Nexus Of Illegal Activity At Foundation And Refusal To Release Taxes Spells Big Trouble For Trump Campaign

It looks like we may finally be seeing a nexus between the scandals at the Donald J. Trump Foundation and Trump's continued refusal to release his tax returns. And that could mean even more trouble for the Trump campaign.

David Farenthold's report that outlines how Trump directed $2.3 million in fees that were owed to him or his businesses to be paid to his own Foundation, something that is illegal on its own, also raises the question of whether he paid income taxes on those fees as the law requires. So far, the Trump campaign, after first denying the transactions even took place, now says Trump did pay taxes on a $400,000 directed fee but refuses to answer the question about the other $1.9 million. Combine that with the clear self-dealing the Foundation engaged in, such as paying off Trump's own legal settlements with Foundation money and buying Trump portraits of himself, raises a clear question of income tax evasion. And that just raises even more questions about why Trump won't release his taxes.

I have to believe that now that the two issues have been linked, the media will really start to bore in on this. Up to now, it has all been pretty much up to Farenthold and the Washington Post to uncover what has been going on in the Trump Foundation. But you have to think that other organizations (hello, New York Times) are already starting to look at this connection. And pressure from liberal media watchdogs to balance out those stories about "clouds" hanging over the Clinton Foundation will be intense - can you imagine the wall-to-wall coverage Hillary Clinton would be getting if this happened with her.

But this is potentially more than a political and media story. It will also lead to some serious investigations. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has already launched an inquiry into the Trump Foundation and that investigation will probably now spread to Trump's taxes as well. In addition, the IRS will probably be looking at whether the Trump Foundation actually deserves its tax-exempt status considering the illegal contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, the other self-dealing uncover by Farenthold, and how little has actually gone to charity.

The Trump campaign insists that Trump will be harder on Clinton in the next debate, making sure to bring up her email scandal, the Clinton Foundation, Benghazi!, and even Bill Clinton's infidelities. But the reality is that Trump had his chance on those issues and he blew it. Subsequent debates will probably have a much smaller audience. Hillary has already admitted in this debate she made a mistake in setting up her own private email server so it's hard to score more points on that. Benghazi! has been flogged to death and Hillary can just point to the seven or eight investigations of the incident that cleared her completely. And if he goes after her on the Clinton Foundation, she can just respond that the only illegal acts in either of their foundations were his and then link that to his not releasing his tax returns, as well as being proud of paying no taxes, which is turning out to be a fairly big negative for Trump according to post-debate focus groups. As for Bill Clinton's infidelities, I double it is going to go over very well with swing suburban women to try to blame the wife for the husband's indiscretions. Trump really has no avenue for attack that's left. His answers on national security in this debate leave with almost no credibility in that area. The only thing he has going for him is attacking her on trade. But you can't go for a whole debate with just one issue. And that assumes Trump could go an entire debate without even more self-inflicted wounds.