In the midst of all the hullabaloo of the Impeachment inquiry and the daily “breaking news” surrounding the Trump administration, I suspect many will miss the import of the ruling yesterday by a New York state judge in reference to the former Trump Foundation. The ruling found that Trump and his family used the nonprofit Foundation as a slush fund for the 2016 campaign. The judge ordered Mr. Trump to pay $2 million to nonprofit organizations as a penalty for that abuse. Mind you, this is a court of law that found sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Trump family abused the Foundation for their own benefit.
In January 2016, then candidate Trump, held a fundraiser for the foundation to benefit veterans. $2.8 million dollars was raised, but it never went to veterans. Instead, according to the court ruling, the money was used “to further Mr. Trump’s political campaign.”
Mr. Trump closed down the foundation last year because of allegations that the Trump family used it as a personal checking account for both personal and political purposes (which had been going on since the foundation was formed in 1987). The civil lawsuit, however, was not shut down.
Trump tweeted last year in his own inimical style: “The sleazy New York Democrats, and their now disgraced (and run out of town) AG (Attorney General) Eric Schneiderman, are doing everything they can to sue me on a foundation that took in $18,800,000 and gave out to charity more money than it took in, $19,200,000. I won’t settle this case!”
The case was settled yesterday in spite of Mr. Trump’s bravado and false statements. I think the judge was lenient in her ruling. But that’s not the point. The point is that Mr. Trump claimed that the foundation had done nothing wrong in spite of the evidence—a tactic he uses in every instance. And the second point, perhaps the most telling of all, is that he raised money in honor of veterans and then used it for his own political gain. These “two points” can be found in the midst of the hullabaloo and in every “breaking news” story about the Trump administration.
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