Mike Boettcher: The background on Jackson's revelations

Mike Boettcher

CNN National Correspondent Mike Boettcher was in Chicago, Illinois, Thursday attending a news conference given by civil-rights activist Jesse Jackson. Jackson said he will amend the tax return of one of his nonprofit groups to reflect money paid to a staff worker who was his mistress. The staff worker, Karin Stanford, was not included on the 1999 tax return filed by the Citizenship Education Fund.

Q: For people whose eyes glaze over when they read stories about tax returns, please tell us the background behind this story?

BOETTCHER: This story is set against the backdrop of the January revelation that $35,000 in severance was paid to a woman who had a child with Jesse Jackson during an extramarital affair. This raised questions about the finances of the four civil-rights organizations that Jesse Jackson leads that are based in Chicago. Two major ones of those, of course, are Operation Rainbow/PUSH and the Citizenship Education Fund.

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So there had been increasing calls for them to open up their books, which had never been done before by these organizations, but Rev. Jackson thought in light of the allegations that there may have been something untoward about the financial dealings of these organizations, he felt it necessary to open his books.

Q: Briefly, what is the purpose of the Citizenship Education Fund, and what has it accomplished?

BOETTCHER: The Citizenship Education Fund is meant to convince big business to be good citizens in terms of having minority representation on their boards, in their hiring and to make sure that in mergers, for example, of big companies that minority interests are looked after.

Q: How much -- if any -- does this incident damage the former presidential candidate's chances of running for the White House at some point in the future?

BOETTCHER: Well, I think -- of course -- it's not good for his chances. But most people around him don't think that he will run -- that he's probably made his last race for president. But if he does intend to, this will not help.

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Rainbow PUSH Coalition

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