Trump's Closing Of His Foundation Is Just Like His Other Bankruptcies

It is really a shame that the media keeps on making it impossible for Trump and his family to continue to do good work through their foundations and charitable activities. After all, the brazen selling of access and self-dealing is almost exactly what Hillary Clinton did with the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State, if you take away that fact that Clinton was never shown to be selling access and never engaged in self-dealing, despite what the mainstream media was determined to imply during the election. Because Trump is so concerned about making sure he has no conflicts of interest before he assumes the Presidency, he has decided to close the Trump Foundation. Trump put out a statement saying, "The Foundation has done enormous good works over the years in contributing millions of dollars to countless worthy groups ... However, to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President I have decided to continue to pursue my strong interest in philanthropy in other ways." He later tweeted, "I gave millions of dollars to DJT Foundation, raised or recieved millions more, ALL of which is given to charity, and media won’t report!" Besides his inability to spell correctly, the tweet is just another misleading statement from Trump. He hasn't contributed a dime to his foundation since 2008 and many of the contributions listed have turned out to be fictitious. Other donations went to Trump himself or were used to pay off Trump's own personal liabilities, both clear violations of law.

Unfortunately, the Trump Foundation can not shut down until New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman finishes his investigation of the foundation. Perhaps he thought he could pull the same trick that Betsy Devos used with the PAC she ran that blatantly violated election law - just shut it down and refuse to pay any penalties because the entity no longer exists. Too bad for Trump that won't work with his foundation.

Trump may try to sugar-coat this closure by claiming he is just eliminating a conflict of interest. But the reality is that this is just another Trump failure. It is equivalent to his casino bankruptcies, Trump University, and various other Trump brands that have bitten the dust. The Trump Foundation was just another fraudulent scheme that had run its course.