A nonprofit created in Secretary of State John Kerry’s upscale Boston home and managed by his daughter Vanessa Kerry has received more than $9 million from the Department of State, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.
Seed Global Health was founded at 19 Louisburg Sq in Boston’s Beacon Hill, tax forms indicate. News reports show that’s Kerry’s home address, which Zillow estimates is worth nearly $18 million. Kerry’s wife, Teresa, is an heir to the Heinz family fortune.
Beacon Hill is the most expensive block in Boston, with median home values estimated at $6.7 million in 2015, a Boston Globe affiliate reported. The Boston Business Journal ranked Kerry’s house the third most valuable home in the city in 2013.
The Department of State has funneled more than $9 million through the Peace Corps to Seed since 2012, TheDCNF previously revealed. The money is awarded under the Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP) – a Peace Corps-run and State Department-funded program that Vanessa Kerry created in conjunction with officials from both agencies.
Seed has never been required to compete with other organizations for the funding. It recruits medical volunteers for overseas service.
“As we have made clear, Secretary Kerry played no role in this decision making while in the Senate or subsequently while at the State Department,” Department of State spokesman John Kirby told TheDCNF. “There was – and remains – no conflict of interest here.”
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton headed the Department of State when Seed formed and received its initial public funding in 2012. John Kerry chaired the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as a democratic senator representing Massachusetts. That panel has oversight of both the Department of State and the Peace Corps.
Seed eventually moved into a Massachusetts General Hospital office – Dr. Kerry’s primary employer – tax forms show. Her father replaced Clinton as secretary of state in February 2013.
The Department of State funded an extension for Seed’s contract in 2015, even though the nonprofit couldn’t meet the original agreement’s terms.
John Kerry announced GHSP’s State Department-funded expansion at a December 2014 event, and even bragged about the partnership between the Peace Corps and his daughter’s nonprofit.
Neither the Peace Corps nor Seed responded to requests from TheDCNF for comment.
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