President Donald Trump touted the ‘great work’ of his foundation on Wednesday after he agreed to shut down the charity amid an investigation of whether its funds were improperly used for his personal and political gain.
The president blamed Democrats, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, for its closure.
‘The Trump Foundation has done great work and given away lots of money, both mine and others, to great charities over the years – with me taking NO fees, rent, salaries etc. Now, as usual, I am getting slammed by Cuomo and the Dems in a long running civil lawsuit started by…..,’ he tweeted.
President Donald Trump touted the ‘great work’ of his foundation after he agreed to shut down the charity amid an investigation of whether its funds were improperly used for his personal and political gain
Trump defended his foundation and slammed Democrats in a Twitter thread on Wednesday
The president blamed Democrats, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (left) and former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (right), for its closure
He added: ‘…sleazebag AG Eric Schneiderman, who has since resigned over horrific women abuse, when I wanted to close the Foundation so as not to be in conflict with politics. Shady Eric was head of New Yorkers for Clinton, and refused to even look at the corrupt Clinton Foundation……’
‘….In any event, it goes on and on & the new AG, who is now being replaced by yet another AG (who openly campaigned on a GET TRUMP agenda), does little else but rant, rave & politic against me. Will never be treated fairly by these people – a total double standard of ‘justice,” he concluded.
Charges were brought against the Donald J. Trump Foundation by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, who was promoted to the job this past summer, succeeding Schneiderman after he resigned following allegations that he had physically abused some of his romantic partners.
Underwood is a career staffer, not an elected official, and she did not seek election for a full term.
Given the two-year length of the investigation, a majority of it was conducted under Schneiderman, who took office in 2011 and was in the position during the 2016 president campaign.
During that contest, his office called on Trump’s foundation to cease and desist fundraising activities in the state as the charity was under investigation for its spending.
The president tried to shut down his foundation after the election, but a judge ruled that could not be done amid the ongoing legal investigation of its funds.
Trump’s campaign called for a similar investigation of the Clinton Foundation in 2016 and claimed Schneiderman, who is a Democrat, was a ‘partisan hack.’
Schneiderman said concerns about the Clinton Foundation’s fundraising did not rise to the level of an investigation.
At the time, critics of the Clinton Foundation wanted a probe of the millions of dollars from individuals who met with the then-secretary of state after either donating or promising to donate to the non-profit, which included funding from foreign governments.
Schneiderman said the rules for reporting government funds have not been found to apply to foreign governments.
Taking up the reins as the new Trump nemeses is Letitia ‘Tish’ James, who won election in November and will be the first black woman to hold the attorney general job.
During the campaign, she said she intends to aggressively investigate Trump’s businesses and finances in his hometown.
‘I will be shining a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings, and every dealing, demanding truthfulness at every turn,’ she said at her victory party on election night.
President Donald Trump will shut down his personal charity
New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood charged the president with using the Donald J. Trump Foundation for his own personal and political gain
Incoming New York Attorney General Letitia ‘Tish’ James said she intends to aggressively investigate Trump’s businesses and finances
Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. at the 1988 U.S. Open
The New York attorney general’s office is pursuing a lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation, the president and his three eldest children: Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka after The Washington Post published a series of articles that questioned how its funds were used.
The Post reported on how Trump used the charity’s funds pay off legal settlements for his private business, to purchase art that decorated one of his clubs and to make a prohibited political donation.
Its financial history is filled with benefits to the Trump family: a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989 paid to restore a fountain outside Trump’s Plaza Hotel. And a $7 foundation gift to the Boy Scouts that same year matched the amount required to enroll a boy in the Scouts the year Donald Trump Jr. was 11.
The foundation’s closure is a concession by the president in an investigation he has slammed as ‘sleazy’ and partisan. It’s also one of the many probes his Trump organizations have faced during his tenure in the White House.
In June, when the suit was filed, Trump vowed on Twitter: ‘I won’t settle.’
In her lawsuit, Underwood sought to have the charity closed.
The legal action will continue as Underwood seeks $2.8 million in restitution plus additional financial penalties. She also wants the court to ban the Trumps from serving on the boards of other New York charities for a period of one year.
‘Our petition detailed a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation – including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more,’ Underwood said in a statement.
‘This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,’ she added.
‘This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,’ she noted. ‘We’ll continue to move our suit forward to ensure that the Trump Foundation and its directors are held to account for their clear and repeated violations of state and federal law.’
President Trump’s children Eric Trump (left), Donald Trump Jr (right) and Ivanka were all named in the suit
Ivanka Trump (above) and her two older brothers were on the board of the charity
Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump were named in the lawsuit because they were official board members of the Donald J. Trump Foundation for years.
The foundation and its directors could face several million dollars in additional penalties, depending on how the court ultimately rules.
Prosecutors also want to bar Trump’s three eldest children from the boards of nonprofits based in New York or that operate in New York for one year, which could force the children to cut ties with a variety of groups, including charities of their own.
The elder Trump kids were named, Underwood said at the time of the original filing, because board members are supposed to scrutinize spending for signs that its leader — in this case that was their father — was misusing the funds.
She charged they exercised no such oversight. The board had not met since 1999.
‘The Foundation is little more than an empty shell that functions with no oversight by its board of directors,’ the lawsuit states. ‘In the absence of a functioning board, Mr. Trump ran the Foundation according to his whim, rather than the law.’
The suit was filled with scathing charges against the president and his management of his self-named non-profit. It includes allegations of violations of campaign finance laws and illegal coordination with Trump’s presidential campaign.
Prosecutors charged Trump with repeatedly misusing the nonprofit to pay off his businesses’ creditors, to decorate one of his golf clubs and to stage a multimillion dollar giveaway at his 2016 campaign events.
Underwood said that the foundation’s remaining $1.75 million would be distributed to nonprofits approved by her office and a state judge.
In June, when the lawsuit was filed, Trump used Twitter to call it a concoction by ‘sleazy New York Democrats,’ and pledged not to settle.
Trump tweeted in June, when the lawsuit was filed, that: ‘I won’t settle this case!’
Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Trump could be barred from sitting on the boards of nonprofits in New York for a year
Trump tweeted in June: ‘The sleazy New York Democrats, and their now disgraced (and run out of town) A.G. 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!..
Trump founded his charity to give away some of the royalties from his 1987 book ‘The Art of the Deal.’
But he did not give it any money between 2008 and 2015. Its largest donors are wrestling moguls Vince and Linda McMahon, who gave $5 million total in 2007 and 2009. Linda McMahon was appointed by Trump as head of the Small Business Administration.
In her June filing, Underwood charged the nonprofit was essentially one of Trump’s personal checkbooks — a pool of funds that his clerks knew to use whenever Trump wanted to pay money to a nonprofit.
Legally, Trump isn’t allowed to buy things for himself using the charity’s money, even if he was buying them from nonprofits.
The suit also listed some of the questionable expenses made by the charity, including a $10,000 on a portrait of Trump that was hung at one of his golf clubs.
And twice Trump used the charity’s money to settle legal claims against his businesses.
In 2007, he settled a dispute with the town of Palm Beach, Florida, over code violations at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The town agreed to waive outstanding fines if Mar-a-Lago gave $100,000 to the charity Fisher House.
But the donation came from the foundation and not the estate, prosecutors charged after Trump wrote a note requesting the move.
In 2012, a Trump golf club agreed to pay $158,000 to settle a lawsuit with a man who was denied a $1 million hole-in-one prize during a tournament at the club. The Trump Foundation paid the money instead of the club.
In March, after the attorney general’s investigation was underway, Trump repaid his foundation all $258,000, plus more than $12,000 in interest, the suit notes.
Underwood said Trump had already repaid amounts spent by the foundation, plus penalty taxes totaling more than $4,000.
In the case of the portrait, she said Trump’s golf club paid the foundation the ‘fair rental value’ of using the foundation-owned painting as decoration. The value: $182.
IRS rules also prohibit tax-exempt foundations from aiding political campaigns.
But Underwood cited two instances where Trump’s foundation had seemed to do so.
In August 2013, Trump donated $25,000 from his foundation to a Florida political group aiding the reelection of state Attorney General Pam Bondi. Around that time, Bondi’s office was considering whether to join an ongoing lawsuit by then-New York AG Schneiderman, alleging Trump had defrauded students at his now-defunct ‘Trump University.’
The Trump Foundation omitted any mention of Bondi’s political group from its annual report to the IRS and instead said the $25,000 donation had gone to a nonprofit in Kansas with a similar-sounding name.
Underwood said Trump’s staff blamed confusion among accounting clerks for spending the foundation’s money, instead of Trump’s own. As for the incorrect IRS filing, Underwood wrote, ‘the Foundation has no credible explanation for the false reporting of grant recipients.’
Trump repaid the $25,000 and paid a penalty tax of $2,500 for an improper political gift after it came to light in a Washington Post investigative series on the Donald J. Trump Foundation during the 2016 campaign.
However, Underwood charges that the campaign Trump’s foundation helped most was his own.
In January 2016, Trump skipped a debate among Republican presidential candidates because he was feuding with debate host Fox News. Instead, he held a televised fundraiser for veterans — bringing in millions from wealthy friends and small-dollar donors, much of which went to his foundation.
Underwood charged ‘the Foundation ceded control over the charitable funds it raised to senior Trump Campaign staff.’
She cited emails in which Corey Lewandowski, then-campaign manager, directed which veterans’ charities should receive money.
The Trump Foundation has been in legal limbo since after the election, when the president wanted to dissolve it amid growing controversy about its practices. But the foundation could not legally dissolve while it was under investigation, the New York attorney general ruled.
New York has jurisdiction over the Trump Foundation because the charity is based at Trump Tower in Manhattan and registered in New York State.
Trump has been president of the foundation since he founded it in 1987.