The California attorney general ordered Arc of Justice, a charity founded by Code Pink cofounder Medea Benjamin, to cease all operations after the organization failed to file taxes for years and left more than $51 million in assets unaccounted for, and federal regulators have yet to act.
The California Department of Justice sent Arc of Justice a warning letter on June 19 directing the foundation to halt "any activity in California for which registration is required... including holding or soliciting assets for charitable purposes." The order came after the charity failed to respond to repeated delinquency and suspension notices and skipped required tax filings for fiscal years 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The letter also warned that board members and officers face personal liability. "Members of the board of directors or any person directly involved in distributing or expending charitable assets may be held personally liable for assets improperly expended," the state wrote.
Arc of Justice, originally called the Benjamin Fund when Medea Benjamin incorporated it in California in 2002, held $51,445,599 in assets as of its last available filings. No public document establishes what happened to the money, where it is held, or whether any of it has moved, according to the Intelligent Advocacy Network, a watchdog group that investigated the foundation and shared its findings exclusively with the Free Beacon.
State regulators did not wait until June to start flagging problems. The California Franchise Tax Board first suspended Arc of Justice's incorporation and revoked its tax-exempt status back in April 2024. A spokesman for the California attorney general's Registry of Charities and Fundraisers laid out the timeline plainly:
"The Registry of Charities and Fundraisers will revoke the registration of an organization if it continually fails to respond to Registry's delinquency and suspension notices. ARC OF JUSTICE with registration number 128072, was issued a Notice of Intent to Suspend or Revoke for failing to submit required annual filings with our office. After being suspended for more than one year, the organization's registration was revoked on 01/09/2025."
The California Secretary of State's online system now lists Arc of Justice's status as "suspended." On August 3, the California Franchise Tax Board confirmed the foundation "is not in good standing" and is no longer certified as tax-exempt.
Even California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat who has aligned himself with his party's progressive wing, took punitive action against the charity. When a left-leaning state regulator shuts down a left-leaning activist's foundation, the compliance failures are hard to dismiss as political targeting.
Between 2009 and 2022, Arc of Justice paid $2,214,200 to Code Pink, the activist group Benjamin cofounded. The foundation's own 990-PF tax filings disclosed Code Pink as a related-party grantee, identifying the connection as a "Common Board Member/Officer." Benjamin served simultaneously as Arc of Justice president and Code Pink treasurer during the disbursement period.
Arc of Justice also sent $1,897,950 to Global Exchange, a group Benjamin cofounded. But IAN's May 19 report found no disclosure of that relationship in the foundation's filings, despite the documented connection. The same gap appeared with ETINA, a left-wing advocacy group that lists Code Pink cofounder Jodie Evans as its president on tax forms. Code Pink paid ETINA $1,550,000 between 2018 and 2024. IAN's report flagged the pattern directly:
"The extent of the related-party grantmaking documented here, much of it undisclosed, raises serious questions about potential self-dealing that only regulators can resolve."
That network of overlapping officers, undisclosed relationships, and millions in charitable dollars flowing between allied organizations is exactly the kind of arrangement that invites regulatory scrutiny. The House Ways and Means Committee has already subpoenaed nonprofits tied to the broader circle around these groups.
The financial web around Arc of Justice leads back to Neville Roy Singham, a tech mogul who operates from Shanghai and is married to Jodie Evans. Singham reportedly funded up to a quarter of Code Pink's operations and poured millions into the organization and related causes. The Justice Department is reportedly conducting a criminal probe into whether Singham breached federal law by funneling millions through nonprofit groups to Chinese entities and misrepresenting the activity on tax forms.
Sam Lyman, a former senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who now heads research at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, told the Free Beacon the pattern is broader than one charity:
"For years, Neville Singham and his associates have been playing financial shell games across a series of U.S.-based nonprofits. The goal is to fund extremist causes that undermine American sovereignty by using the 501(c)(3) legal structure as a shield. But the scheme is starting to unravel, and Medea Benjamin's Arc of Justice is the latest example."
Singham's network has drawn attention well beyond this single charity. Investigators and congressional committees have identified his network as a Chinese Communist Party influence operation targeting American policy, and separate reporting has detailed allegations that the nonprofit structure was used to undermine U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure to benefit China.
In November 2025, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said Code Pink "has received funding from groups aligned with the Communist Chinese government and partnered with designated foreign terror organizations."
As California regulators closed in, a new nonprofit corporation with the same name, Arc of Justice, was founded in Florida on May 8, just seven days before the May 15 federal tax filing deadline. The new entity lists the same officers as the California foundation. Its registered address sits in Miami's Little River neighborhood, the same address the California foundation had used on federal filings for years.
Meanwhile, Benjamin's daughter Maya Danaher appeared as Arc of Justice's CEO in a June 2026 filing, even as Benjamin herself was no longer listed as an officer. Benjamin had remained president of record at least through November 2024. Danaher did not respond to requests for comment.
Benjamin herself was unavailable. Her auto-reply read: "If you are trying to reach me, I will be out of the country August 5-15 and will not have regular access to email." Being out of the country is nothing new for Benjamin. She reportedly traveled to Gaza at least seven times between 2009 and 2012 to meet with Hamas leadership, including the group's late chairman Ismail Haniyeh, and traveled to Iran with Code Pink associates.
Code Pink's broader activities have continued to draw scrutiny. In March, the group organized a trip to Cuba that included streamer Hasan Piker and Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Both praised the communist government during the visit.
Federal tax law provides that a charity failing to file required returns for three consecutive years should have its tax-exempt status automatically revoked. Arc of Justice missed filings for fiscal years 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025. Yet as of the Free Beacon's report, the IRS has not revoked the foundation's federal tax-exempt status. The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.
The only federal filing Arc of Justice submitted was a 2024 Form 990-T, a form that documents business income mostly unrelated to a charity's tax-exempt activity. IAN noted the form "reports no grants, no recipients, and nothing about how charitable funds were used." Benjamin signed it.
To regain its California registration, Arc of Justice would need to petition the attorney general and submit complete delinquent IRS Form 990-PF filings, the detailed private foundation returns it has avoided filing for years. That would mean opening the books on exactly where $51 million went.
IAN's Susan George framed the stakes bluntly:
"Arc of Justice, a $51 million California foundation founded by Code Pink's Medea Benjamin, went completely dark in 2022. Benjamin remained its president of record at least through November 2024. California regulators revoked its exemption and froze its assets. The federal exemption, however, is untouched, and nobody outside the foundation can say where the money is or what has happened to it. IAN found this one. How many more are operating entirely in the dark?"
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who took action in late April to increase transparency in how charities file 990 tax forms, issued a statement that read as a direct warning to groups like Arc of Justice:
"Public money and tax-exempt status demand public accountability. We are ending the days of hiding fraud, abuse, and extremist activity behind complicated nonprofit arrangements. When bad actors misuse charitable structures, directors and officers should understand that transparency can lead to scrutiny, accountability, and liability under the law."
Foreign influence operations exploiting American nonprofits are not limited to one network. The State Department has accused Cuba of running influence operations inside the United States for decades, the same Cuba where Code Pink sends delegations to praise the regime.
California shut the door. The IRS left it open. Fifty-one million dollars sat behind it, and nobody in a position of federal authority has yet bothered to ask where the money went.
