Trump Foundation Sued

Posted by Tina

Happy Birthday Mr. President!

The Attorney General of New York announced a lawsuit targeting the Trump Foundation along with its directors, Donald Trump, his sons Eric and Donald Jr. and daughter Ivanka, for violating state and federal law covering private charities:

Attorney General Barbara Underwood alleges a pattern of persistent illegal conduct over more than a decade that includes extensive unlawful political coordination with the Trump presidential campaign.

Underwood is asking a court to dissolve the Trump Foundation and wants $2.8 million in restitution plus additional penalties.

The attorney general seeks to ban Trump from serving as a director of a New York not-for-profit for 10 years and Trump’s children from serving for one year.

The complaint alleges that the Trump Foundation engaged in repeated and willful self-dealing transactions to benefit Trump’s personal and business interests.

“As our investigation reveals, the Trump Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments from Mr. Trump or his business to nonprofits, regardless of their purpose or legality,” Underwood said. “This is not how private foundations should function, and my office intends to hold the Foundation and its directors accountable for its misuse of charitable assets.”

The Trumps responded through a spokesperson:

“This is politics at its very worst,” a Trump Foundation representative said in a statement. “The Foundation has donated over $19 million to worthy charitable causes — more than it even received. The President himself — or through his companies – has contributed more than $8 million. The reason the Foundation was able to donate more than it took in is because it had little to no expenses. This is unheard of for a charitable foundation. The Foundation currently has $1.7 million remaining which the NYAG has been holding hostage for political gain. This is unconscionable — particularly because the Foundation previously announced its intention to dissolve more than a year and a half ago. The prior NYAG, who was recently forced to resign from office in disgrace, made it his stated mission to use this matter to not only advance his own political goals, but also for his own political fundraising. The acting NYAG’s recent statement that battling the White House is ‘the most important work (she) have ever done’ shows that such political attacks will continue unabated.”

The courts will sort it out.

Hillary and Bill Clinton are residents of New York. Their foundation was accused of spending as little as 10% on charity. Was there interest by the AG in NY in suing them? Well…the former AG of the state, Eric Schneiderman, who stepped down over sexual abuse claims, was a Clinton supporter who ran her NY campaign! No help there.

(No politics involved here either?????)

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10 Responses to Trump Foundation Sued

  1. Libby says:

    Alas …

    https://www.charitywatch.org/ratings-and-metrics/clinton-foundation/478

    https://www.charitywatch.org/charitywatch-hot-topic/why-doesn-39-t-charitywatch-rate-the-trump-foundation-/65

    Indeed. One of the many fun facts in the complaint is that the “Board” of the Trump Foundation (that is, Dad and the Kids) has not met since 1999. The idea that rich people can run fake charity foundations for 20 years, and not get nailed, is pretty damned discouraging. What kind of country is this, anyway?

    • Pie Guevara says:

      Pardon me Lippy, but this organization’s ratings are horse pucky. Ask the citizens of Puerto Rico.

      Nevertheless, it appears the Trump Foundation has violated the law.

    • Tina says:

      They haven’t been nailed until the court issues a verdict, Libby.

      I think the Trump foundation is a private foundation and as such is subject to different rules than a public foundation like the Clinton’s. A like-to-like comparison can’t be made.

      The Clintons lived a lavish (political) life off their foundation’s money. There quite a bit of evidence of quid pro quo deals when Hillary was Sec of State:

      Fortune, “Clinton Foundation Lawyers Thought Non-Profit Was Shady Too,” by Chris Mathews (who condemns then exonerates like a typical lefty)

      What the governance review lawyers found was a board and charity in disarray organizationally. It was staffed mostly with insiders, practicing weak oversight and inattentive leadership, and possessed of a loose dedication to best practices for foundations of its size and to Arkansas state and IRS regulations governing conflict of interest. According to the review, the Clinton foundation submitted a Form 990—signed under penalties of perjury—which said that it had a written conflict-of-interest policy, required annual disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, and monitored and enforced compliance with the policy. “However, we did not find evidence of that enforcement,” the review reads.

      But the issue of conflict of interests went beyond the fact that the board did not enforce compliance with its written policy. The review seemed to find some of the issues that have come up on the campaign trail recently. “Some interviewees reported conflicts of those raising funds or donors, some of whom may have an expectation of quid pro quo benefits in return for gifts,” according to the review.

      One of the advantages of being “in disarray” is that the paper trail to convict is always disappearing, never documented, lost, discarded, bleach bitted, hammered……

      which also points to the corrupt natures of these two.

      The WaPo reported in 2016 that a subpoena had been issued to the Clinton Foundation asking for records.

      The Weekly Standard, “FBI Releases 500 More Pages of Clinton Foundation Investigation Documents”

      Has it all gone up in smoke or is it still going on?

      Not sure.

      • Harold says:

        Yep it is a shame, when a organization like Trumps gives out even more money than taken in, (funded by it’s namesake) while another foundation (more like a cash cow for the Clintons) distributes a lavish 10% of what it scammed, oops, took in for charities, liken that to the phrase “charity begins at home”.

        But like anything else from the elected Trump haters, they spend more time and energy trying to stop him (mostly cause he’s made them look feckless) then they do trying to help America become great again. Basically their just dragging their feet in the muck and residue of a draining swamp they created.

        They cast unfounded scenarios of corruption, usually with a fit of lamentation and tears, or whining, while they wallow in their own self pity and bemoan what might have bee. However this is about the best we should expect from liberals these days, and they don’t disappoint in those factors, do they!.

  2. Pie Guevara says:

    End of an Era: James Taranto retires from his “Best of the Web” creation.

    I’ll miss you Mr. Taranto.

    (Hope you folks can read this and the WSJ doesn’t start blocking it.)

    • Pie Guevara says:

      By the way, I know this is last year’s news. I just want to bring attention to the article. If anyone is interested.

    • Tina says:

      Two thumbs up…opinion editor at the WSJ, be an excellent post for James Toranto.

      His very successful bog will continue under another James’s guidance.

      It’s not so bad…I feared something much more dire.

  3. Libby says:

    Better and better …

    https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/politics/judge-sends-paul-manafort-to-jail-pending-trial/index.html

    Choice bits …

    “The judge emphasized to Manafort how she could not make enough rulings to keep him from speaking improperly with witnesses, after he had used multiple text messaging apps and called a potential witness on an Italian cell phone.

    “This is not middle school. I can’t take his cell phone,” she said of Manafort. “I thought about his long and hard, Mr. Manafort. I have no appetite for this.”

    “Three US marshals led Manafort out of the courtroom into the prisoner holding area immediately after the judge’s ruling. He was not placed in handcuffs. Before he disappeared through the door, he turned toward his wife and supporters and gave a stilted wave.”

    “Minutes later, a marshal returned to give his wife, Kathleen, still standing in the courtroom’s front row, Manafort’s wallet, belt and the burgundy tie he wore Friday.”

    Now THAT is some swamp draining !

    • Tina says:

      Oh…you how you love the drama!

      Well here’s a bucketful…from the old days to the more current:

      MRCTV, “Ten Scandals Involving Hillary Clinton You May Have Forgotten”

      CBS:

      Whitewater prosecutors cast such a wide net in Arkansas that they yielded a good-sized catch, even though the big fish seem to have gotten away. (As they always do)

      The prime quarry of investigators, who started work in 1994, were President Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Clinton was cleared of any wrongdoing by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr in November and Mrs. Clinton has not been charged.

      Nevertheless, the investigation resulted in 14 convictions and two acquittals. The last six indictments, handed down in April, were dismissed by a judge in July.

      National Review:

      According to Forbes, the Clintons went from — as Hillary put it — “dead broke” in early 2001 to earning $230 million through 2014. This happened while she made between $145,100 and $174,000 annually as a U.S. senator from 2001 to 2009 and $186,600 as secretary of state through 2013.

      What’s the Clintons’ secret? They seemingly wrap their fingers in fly paper — to grab as many Benjamins as possible.

      While Hillary was at State, Bill was a speech-making machine. He charged up to $750,000 per appearance, often paid by Ericsson, TD Bank, the United Arab Emirates, and other entities with business before the State Department.

      After Hillary left office, she cashed in, too.

      As journalist Michael Walsh detailed in the May 22 New York Post, Hillary racked up $21.6 million in lecture fees between 2013 and 2015, usually at $225,000 each. Cynics might call these down payments for future services rendered, if she were to win the White House. (A shoe in!!!) (And for “insurance” a rigged primary and an activist bunch at the FBI )

      ‐ Meanwhile, Bill has survived House impeachment, Senate acquittal, and subsequent disbarment. He credibly has been accused of sexual assault by former White House volunteer Kathleen Willey. He paid $850,000 to settle former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones’s sexual harassment suit. And former Arkansas nursing-home manager Juanita Broadrick very believably says that then–gubernatorial candidate Clinton raped her in 1978.

      The suspected sex crimes continue….

      The very corrupt Bill and Hill are still not kicked to the curb!

      Manafort’s alleged crimes have nothing to do with Trump or his campaign.

      At some point your party’s corrupt cabal is going to have to stop the harassment games before the entire nation is turned off to your underhanded attempts to win.

    • Tina says:

      More drama just in! The activist judge in the Manafort case has quite a record.

      Gateway Pundit:

      In 2013 Judge Jackson rejected arguments from the Catholic Church that Obamacare’s requirements that employers provide cost free coverage to contraceptive services is contrary to their religious beliefs and violated their religious and free speech freedoms. This was overturned by the Supreme Court.

      In 2017 Judge Jackson dismissed the wrongful death suit against Hillary Clinton filed by two of the families who lost loved ones in Benghazi. The families argued that Clinton had done little to help their sons and then lied to cover it up.

      Then on January 19th of this year, a Paul Manafort’s case was reassigned to Judge Jackson on January 19th, a few weeks after being filed.

      It is unknown why she was assigned to this case or by whom.

      What is clear is that with her atrocious and slanted record to date, the Deep State and the Mueller team certainly wanted Judge Jackson overseeing the Manafort case and this is supported by her record to date.

      Corruption runs deep in your party!

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