but not for other years. Still, the documents covering those two years further connected the dots between congressman, corporation and foundation. Cameron’s foundation gave the Fellowship $2 million in 2012 and $1.4 million in 2013, accounting for a third of all grant funding and contributions disbursed by the Jesus Fund those years.

The Fellowship received more than $13 million in contributions and grants in each of those years. And Aderholt got to go Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo and Guatemala, all while serving as one of the most influential lawmakers for U.S. agriculture interests as chairman of the committee that allocates money for programs affecting them. The trips during those two years cost $20,792.62, according to congressional records.

The questions raised by the Jesus Fund’s secrecy mirror those raised by critics of the Fellowship Foundation. Each year, the Fellowship draws U.S. politicians at the highest levels to its National Prayer Breakfast with its message of inclusion for all faiths, able to brag that every president since Dwight Eisenhower has spoken at the marquee event.

Still, the group is notoriously secretive, despite ministering to some of the most powerful figures in American politics, including senators and presidents, according to a 2010 report in The New Yorker. Membership is informal, as is the Fellowship’s very name — the 501(c)(3) group also goes by the even more nondescript “International Foundation”; that’s the title used on the Jesus Fund’s grantee list and elsewhere.

“The specific activities of the Fellowship Foundation remain as opaque as ever,” said Marcus Owens, a former head of the IRS charity division and expert in nonprofit tax law, when asked about the privately sponsored travel for a member of Congress.

A lawyer representing the Jesus Fund and Cameron, who insisted on being contacted for questions about the fund, did not respond to detailed questions sent via email last month. Cavin did not reply to questions emailed to the address listed on House Ethics forms.

As for Aderholt: After we sent an interview request to his office, Brian Rell, the lawmaker’s chief of staff, asked if OpenSecrets Blog is credentialed by the House Press Gallery. When told no, Rell responded, “Then you’re not a reporter,” and said the documents submitted by Aderholt to the Ethics Committee will “speak for themselves.”