Trump 32: Pissing off the World, One Country at a Time

[GreyhoundFan]

Cue the tweetstorm: "New York files suit against President Trump, alleging his charity engaged in ‘illegal conduct’"

Spoiler

The New York attorney general on Thursday filed suit against President Trump and his three eldest children alleging “persistently illegal conduct” at the president’s personal charity, saying Trump repeatedly misused 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.

In the suit, filed Thursday morning, attorney general Barbara Underwood asked a state judge to dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation. She asked that its remaining $1 million in assets be distributed to other charities and that Trump be forced to pay at least $2.8 million in restitution and penalties.

Underwood also asks that Trump be banned from leading any other New York nonprofit for 10 years — seeking to apply a penalty usually reserved for the operators of small-time charity frauds to the president of the United States.

In the suit, Underwood noted that Trump had already paid more than $330,000 in reimbursements and penalty taxes since 2016. New York state began probing the Trump Foundation in response to an investigation by The Washington Post.

But she asked the judge to go further, and require Trump to pay millions more. She said a 20-month state investigation found that Trump had repeatedly violated laws that set the ground rules for tax-exempt foundations — most importantly, that their money is meant to serve the public good, and not to provide private benefits to their founders.

“This resulted in multiple violations of state and federal law,” Underwood wrote in the legal complaint.

The White House and the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump has been president of the foundation since he founded it in 1987. In late 2016, he had promised to shut down the Trump Foundation — but could not while the attorney general’s investigation continued.

Underwood was promoted to the position of attorney general only weeks ago, succeeding Eric Schneiderman (D) after he resigned following allegations that he had physically abused several romantic partners. Underwood was a career staffer, not an elected official. She has promised not to seek election for a full term as attorney general in the fall.

Underwood declined to comment on the case beyond issuing a written statement. “As our investigation reveals, the Trump Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments from Mr. Trump or his businesses to nonprofits, regardless of their purpose or legality,” Underwood said in the statement.

Underwood said she had sent letters to both the IRS and the Federal Election Commission, identifying what she called “possible violations” of tax law and federal campaign law by Trump’s foundation.

Underwood has jurisdiction over the Trump Foundation because the charity is based at Trump Tower in Manhattan and registered in New York State.

Trump’s children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump were also named in the lawsuit because they have been official board members of the Donald J. Trump Foundation for years. Under the law, Underwood said, board members are supposed to scrutinize a charity’s spending for signs that its leader — in this case, their father — was misusing the funds.

But in reality, Underwood wrote, the three Trump children exercised no such oversight. The board had not actually met since 1999.

“The Foundation’s directors failed to meet basic fiduciary duties and abdicated all responsibility for ensuring that the Foundation’s assets were used in compliance with the law,” Underwood wrote.

She asked the judge to ban each of the three from serving as a director of a New York nonprofit for a year. It was not clear if any of the three are serving currently on the board of any such charities: Eric Trump, for instance, stepped down from the board of the Eric Trump Foundation after the 2016 election, and the charity was renamed Curetivity.

Although Trump’s name is on the foundation, in recent years most of its money was not actually his. Trump did not give any donation to the Trump foundation between 2008 and 2015 — instead, its largest benefactors in recent years have been wrestling moguls Vince and Linda McMahon, who gave $5 million total in 2007 and 2009. Linda McMahon was later appointed by Trump as head of the Small Business Administration. The McMahons have declined to answer questions about the reasons for their gifts.

The lawsuit shows that the Trump Foundation — which Trump founded to give away some of the royalties from his 1987 book “The Art of the Deal” — looked, on paper, like other tax-exempt nonprofits. It filed annual reports with New York state and the IRS. It listed directors and donations.

But behind the scenes, Underwood said, the foundation was essentially one of Trump’s personal checkbooks — a pool of funds that his accounting clerks knew to use whenever Trump wanted to pay money to a nonprofit. By law, Trump wasn’t allowed to buy things for himself using the charity’s money, even if he was buying them from nonprofits.

At one point, during a deposition, a New York state investigator asked Allen Weisselberg — a Trump Organization employee who was also listed as treasurer for the Trump Foundation — if the foundation had a policy for determining which specific payments the foundation was allowed to make.

“There’s no policy, just so you understand,” Weisselberg said. The interviewer asked if Weisselberg had understood he was actually on the board of the Trump Foundation, and had been for more than a decade.

“I did not,” Weisselberg said.

With no outside oversight over Trump’s use of foundation funds, Underwood said, the future president had repeatedly used his charity’s money to help his businesses, and himself.

Twice, for instance, Trump used the charity’s money to settle legal disputes that involved his for-profits businesses.

In 2007, he settled a dispute with the town of Palm Beach over code violations at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. The town agreed to waive outstanding fines if Mar-a-Lago gave $100,000 to a charity.

But the donation, to an organization called Fisher House, came instead from the foundation, Underwood said — after Trump wrote a note to Weisselberg. “Allen W, DJT Foundation, $100,000 to Fisher House (Settlement of flag issue in Palm Beach),” said the note, which is included in the lawsuit.

In addition, 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, Underwood said.

Both of those payments were first reported by The Washington Post. In March, after the attorney general’s investigation was underway, Trump repaid his foundation all $258,000, plus more than $12,000 in interest, Underwood said.

Underwood also listed several smaller instances of what she called “self-dealing,” meaning Trump using foundation money to help his businesses. The charity paid $5,000 to put an ad for Trump hotels in the program for a charity gala. It paid $32,000 to satisfy an obligation of a Trump company that manages a New York estate. It paid $10,000 to buy a portrait of Trump, which was later found hanging in the sports bar at Trump’s Doral golf resort.

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 had now 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 listed 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 (R). Around the same time, Bondi’s office was considering whether to join an ongoing lawsuit by Schneiderman, then the New York attorney general, alleging Trump had defrauded students at his now-defunct “Trump University.”

Afterward, the Trump Foundation omitted any mention of Bondi’s political group — called And Justice for All — 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.”

After The Post reported on this donation to Bondi’s group in 2016, Trump repaid the $25,000 and paid a penalty tax of $2,500 for an improper political gift.

But Underwood alleged that the campaign Trump’s foundation helped most was his own.

In January 2016, Trump skipped a debate among Republican candidates because he was feuding with Fox News, the debate’s host. Instead, Trump held a televised fundraiser for veterans — drawing millions from wealthy friends and small-dollar donors, and giving much of it to the Trump Foundation.

Underwood said that, afterward, “the Foundation ceded control over the charitable funds it raised to senior Trump Campaign staff.” She cited emails in which Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s then-campaign manager, directed which veterans’ charities should receive money.

At one point, Lewandowski emailed Weisselberg to ask if the Trump Foundation’s money could be ready to distribute during Trump’s last campaign events before the Iowa caucuses: “Is there any way we can make some disbursements [from the proceeds of the fundraiser] this week while in Iowa? Specifically on Saturday,” Lewandowski wrote, in an email cited by Underwood.

At one point, the lawsuit says, Trump actually gave out an oversized $100,000 “Trump Foundation” check to a charity at a campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

The problem: nobody appears to have told the Trump Foundation.

“This ‘check’ was given out (see video). This is not one of the charities we’ve cut a check to yet. Are there other charities like this?” wrote Jeff McConney, a Trump Organization staffer, in an email to Lewandowski cited in the lawsuit.

The check was later cut.

In 2016, Trump sought to excuse his foundation’s actions in a letter to the New York attorney general, saying that the Iowa fundraiser was a charity event. “This statement was false,” Underwood wrote, “because, in reality, the Fundraiser was a Trump Campaign event in which the Foundation participated.”

She wrote that Trump had repeatedly signed charity documents saying that nonprofits like his were not allowed to become involved in political campaigns. “Mr. Trump’s wrongful use of the Foundation to benefit his Campaign was willful and knowing,” she wrote.

As president, Trump has repeatedly called for the repeal of the “Johnson Amendment,” a 1954 tax code provision that imposed the ban on political activity by nonprofit groups.

 

[47of74]

Then fuck face did this while at his summit

Quote

North Korean state media early Tuesday broadcast its first video of President Trump's historic summit with Kim Jong Un, including footage of Trump saluting a North Korean officer. 

In parts of the lengthy, 42-minute long video from North Korea's KCTV news channel, Kim can be seen shaking Trump's hand before the president turns to shake the hand of a North Korean officer standing next to Kim. The officer, confused, salutes Trump instead, prompting the president to salute back.

He just shit and pissed over all the missing Americans who went MIA during the Korean War. 

[Audrey2]

30 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Then fuck face did this while at his summit

He just shit and pissed over all the missing Americans who went MIA during the Korean War. 

Wait- don't I remember Republican outrage when Obama bowed to someone from Japan for diplomatic reasons? As I recall, they called him a traitor and called it treason.

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

In the suit, filed Thursday morning, attorney general Barbara Underwood asked a state judge to dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation. She asked that its remaining $1 million in assets be distributed to other charities and that Trump be forced to pay at least $2.8 million in restitution and penalties.

Happy birthday, Donald! 

[GreyhoundFan]

"What is Trump trying to hide by blaming Canada? The answer may be frightening."

Spoiler

PARIS

The president doth protest too much, methinks.

He and his people are trying a lot too hard to set up Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a fall guy. They continue to blame Trudeau’s softly delivered promise not to be pushed around on trade for provoking Trump’s tantrum at the end of the Group of Seven summit in Quebec. The ferocity of President Trump, his aide Peter “Special Place in Hell” Navarro and others is the kind of unintended but revealing signal that poker players call a “tell.”

What could they be trying to hide under a smokescreen of manufactured anger about Trudeau’s unremarkable remarks? A little-noticed (except here in France) event suggests a truly scary answer. The episode in Quebec was the second such Trump-inspired trade communique fracas in 10 days. Trump may well be mounting an all-out assault on global trade organizations and rules as a matter of policy and design, not just pique or domestic politics.

I have covered a dozen or so of the annual summits of the major industrial powers now known as the Group of Seven, where newsworthy events have included Ronald Reagan (quite justifiably) nodding off during a meeting in Venice and Francois Mitterrand writing postcards home from London while his colleagues droned on. These are not gatherings that produce communiques that cause shouts of “Stop-the-presses!” or deep thumb-sucking analysis.

The same is even truer of summits of the 35-nation, Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD is the home of worthwhile studies and virtuous programs to increase members’ prosperity and commerce, and a once-a-year gathering of national leaders.

French President Emmanuel Macron personally hosted this year’s meeting here and urged attendees to produce a communique reinforcing “strong multilateralism,” especially in fighting the effects of climate change and protectionism. For two months, member-states negotiated the terms of the communique and finally reached agreement — only to have the White House block it just before the agreement was to have been unanimously endorsed on May 30.

The French released the document anyway, archly noting that “a consensus minus one” had blessed its contents. That is a very French way of describing America Alone.

Paris was prelude for Quebec and for Trump’s initial acceptance of an equally unexceptional statement of general principles on international cooperation, followed — presumably after having been spun up by Navarro and other antiglobalist aides — by his decision to back out and blame it all on Trudeau. (Navarro’s subsequent apology for the harshness of his language, but not its content, will do little to remove the damage done.)

My first reaction was to think about the U.S. diplomats and other government officials who had labored on the two texts in good faith, achieved difficult compromises that protected American interests and then seen their work trashed by the know-nothings and bureaucratic bullies Trump has gathered around him for the apparent purpose of making sure he follows his own worst instincts. In a career of working abroad as a correspondent and columnist, I had come to respect and admire officials who did this kind of work for the State Department and other agencies. But now they — and the very work they do — are being sold out and made laughingstocks by the president they supposedly represent.

In recent conversations here, European officials cast a more sinister light on what they think Trump has in mind in picking very public fights with America’s closest allies and the institutions they and the United States have created to instill some order and fairness in the international system. These officials fear that Trump is laying the groundwork for a U.S. decision to withdraw from the World Trade Organization, the 164-nation body that adopts and enforces global rules of trade and provides dispute settlement mechanisms when conflicts between nations arise.

Trump may be dreaming that undoing the world’s rules of trade would let America’s overwhelming economic power reorder global trade balances in this country’s favor. The president may welcome such a very Trumpian, dog-eat-dog world. But even if that is not Trump’s intent in whipping up popular anger against globalization, such a world could well be the result of the reckless course he has chosen.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, Audrey2 said:

Wait- don't I remember Republican outrage when Obama bowed to someone from Japan for diplomatic reasons? As I recall, they called him a traitor and called it treason.

The only time these racist fornicates get mad about anything is when a Democrat does it, especially if the person is not male and/or white.  I used to say 95% of the opposition to President Obama was racial in nature, but now I'm saying it's more like 99.99999999999%.

[GreyhoundFan]

I don't know about you, but my birthday ceased to be a big deal to me after I hit 18. Of course, the orange manbaby is different:

"For President Trump’s birthday, friends and family reach out the likeliest way he’ll notice: On Twitter and Fox" (warning, drink some Maalox before looking)

Spoiler

Exactly 72 years ago in a hospital in Queens, the baby who would grow up to be President Trump was born. Trump has been known to make a yuuuge deal out of his birthday (past bashes have included elaborate cakes, 15-foot rockets and Pamela Anderson cameos), so it seems fitting that his friends and family would send him only the finest HBD greetings.

Donald Jr. gets bonus points for delivery: He went on his dad’s very favorite show, “Fox & Friends,” with his shout-out. “You’re getting absolutely no presents,” the eldest Trump kid informed his father, via the Fox News camera. “I figured five grandchildren is enough.”

Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump, his second and third kids, respectively, posted old family pictures on social media to mark the moment. “Happy, happy birthday Dad! I love you very much,” Ivanka wrote alongside a picture of herself as a little girl posing at a birthday party with her father. “Wishing you your best year yet!!!”

Eric leaned on exclamation marks, too. “Happy Birthday Dad! It is amazing how far we have all come! We are very proud of you and everything you have accomplished!” he posted, adding some American flag emoji for good measure and a montage of pics.

Vice President Pence’s wife, Karen, did the equivalent of that thing where you sign your spouse’s name on a card. “Mike and I wish @POTUS Trump a very happy birthday today!” she tweeted.

Trump’s Cabinet is always ready to make nice with the boss, so no surprise that some b-day love came from them. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s message was particularly effusive: “I’m humbled to serve under your leadership on behalf of our nation,” he wrote.

... < tweet >

But nothing yet from the first lady, we noticed. Not that we’re necessarily expecting it, since the couple isn’t big on social media PDA on big occasions: He didn’t publicly wish her a happy birthday this year and similarly stayed social-media-silent on the subject of his wife on Valentine’s Day, as well as the couple’s anniversary. But Melania Trump last year did post what looked like a hand-calligraphed note on stationery embossed with the presidential seal that read “Happy Birthday Mr. President.”

 

Mother Pence was defrauding, showing her shoulders and everything.

[milkteeth]

3 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

Wait- don't I remember Republican outrage when Obama bowed to someone from Japan for diplomatic reasons? As I recall, they called him a traitor and called it treason.

See also the incredibly stupid "latte-gate" when Obama saluted a soldier while holding a latte that got Fox News chuds in a froth for a few weeks in 2014.

Ultimately though we need to remember that we are never ever going to get these people on being hypocrites and calling them out on their own logic. Their patriotism and 'loving the troops' is just the veneer they use for their brutality and xenophobia. 

[clueliss]

Okay, I could put this in the Governor's thread (but well we're dealing with the ex-governor at this point).  Or I can put this gem related to Trump's Charity here.  (there is a copy of an IRS Form 990 at the link)

http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article213176089.html

Quote

Trump’s charity donated $75,000 in 2016 to charity founded by Greitens

BY EDWARD MCKINLEY

emckinley@kcstar.com

June 14, 2018 12:04 PM

Updated 3 hours 11 minutes ago

President Donald Trump’s charity, which he was accused Thursday of using illegally for political gain, donated $75,000 to former Gov. Eric Greitens’ charity, which he also was accused of using illegally for political gain.

Greitens founded The Mission Continues, a charity supporting veterans, in 2007 and stepped down as CEO in 2014. He resigned from the board in 2015. He was charged this year with stealing its donor list and using it for political fundraising.

Greitens, who resigned as governor on June 1, had reached an agreement with the St. Louis circuit attorney's office, which dropped a felony charge related to the donor list. At the time, Greitens also faced allegations that he'd photographed a bound and partially nude woman to keep her from talking about their affair, and he faced possible impeachment in the Missouri House.

The New York attorney general’s office filed suit Thursday against Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump, alleging “persistent violation of state and federal law” by the Donald Trump Foundation and “extensive unlawful political coordination.”

Trump was the sole signatory to his foundation’s bank accounts and approved all grants, the petition says, and with no oversight, he used his charity for personal, political and business gain.

The New York investigation, which began in 2016, found that Trump “ran the Foundation according to his whim, rather than the law,” and “that the Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments to not-for-profits from Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization."

In February 2016, Trump held a veterans fundraiser in Iowa instead of participating in a Republican primary a few days before the vote. Trump later represented that event as organized by his foundation, when really it was planned, funded and directed by the campaign, the petition says. The event raised $2.8 million in tax-free donations for the Trump Foundation.

Control over what groups would receive that money, when they would get it and how much they would get was then given to Trump’s campaign, the petition says, which handed out grant checks to charities at campaign events to benefit Trump politically.

This makes the charitable donations raised at the Iowa event functionally a donation to Trump’s campaign, the petition says.

The Mission Continues received the $75,000, unsolicited and with no strings attached, in the mail on May 25, 2016, spokeswoman Laura L'Esperance wrote in an email Thursday.

"As a 501c3 nonprofit organization, we are strictly nonpartisan," she wrote.

The New York attorney general’s office sent letters outlining the case to the Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service, which could open up their own investigations.

This page from an IRS Form 990 for the Donald Trump Foundation shows a $75,000 donation in 2016 to The Mission Continues, a veterans charity founded by Eric Greitens.

 

[fraurosena]

The stupid is so staggeringly strong in these ones it boggles the mind.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[CTRLZero]

52 minutes ago, clueliss said:

President Donald Trump’s charity, which he was accused Thursday of using illegally for political gain, donated $75,000 to former Gov. Eric Greitens’ charity, which he also was accused of using illegally for political gain.

Before I even read the article to see this opening sentence, I thought, "Hmmm, from one illegal charity to the other. "  It would be great if something came of this lawsuit against the Trump Foundation.  I wonder how many other so-called charities are part of this evil web. 

[Cartmann99]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Mother Pence was defrauding, showing her shoulders and everything.

Shoulder porn!!!

As for the exuberant birthday greetings, if Trump's ego is not stroked to his satisfaction, he will make everyone around him completely miserable.

[GreyhoundFan]

12 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

As for the exuberant birthday greetings, if Trump's ego is not stroked to his satisfaction, he will make everyone around him completely miserable.

How would we know the difference?

[apple1]

20 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

He does know that Korea and Vietnam are two different countries?

Right, this is Trump.

It is possible for some Gold Star Mothers (and Fathers) of Vietnam Vets to have mentioned it to Trump, but Korean War Veterans are in their 80's and older.

My Dad is a Korean War vet (and he was NOT older when he was drafted). He is 90, almost 91.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, apple1 said:

My Dad is a Korean War vet (and he was NOT older when he was drafted). He is 90, almost 91.

My Dad graduated in 1953 (17 years, would have currently been 82), and I'm thinking he would have been drafted had he graduated a year to three years earlier).

I'm thinking the youngest group if Korean Veterans would be 84 ish.

[JMarie]

This is how Chrissy Teigen and John Legend celebrated Trump's birthday

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2018/06/14/chrissy-teigen-announces-288-000-aclu-donation-protest-trump/702570002/

[fraurosena]

Best.response.ever.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Cartmann99]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

How would we know the difference?

Good point! I meant even more miserable than usual. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[JMarie]

8 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

It's always about the ratings, isn't it?

[AmazonGrace]

Well sure, you too would pay attention if your Leader could have you shot

Manafort was a coffee boy: 

 

The failing New York Times is fake news because the President lies to them: