MSNBC: Trump Foundation starts to look like a slush fund

[Eugene]

Source: MSNBC

Trump Foundation starts to look like a slush fund

09/20/16 12:35 PM—UPDATED 09/20/16 01:03 PM
By Steve Benen

Just when it seemed the controversy surrounding the Donald J. Trump Foundation couldn’t get any worse, the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold published new revelations this morning that, if true, suggest serious wrongdoing.

Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents.

Those cases, which together used $258,000 from Trump’s charity, were among four newly documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against “self-dealing” – which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.

This is hardly the first controversy surrounding Trump’s charitable foundation, but it may be the most damaging for one straightforward reason: it doesn’t require a lot of explanation. As Josh Barro put it, the summary fits in a sentence: “Donald Trump took money other people gave his charity and used it to pay his businesses’ fines.”

Not to put too fine a point on this, but what’s being described here sounds an awful lot like a slush fund.

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Read more: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-foundation-starts-look-slush-fund

Related: Trump used $258,000 from his charity to settle legal problems (Washington Post)

[tonyt53]

1. Damned accurate wording.

[madaboutharry]

2. He lives in a reincarnation of Versailles in the Trump Tower,

yet he cheats people, uses a slush fund to pay his debts, and pays off corruopt politicians to get what he wants. He is a loathsome pig.

[catbyte]

5. Yeah, if Versailles had been decorated by Saddam Hussein's pimp.

Completely ghastly & garish. Can't imagine what he'd do to the White House.

[madaboutharry]

7. Haha!

Imitation is never the same.

[SunSeeker]

3. This story has legs. I see this this story everywhere. nt

[benld74]

4. Just look up grifter and Trump's picture is there

[Guilded Lilly]

6. More from the article...and a question...

"The obvious question, of course, is whether or not it was legal for Trump to use charitable money to pay off legal settlements from for-profit businesses. The Post’s report said Trump’s alleged practices “may have violated U.S. tax law and gone against the moral conventions of philanthropy.”

“I represent 700 nonprofits a year, and I’ve never encountered anything so brazen,” said Jeffrey Tenenbaum, who advises charities at the Venable law firm in Washington. After The Post described the details of these Trump Foundation gifts, Tenenbaum described them as “really shocking.”

“If he’s using other people’s money – run through his foundation – to satisfy his personal obligations, then that’s about as blatant an example of self-dealing [as] I’ve seen in a while,” Tenenbaum said.

For much of the political media, there’s a sense that the Clinton Foundation is a real controversy, despite the fact that there’s no evidence of actual wrongdoing. As it turns out, it’s her rival who has the real scandal."



We know ignoring the morality of philanthropy is no big deal to a man who has deplorable morals, but can someone with better understanding of the legalities explain that if this is true (and it would be right up his sleazy con-man alley) is it something that he could be prosecuted for NOW? Something that could sink his candidacy?

It won't stop supporters from backing him but could it legally damage him? Is there any precedent for something like this?

[imanamerican63]

8. A slush fund for a LUSH!

[napkinz]

9. Both CNN and MSNBC covering the story RIGHT NOW!

[Gabi Hayes]

11. details! I watch old man David Ross stumble across the plate

for Cubs' first run as I type this.

gotta have some joy in life, right?

108 YEARS!!!!!

[Gabi Hayes]

10. how much play is THIS getting:

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/17/new-york-times-digital-a-trump-empire-built-on-inside-connections-and-885-million-in-tax-breaks.html

I know I read it here, but I haven't seen this on TV. that's cause I pretty much quit watching, for obvious reasons

The way Donald J. Trump tells it, his first solo project as a real estate developer, the conversion of a faded railroad hotel on 42nd Street into the sleek, 30-story Grand Hyatt, was a triumph from the very beginning.
The hotel, Mr. Trump bragged in “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” his 1987 best seller, “was a hit from the first day. Gross operating profits now exceed $30 million a year.”

But that book, and numerous interviews over the years, make little mention of a crucial factor in getting the hotel built: an extraordinary 40-year tax break that has cost New York City $360 million to date in forgiven, or uncollected, taxes, with four years still to run, on a property that cost only $120 million to build in 1980.

The project set the pattern for Mr. Trump’s New York career: He used his father’s, and, later, his own, extensive political connections, and relied on a huge amount of assistance from the government and taxpayers in the form of tax breaks, grants and incentives to benefit the 15 buildings at the core of his Manhattan real estate empire.

Since then, Mr. Trump has reaped at least $885 million in tax breaks, grants and other subsidies for luxury apartments, hotels and office buildings in New York, according to city tax, housing and finance records. The subsidies helped him lower his own costs and sell apartments at higher prices because of their reduced taxes.

how is THIS not the story of the campaign so far? is it because this is SOP for realty moguls, to the point that it wouldn't be news, except for the fact that this conman, mobbed up bully is running for el presidente?

[ffr]

12. Whoopsie! #BondiGate getting national coverage

Last edited Wed Sep 21, 2016, 01:29 AM - Edit history (1)

only a couple days late. Must be a slow news day.

[dhill926]

13. yep...

Hillary didn't cough....

[rurallib]

14. Morning Joe will give Trump's side tomorrow morning on MSNBC

nothing to see here.

[sarcasmo]

15. Kick.

[Blue Idaho]

16. I wonder how NBC is feeling about their

$50,000 donation to the Trump Foundation? Film at eleven...

[Gothmog]

17. K&R

[spanone]

18. K&R...

[napkinz]

19. K&R