Whistleblower - Ensign Peak Advisors

[UVACoug]

Lmao. The whistleblower throws his twin brother under the bus and says the public dissemination wasn't authorized:

"No one has been authorized to speak for me, including my brother, Lars Nielsen. Any public disclosure of information that has been in my possession was unauthorized by me. Repeated attempts to dissuade my brother, Lars Nielsen, from making public disclosures have been ignored. I will have no further comment on this matter.”
— David A. Nielsen, to The Salt Lake Tribune late Friday, saying he did not authorize the dissemination of his complaint about Ensign Peak Advisors to the news media.

Lol. That’s believable.

[Art Vandelay]

Lmao. The whistleblower throws his twin brother under the bus and says the public dissemination wasn't authorized:

"No one has been authorized to speak for me, including my brother, Lars Nielsen. Any public disclosure of information that has been in my possession was unauthorized by me. Repeated attempts to dissuade my brother, Lars Nielsen, from making public disclosures have been ignored. I will have no further comment on this matter.”
— David A. Nielsen, to The Salt Lake Tribune late Friday, saying he did not authorize the dissemination of his complaint about Ensign Peak Advisors to the news media.

I'm confused by which twin did what. David is the one who worked at Ensign Peak and sent the letter to the IRS, but Lars is the one who leaked who the whistlblower was? Or did the both have access to the info? Why is Lars speaking on David's behalf. Im having a hard time following who is who, and what each brothers motivation is.

[LVAllen]

I'm confused by which twin did what. David is the one who worked at Ensign Peak and sent the letter to the IRS, but Lars is the one who leaked who the whistlblower was? Or did the both have access to the info? Why is Lars speaking on David's behalf. Im having a hard time following who is who, and what each brothers motivation is.

From Newsweek:

Religion Unplugged had a copy of the Form 211 filed with the IRS whistleblower office on Nov. 15, 2019 in Ogden, Utah, which named the whistleblower as David A. Nielsen, the twin brother of Lars Nielsen. ReligionUnplugged chose not to reveal the name of the whistleblower in its story on Monday. The Washington Post, meanwhile, did reveal David Nielsen's identity in its story the same day. And the whistleblower's identity was published in many places since then. Lars Nielsen also published his 74-page document on Scribd, which has been viewed more than 17,000 times, and published two YouTube videos, which have gained more than 20,000 views each.

. . .

Lars said he became disillusioned with the LDS Church and left it eight years ago.
David's LinkedIn profile shows that he worked at Ensign Peak Advisors Inc. in Salt Lake City between 2010 and 2019, where he was a senior portfolio manager. The Washington Post reported that David's job at EPA became complicated in recent months as his wife and children left the LDS Church. The whistleblower complaint noted that David had concerns about some practices at EPA since 2013 and voiced some of those concerns internally. David and Lars worked on a narrative about those issues at EPA in recent months. Lars said he wanted to make those allegations public, while David preferred to file the evidence to the IRS as a whistleblower complaint.

"I realized the ball on this had already started rolling," Lars said, noting that the complaint was submitted to the IRS office in Ogden, Utah, a place with many Mormon residents. "The chance of this being contained are so low... A story as big as this will get out."

Apparently, Mormons in the Ogden IRS office are so untrustworthy, he thought they would leak it? Or something?

[Katy Lied]

So one twin is all about the hate, and the other twin is all about the money?

[RC Vikings]

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019...p5vybPprmE78qQ

Looks like the SLT is running hard with this story.

[LVAllen]

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019...p5vybPprmE78qQ

Looks like the SLT is running hard with this story.

Lars Nielsen said he and his twin brother wrote a 74-page synopsis of the IRS complaint.

Synopsis: noun, a brief summary or general survey of something.

Inigo2.jpg

[tooblue]

Mormonism and its Money

This is a power struggle, not a moral or even fiscal conundrum, and one that we've seen before.

https://mormonstudies.as.virginia.ed...and-its-money/

In sum, not only is there every attempt to remove money from the sanctuary, there is some serious redistribution of wealth going on in the Church of Jesus Christ. This is especially obvious in light of the Church’s principled effort to give all members equal access to the benefits of membership, regardless of their geographic location and economic circumstances.

That is, if the question were one of malfeasance, but it’s not. It’s about competing views of what should be done with Church money and who gets to say so. In other words, this is a power struggle, not a moral or even fiscal conundrum, and one that we’ve seen before from those who don’t understand Mormonism and how it handles its money.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Mormonism and its Money

This is a power struggle, not a moral or even fiscal conundrum, and one that we've seen before.

https://mormonstudies.as.virginia.ed...and-its-money/

Not persuasive.

[CardiacCoug]

Mormonism and its Money

This is a power struggle, not a moral or even fiscal conundrum, and one that we've seen before.

https://mormonstudies.as.virginia.ed...and-its-money/

So basically the Church is a Stake Prez who makes $500K per year, lives in a $2 million dollar home, drives a Porsche, pays a full tithe, and toots his horn by posting to social media when he gives $500 bucks to charity a few times per year.

[tooblue]

So basically the Church is a Stake Prez who makes $500K per year, lives in a $2 million dollar home, drives a Porsche, pays a full tithe, and toots his horn by posting to social media when he gives $500 bucks to charity a few times per year.

You should leave the similes to more creative minds.

[tooblue]

Not persuasive.

I don't know about the article being persuasive, but it is illuminating. By the authors calculation in 2018 the church, in addition to supporting its own charities, gave away over a billion dollars to other charities.

[wapiti]

Mormonism and its Money

This is a power struggle, not a moral or even fiscal conundrum, and one that we've seen before.

https://mormonstudies.as.virginia.ed...and-its-money/

Persuasive.

[Goatnapper'96]

Persuasive.

Its aim was not to persuade but to rather explain why current Church leadership is not particularly persuaded by arguments to increase transparency.

[SeattleUte]

I don't know about the article being persuasive, but it is illuminating. By the authors calculation in 2018 the church, in addition to supporting its own charities, gave away over a billion dollars to other charities.

They do not address transparency until the last paragraph. But I see this author is a student of my posts. Based on available information, the Church has not done anything wrong or illegal (leaving aside whether government allowing religions to be exempt from income tax is good or bad policy or laws). This "scandal" is stupid.

On the other hand, I agree with Cardiac that over $1 billion donated to charities is not necessarily impressive. I'd have to know more. What are its revenues? It's a religion; this is one of its reasons for being. But this is beside the point of the current controversy.

[SeattleUte]

Its aim was not to persuade but to rather explain why current Church leadership is not particularly persuaded by arguments to increase transparency.

The first sentence of my previous post was a response to this.