Trump Foundation Ordered Dissolved; Willful Self-Dealing

[Green Man]

Trump Foundation agrees to dissolve after lawsuit alleged 'illegal conduct'

By Brooke Singman | Fox News
12/18/2018

The Donald J. Trump Foundation agreed to dissolve “under judicial supervision” on Tuesday, as part of the New York State attorney general’s lawsuit against it alleging illegal conduct and “unlawful political coordination” to benefit President Trump's personal and business interests.ainst the Foundation in June, following a months-long investigation led by disgraced former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

On Tuesday, Underwood announced that, following a court decision in favor of the attorney general, the Foundation “signed a stipulation” agreeing to dissolve, distributing the remaining charitable assets of the Foundation “to reputable organizations approved” by her office.

“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 Tuesday. “This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests.”

NEW YORK AG FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST TRUMP FOUNDATION FOR ALLEGED 'ILLEGAL CONDUCT'; TRUMP SAYS HE 'WON'T SETTLE'

She added: “This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone. 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 federal and state law.”

The suit claims that Trump used the foundation’s charitable assets to pay off his legal obligations, promote Trump brand hotels and business, and to purchase personal items. The suit also claims that the foundation “illegally provided extensive support to his 2016 presidential campaign by using the Trump Foundation’s name and funds it raised from the public to promote his campaign for presidency.”

The suit seeks to ban President Trump from future service as a director of a New York non-profit for 10 years, and ban his sons Eric and Donald Jr., and daughter Ivanka from service for one year.

In a statement to Fox News, Trump Organization attorney Alan Futerfas said the foundation has been looking to shut down since Trump was elected to office.

“Contrary to the NYAG’s misleading statement issued earlier today, the Foundation has been seeking to dissolve and distribute its remaining assets to worthwhile charitable causes since Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2016 Presidential election," Futerfas said in a statement to Fox News. "Unfortunately, the NYAG sought to prevent dissolution for almost two years, thereby depriving those most in need of nearly $1.7 million. Over the past decade, the Foundation is proud to have distributed approximately $19 million, including $8.25 million of the President’s personal money, to over 700 different charitable organizations with virtually zero expenses. The NYAG’s inaccurate statement of this morning is a further attempt to politicize this matter.”

WHERE ARE TRUMP FOUNDATION FUNDS ACTUALLY GOING?

Underwood took over the investigation into the organization in May, after Schneiderman stepped down following the publication of a damning report by The New Yorker, detailing four women’s claims that he had repeatedly hit them, threatened them and demeaned them. The graphic accusations included choking a former girlfriend and demanding another, who was born in Sri Lanka and whom Schneiderman reportedly referred to as his “brown slave,” call him “Master.”

The Manhattan District Attorney opened an investigation into Schneiderman following the explosive report that prompted his stunning fall from grace.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tru...llegal-conduct

[Green Man]

Trump agrees to shut down his charity amid allegations that he used it for personal and political benefit

ByDavid A. Fahrenthold

December 18

President Trump has agreed to shut down his embattled personal charity and to give away its remaining money amid allegations that he used the foundation for his personal and political benefit, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced Tuesday.

Underwood said that the Donald J. Trump Foundation is dissolving as her office pursues its lawsuit against the charity, Trump and his three eldest children.

The suit, filed in June, alleged “persistently illegal conduct” at the foundation, which Trump began in 1987. Underwood is continuing to seek more than $2.8 million in restitution and has asked a judge to ban the Trumps temporarily from serving on the boards of other New York nonprofit organizations.

Underwood said Tuesday that her investigation found “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.”

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” she added in a statement.

The shuttering comes after The Washington Post documented apparent lapses at the foundation. Trump used the charity’s money to pay legal settlements for his private business, to purchase art for one of his clubs and to make a prohibited political donation.

Trump denied that the organization had done anything wrong. In late 2016, he said he wanted to close the foundation, but the New York attorney general blocked that move while it investigated.

The settlement with Underwood’s office represents a concession by Trump to a state investigation he has decried as a partisan attack. The case is one of numerous legal investigations of Trump organizations that have proliferated during his presidency.

[Mounting legal threats surround Trump as nearly every organization he has led is under investigation]

In a court filing in New York, Underwood said that the foundation’s remaining $1.75 million would be distributed to other charities approved by her office and a state judge.

Alan Futerfas, an attorney for the Trump Foundation, issued a statement criticizing Underwood for “politicizing” the agreement.

“The Foundation has been seeking to dissolve and distribute its remaining assets to worthwhile charitable causes since Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2016 Presidential election,” Futerfas said. “Unfortunately, the NYAG sought to prevent dissolution for almost two years, thereby depriving those most in need” of the foundation’s money, he said.

Futerfas said that, over its life, the foundation had given away about $19 million, including $8.25 million donated by Trump himself. The rest of the money came from other donors, notably pro-wrestling moguls Vince and Linda McMahon, who gave $5 million. Linda McMahon was later chosen by Trump to head the Small Business Administration.

The attorney general’s suit alleges that Trump used his charity’s money as his own piggy bank — including to help his presidential campaign by paying for giveaways at Iowa rallies.

“The Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments to not-for-profits from Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization,” Underwood wrote in the initial suit.

The Post’s reporting showed that, for years, Trump appeared to use the foundation — which was, by law, an independent entity — to make payments that bolstered his interests.

The largest donation in the foundation’s history — a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989 — appeared to benefit Trump’s business: It paid to restore a fountain outside Trump’s Plaza Hotel. The smallest, a $7 foundation gift to the Boy Scouts that same year, appeared to benefit Trump’s family. It matched the amount required to enroll a boy in the Scouts the year that his son Donald Trump Jr. was 11.

The attorney general’s investigation turned up evidence that Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — all listed as officers of the charity — had never held a board meeting. The board hadn’t met since 1999. The charity’s official treasurer, Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, told investigators that he wasn’t aware that he was on the board.

State investigators asked him what the foundation’s policies were to determine whether its payments were proper.

“There’s no policy, just so you understand,” Weisselberg said.

At one point, Trump used the charity’s money to make a $25,000 political donation to Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi (R). The charity didn’t tell the IRS about that, as required — and instead listed that donation as a gift to an unrelated charity in Kansas with a similar name. Trump’s team blamed accounting mistakes.

During the 2016 campaign, state investigators allege, Trump effectively “ceded control” of his charity to his political campaign. He raised more than $2 million at a fundraiser in Iowa that flowed into the foundation. Then, the state said, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski determined when and where it would be given away.

“Is there any way we can make some disbursements . . . this week while in Iowa?” Lewandowski wrote in an email cited in Underwood’s lawsuit.

Trump gave away oversize checks from the foundation at campaign events in the key early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, pausing his campaign rallies to donate to local veterans’ groups.

Federal law prohibits charities from participating in political campaigns. As president, Trump has called repeatedly for that law to be repealed.

Underwood has asked the IRS to investigate whether the Trump charity broke tax laws. The IRS has declined to comment.

In his statement on Tuesday, Futerfas praised the foundation for operating with “virtually zero expenses.”
Indeed, the Trump Foundation had no paid employees.

It also spent very little on advice from lawyers. From 2001 to 2016, Trump’s charity spent a total of $163 on legal fees — and, in many of those years, it spent $0.

The demise of the Trump Foundation still leaves one mystery regarding a large portrait of Trump that the future president bought for $20,000 in 2007, using money from the charity. What became of it after that is unknown.

In 2017, after The Post wrote about the portrait, Trump listed it as an asset on his charity’s IRS forms. He assigned it a value of $700. But he did not say where it was.

On this year’s tax forms, however, the painting’s value was listed at $0. Trump’s attorney did not respond to a query from The Post about why.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.5fda895ded07

[Miradus]

Meanwhile, the Clinton Foundation keeps right on ticking. Funds may be down, but they're still cashing checks greater than anything you and I ever see.

[Plainsman]

The difference is that Trump was thinking thousands, Clintons think BILLIONS,,,Dam that Trump,,he should have set his sights higher and he wouldn't be in all this mess. Or what we can learn from the Clintons about being crooks 101.

[Plainsman]

Or how about the time the Clinton foundation got caught selling HIV and Hepatitis infected blood from the Arkansas prison system? lol good times I tell ya, yes sir ree, The greater the crime,nobody does the time. remember that when your planning to get rich in the good'ol US of A.

[Bear]

She added: “This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone.

The hypocracy is stunning.