Trump caught again using charity funds for himself

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...c88f9c-7d11-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html

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.

In one case, from 2007, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club faced $120,000 in unpaid fines from the town of Palm Beach, Fla., resulting from a dispute over the size of a flagpole.

In a settlement, Palm Beach agreed to waive those fines — if Trump’s club made a $100,000 donation to a specific charity for veterans. Instead, Trump sent a check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a charity funded almost entirely by other people’s money, according to tax records.

So basically he was having his charity (made up almost entirely of other people's money) pay off fines from local governments and people involved in litigation against him/his private business. That is blatantly illegal. It's funny that he calls Clinton 'crooked Hillary' considering he has been exposed as creating a charity in his name that doesn't use his money and then looting that charity to buy paintings of himself and get him out of legal troubles.

This guy is a walking monument to corruption and fraud. Sad!
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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No emails though, so ... :smirk:

It is kind of funny that conservatives have repeatedly accused the Clintons of abusing their charity to enrich themselves despite there being no evidence that has happened. They claim to think this is VERY SERIOUS evidence of their corruption. Trump has literally been caught several times now doing exactly what they accuse the Clintons of and they don't care.

I for one am truly shocked at the hypocrisy. Shocked I say!
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
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It is kind of funny that conservatives have repeatedly accused the Clintons of abusing their charity to enrich themselves despite there being no evidence that has happened. They claim to think this is VERY SERIOUS evidence of their corruption. Trump has literally been caught several times now doing exactly what they accuse the Clintons of and they don't care.

I for one am truly shocked at the hypocrisy. Shocked I say!


The Clintons aren't typically accused of self-dealing but rather pay-for-play, access granted for donations. It's a different type of abuse than what's being alleged here. That being said hopefully both are fully investigated and if appropriate then prosecuted.
 

emperus

Diamond Member
Apr 6, 2012
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Trump just being Trump. If he's not scamming people he's not trying.

In the other case in which a Trump Foundation payment seemed to help settle a legal dispute, the trouble began with a hole-in-one.

In 2010, a man named Martin Greenberg hit a hole-in-one on the 13th hole while playing in a charity tournament at Trump’s course in Westchester County, N.Y.

Greenberg won a $1 million prize. Briefly.

Later, Greenberg was told that he had won nothing. The prize’s rules required that the shot had to go 150 yards. But Trump’s course had allegedly made the hole too short.

Greenberg sued.
 

HomerJS

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
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Hey its like he said, "I can shoot someone in the street and my supporters wouldn't care"

Says a lot about his supporters
 

soundforbjt

Lifer
Feb 15, 2002
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No wonder he won't release his taxes, yet his followers are fine with that. Imagine if it were Hillary not releasing her taxes...
 
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thraashman

Lifer
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Imagine if Hillary did any of the things trump has done!
As I've said before, if a Democrat does something outrageous or seemingly outrageous, it's a scandal. If a Republican does it, it's Tuesday. Nobody is shocked when Republicans are horrible people, hell it's the reason their supporters support them, they're evil too.
 
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soundforbjt

Lifer
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And he thinks it's no conflict of interest to have his kids take over while he's President...I think either he or his campaign tried to call it a Blind Trust! Trump doesn't have any clue or he's hoping his supporters don't care as usual.
 
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hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
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And he thinks it's no conflict of interest to have his kids take over while he's President...I think either he or his campaign tried to call it a Blind Trust! Trump doesn't have any clue or he's hoping his supporters don't care as usual.
It would seem to me an impossibility for Trump to create anything approaching to blind trust unless he cashed out of everything. Then he could put it in a truly blind trust. I'm sure he has no intention of closing down his business interests though.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
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The Clintons aren't typically accused of self-dealing but rather pay-for-play, access granted for donations. It's a different type of abuse than what's being alleged here. That being said hopefully both are fully investigated and if appropriate then prosecuted.

Gotta love the false equivalency invoked in the bit about being investigated.

How can something be pay to play when the payee doesn't receive any personal financial gain?

How can using charitable organization funds to pay off business debts be anything but astoundingly corrupt & contemptible?
 
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sportage

Lifer
Feb 1, 2008
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Yeah cause no one cares unless it concerns a woman candidate which we all know women are crooks especially women seeking the presidency. So, no one cares.
The media will pass on this, and the only hope is for the actual legal system to look into this and go from there.
Which says something right there....
They have all looked into alleged Clinton corruption and law breaking and found nothing.
Where as with Trump and republicans, we find smoking guns all over the place and blatant law breaking.
And no regard what so ever to follow the law.

If a republican breaks the law, oh well... Just another day.
If a Clinton does something fishy, and it doesn't actually need be fact, all that is needed is for republicans to say it and continually repeat it until was it becomes fact despite lacking of proof, and then we see the congressional investigations up the yin yang.
Which always leads to nothing.
But with blatant law breaking by a republican and especially by a republican running for president, we might hear a ten second sound bite on the evening news... and that is it.

People should really think hard about this, especially all those Trump fans.
The blocks are set in place for massive corruption within a Trump administration. M A S S I V E !!!
Trump business dealings would benefit from president Trump governing, and Trump would hide and refuse to let the public or authorities see what he was up to.
Corruption would be so widespread throughout a Trump presidency.
Not to mention the many unanswered questions about his pre-presidency dealings.
And no republican house nor senate committee would ever exist to investigate.
No tax returns released.
No accountability.
THIS would be our next four years under republican rule.
Hello Richard Nixon part duo.
 
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shira

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Jan 12, 2005
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I continually read posts on other venues where Trump supporters continually state as fact that Hillary and Bill have "pocketed millions" of the funds from the Clinton Foundation. Not even Fox News has made claims like that. I doubt even Breitbart has. These are the same people who, when presented with links to various fact-checking organizations, all of which pronounce Trump a liar without peer in the history of Presidential politics, just dismiss those findings as "the liberal press." And this isn't just a few weirdos. Apparently, it's a sizable percentage of the American electorate. It's very disheartening.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
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Gotta love the false equivalency invoked in the bit about being investigated.

How can something be pay to play when the payee doesn't receive any personal financial gain?

How can using charitable organization funds to pay off business debts be anything but astoundingly corrupt & contemptible?

Holy crap for once in your misbegotten life can you please stop being a damn hack? Pay for play doesn't mean you need a direct 100% payoff to you personally. It can be to your reelection committee, your business partner, spouse, foundation, etc. - the key distinguishing elements are that (A) preferred access is granted to someone (B) based upon a financial transaction that the person would not have otherwise made and (C) was done either at the direction or with the tacit understanding of the person in power who grants the favorable access that the particular destination is where you wanted that transaction to be directed.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Holy crap for once in your misbegotten life can you please stop being a damn hack? Pay for play doesn't mean you need a direct 100% payoff to you personally. It can be to your reelection committee, your business partner, spouse, foundation, etc. - the key distinguishing elements are that (A) preferred access is granted to someone (B) based upon a financial transaction that the person would not have otherwise made and (C) was done either at the direction or with the tacit understanding of the person in power who grants the favorable access that the particular destination is where you wanted that transaction to be directed.

There have definitely been accusations that the Clintons have illegally enriched themselves using their foundation though, accusations for which there is of course no evidence. In this case there appears to be extremely clear evidence that Trump has done exactly that. I mean the 'pay to play' accusations haven't come up with any actual evidence of that occurring either, but at least in those situations the hypocrisy isn't quite as strong.

I have to say I'm pretty shocked at just how brazen the scam was in this case. He just straight out took people's money and used it to get out of legal bills.
 

agent00f

Lifer
Jun 9, 2016
12,203
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I continually read posts on other venues where Trump supporters continually state as fact that Hillary and Bill have "pocketed millions" of the funds from the Clinton Foundation. Not even Fox News has made claims like that. I doubt even Breitbart has. These are the same people who, when presented with links to various fact-checking organizations, all of which pronounce Trump a liar without peer in the history of Presidential politics, just dismiss those findings as "the liberal press." And this isn't just a few weirdos. Apparently, it's a sizable percentage of the American electorate. It's very disheartening.

Facts are just liberal propaganda. And don't sell Breitbart short, they might not be the bestest but they got good words, too.
 

skull

Platinum Member
Jun 5, 2000
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As I've said before, if a Democrat does something outrageous or seemingly outrageous, it's a scandal. If a Republican does it, it's Tuesday. Nobody is shocked when Republicans are horrible people, hell it's the reason their supporters support them, they're evil too.

The way I see it democrats are just like republicans, they can't see their own faults but love to point out the other persons. So both sides end up with people that don't care about anyone but themselves. You know what they say if voting could really change anything it'd be illegal.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
32,194
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The way I see it democrats are just like republicans, they can't see their own faults but love to point out the other persons. So both sides end up with people that don't care about anyone but themselves. You know what they say if voting could really change anything it'd be illegal.

So more "both sides are the same" bullshit? The way I see it is that those that say that are intellectually lazy.
 

HomerJS

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
35,903
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Facts are just liberal propaganda. And don't sell Breitbart short, they might not be the bestest but they got good words, too.
I will always sell Breitbart short since they are so willing to provide safe haven for the alt-right along with the Trump campaign.
 
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