The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion The suit against Trump’s charity isn’t ‘ridiculous’ at all

|
June 16, 2018 at 12:26 p.m. EDT
This note, written by President Trump, allegedly directed his staff to pay $100,000 from the Donald J. Trump Foundation to a charity to settle a long-running legal dispute between the town of Palm Beach and Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club. It was included in a lawsuit filed Thursday against Mr. Trump by the New York attorney general, who said this payment violated tax laws by using a nonprofit's money to pay a debt owed by Mr. Trump's for-profit club. (New York attorney general lawsuit)

STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL are notoriously ambitious and partisan, so much so that the letters “A.G.” are often said to stand for “aspiring governor.” And Eric Schneiderman (D) of New York was among the more aggressively political, at least until his recent resignation over allegations that he had physically abused several former romantic partners. So it’s no surprise that President Trump would greet news of a New York state lawsuit alleging wrongdoing in the charitable foundation that bears his name by calling it “ridiculous” and casting aspersions on Mr. Schneiderman’s motives.

There are two reasons to be skeptical of Mr. Trump’s attack on the messenger rather than the message: First, Mr. Schneiderman’s replacement, who is continuing the lawsuit, Barbara Underwood, while a Democrat to be sure, is one state A.G. who came to her job by accident and has pledged not to run for the office herself. Second, much of the underlying evidence in the New York complaint was first developed not by New York’s authorities but by a reporter, David A. Fahrenthold of The Post , going back to 2016. The New York investigation began in response to Mr. Fahrenthold’s reporting, for the sound reason that the Donald J. Trump Foundation is registered as a nonprofit organization in that state.

Mr. Trump, together with his adult children, stands accused of treating the foundation as what Ms. Underwood called “little more than a checkbook for payments from Mr. Trump or his businesses to nonprofits, regardless of their purpose or legality.” The alleged abuses range from the petty — spending $10,000 on a portrait of Mr. Trump that ended up in the sports bar at a Trump-owned for-profit golf resort — to the blatantly inappropriate — a $25,000 political donation in support of a Republican attorney general of Florida’s reelection effort. On an even grander scale of alleged political misuse of charitable funds, Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, wrote emails appearing to distribute money raised to benefit veterans for maximum advantage in the Iowa caucuses.

On two occasions, Mr. Trump allegedly used Trump Foundation money, totaling $258,000, to settle legal disputes against his for-profit businesses. The latter point is especially troubling given that the funds for the foundation were not Mr. Trump’s in the first place but came from others, including $5 million from pro wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon, who has since become head of the Small Business Administration in the Trump administration.

In several instances, Mr. Trump has reimbursed the foundation and paid interest or penalties, after his conduct was exposed by The Post and others. The lawsuit seeks additional penalties, and would liquidate the Trump Foundation and distribute its remaining $1 million in assets among other charities. This proposed remedy seems at least reasonable for a foundation that has been so obviously loosely managed over the years; the board of directors, of which Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump were nominally members, has not even met since 1999, according to the New York lawsuit.

Ms. Underwood also referred her findings to the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Election Commission for possible action. The appropriate, nonpartisan response from those agencies would be to follow up diligently.

Read more:

Paul Waldman: The Trump Foundation was one big scam, according to the New York attorney general. What a shock.

Jennifer Rubin: New York takes on Trump

Karen Tumulty: Republicans ‘don’t want the tweet that I got’: Mark Sanford says Trump sealed his loss

The Post’s View: Pruitt is proof that scandal doesn’t matter in the Trump era