NY Times Finally Uncovers Illegal Activity In Presidential Charity

Finally, the New York Times has actually written an article on a real scandal involving a charitable foundation - the one involving the Trump Foundation and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. And they also put it on page 1. Of course, even a lowly blogger like me had managed to detail the story three months ago. I say that not to beat my own chest but to show just how delinquent the Times has been in reporting on this story. And while they've been ignoring it, they have had plenty of articles detailing that "clouds" and "shadows" surrounding the Clinton Foundation that all ended up with the articles admitting that nothing illegal or even unethical happened.

The background of the story is that Florida AG Pam Bondi was investigating whether to join with other state AGs in suing Trump over the fraud at Trump University. While she was considering the matter, she says that she personally solicited campaign contributions from Trump for her re-election campaign. She then decided not to join that suit and four days later a group supporting Bondi's re-election effort called  received a $25,000 donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation which added to a personal $500 donation she received from Ivanka Trump three days before her decision. Unfortunately, tax law does not allow charities to make political contributions so the $25,000 donation was clearly illegal. In addition, when the Trump Foundation made their tax filings, they listed the $25,000 as going to a charity in Kansas with an almost similar name to the political group supporting Bondi. When a political watchdog group uncovered the Bondi donation, the Trump Foundation said they had just made a clerical error, amended their filings, and Trump himself reimbursed the charity for the $25,000. Last Thursday, the IRS slapped a $2,500 fine on the Trump Foundation for its violation.

The IRS fine means that the Trump Foundation had clearly violated tax rules by making a political donation. And some might say that the listing of the donation to a charity based in Kansas that the Trump Foundation had given no money to was more than just a clerical error but a brazen attempt to hide the contribution. Of course, you would not know that some might say that if you read the Times article because it does not even mention the fact that the contribution was reported to the IRS as going to a charity rather than a political group. In addition, the Times also ignores a Huffington Post story that Trump and his daughter Ivanka also gave $125,000 to the Republican Party of Florida a few months after Bondi's decision, which turned out to be Bondi's largest source of campaign funds. In addition, Trump rented out his Mar-a-Lago estate for a fundraiser for Bondi for just under $5,000. A similar event held by the Trump campaign was charged $140,000 for renting the same venue. In this case, it is hard to know whether Trump was giving Bondi a deal or whether he is just gouging his own campaign to line his own pockets. Probably, it is a combination of the two, but Bondi clearly got a deal for her fundraiser. Finally, you have to get down to the third to last paragraph of the story, which, by this time means you are on page A12 of the Times, to also find out that similar questions are being asked about contributions to Texas AG Greg Abbott who was also thinking of joining the suit regarding Trump University.

To give the Times some credit, it does a good job of re-hashing all the other election law violations that Trump has committed over the years, especially in New York. And it also details his clear belief that these political donations are a "pay-to-play", so the article is useful and worth reading just for that. However, the aforementioned significant omissions in the article are glaring. And the headline for the article is just as egregious, reading, "Donald Trump's Donation Is His Latest Brush With Campaign Fund Rules". What the article describes is not "brushes" but clear and continual violations of campaign finance laws. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. The previous Times articles that insinuated shady activities by the Clinton Foundation and which all ended in the conclusion that nothing improper had happened have already tainted the electorate. This story of clear violations by Trump will just be give the usual false equivalence. And it will be interesting to see whether the Times follows up this story or this is just a one-off because of all the pushback they've received from both inside and outside the newspaper.