David Fahrenthold has dug even dipper into the Trump Foundation scandal finding that the Trump illegally used $258,000 in Foundation money to settle legal disputes.
xNEW: @realdonaldtrump used more $250K+ from his charity to pay off legal settlements of his for-profit businesses. https://t.co/Fa1RooYWMT
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) September 20, 2016.
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.
Fahrenthold provides a number of examples in the full article which demonstrates an undeniable commingling of funds and improper use of foundation monies. As noted in the article, one tax expert said, “I represent 700 nonprofits a year & I've never encountered anything so brazen.”
The evidence makes it clear: Trump would be the most conflicted and corrupt President in U.S. history. x@raycutlerfish@realDonaldTrump@washingtonpost@Fahrenthold Pulitzer for investigative reporting is my hope.
— Alexandra Rosas (@GDRPempress) September 20, 2016