In a resolution of a case brought by New York’s attorney general Letitia James, a judge has ordered Donald Trump to pay $2 million to charities not of his choosing as a fine for the fact that he used his supposedly charitable foundation to pay for his campaign.
Judge Saliann Scarpulla said Mr Trump had “breached his fiduciary duty” by allowing funds raised for US veterans to be used for the Iowa primary election in 2016.
The money was raised in a televised fundraiser during a Republican primary debate that Mr Trump skipped.
“I direct Mr Trump to pay the $2,000,000, which would have gone to the Foundation if it were still in existence,” the judge wrote, saying it must be paid by Mr Trump himself and should go to eight charities he has no relationship to.
Mr Trump said the case had been resolved and that he was “happy to donate” $2m to the Army Emergency Relief, Children’s Aid Society, City Meals-on-Wheels, Give an Hour, Martha’s Table, United Negro College Fund, United Way of Capital Area and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Ms James said Mr Trump had admitted to “personally misusing funds at the Trump Foundation”.
What I particularly liked was this little item at the end.
Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump – who were also directors of the Trump Foundation – are required to undergo mandatory training “on the duties of officers and directors of charities”, Ms James said.
Trump, in his usual braggadocio style, had vowed never to settle the case but he not only settled it and agreed to pay the fine but acknowledged wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
According to a statement by James’ office, the settlement requires the president to admit fault: “Chiefly, Mr. Trump admits to personally misusing funds at the Trump Foundation, and agrees to restrictions on future charitable service.” The Trump children also agreed to submit to mandatory training. “The Trump Foundation has shut down, funds that were illegally misused are being restored, the president will be subject to ongoing supervision by my office, and the Trump children had to undergo compulsory training to ensure this type of illegal activity never takes place again,” James said.
Given Trump’s repeated statements that as president he is abvoe the law, I am not sure why he settled this case without fighting it all the way.
Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump … are required to undergo mandatory training …
And people scoffed when True Patriots™ warned us about forced re-education camps!!1!
Same reason he settled the Trump University case, I suspect: his lawyers managed to penetrate his skull that 1) this was not a case where he was starving out an individual with limited funds to fight, and 2) he had no chance of winning it, and 3) if it went to trial, he would be made to pay far more than 2 million.
From what I understand, admitting wrongdoing in white collar crime is rare and hopefully a sign that we’ll be seeing a LOT more of it in the future. None of this will likely matter to Donald Trump personally, however. He’s old enough and has enough money and money-generating setups going that he probably doesn’t need the charity anymore. It was just a tax avoidance scheme. He simply isn’t likely to live long enough for everyone to forget and let him get away with the same con game again.
I feel like the mandatory training for his children is likely to rehabilitate them on paper and allow them to be hired by other charity organizations in the future, however. Hopefully it’s not just on paper. This might allow the IRS more leeway in watching them in the future. All of this is just speculative though, I hold no special knowledge of the law or the inner workings of the IRS.
* I’m a little hesitant to call them businesses -- most businesses, even bad ones, produce a product that isn’t completely BS and even the morally bankrupt ones tend to have a better history of paying people than the Trumps seem to
I wish they had made it part of the settlement that he actually had to admit wrongdoing, explicitly in words, rather than having such an admission merely legally implied by his not contesting the terms of the judgment. I mean, does this sound like he’s admitting any wrongdoing?
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1192594646691729408
If he had been forced to say publicly in a tweet “I was wrong,” it would kill him outright.