#CrookedDonald #1

Note: My commentary below contains excerpts from the 11/22/2016 Washington Post article Trump Foundation admits to violating ban on "self-dealing", new filing to IRS shows by David Fahrenthold.

Donald Trump and trophy wife #3 (former nude model Melania Knauss) pose with one of the painters (speed painter Michael Israel) who created paintings of Trump that the Donald or trophy wife used foundation money to purchase ($20k for a 6-foot-tall portrait by Israel and 10k for a 4-foot painting by Havi Schanz).

The #notmypresident-elect also paid 12k in a charity auction for a Tim Tebow-signed football helmet. The issue is that items paid for with money from a charitable foundation MUST be put to charitable use. Trump using foundation money to pay for items for personal use is illegal (it's called "self dealing").

Trump also "settled a dispute with the town of Palm Beach FL over a large flagpole he erected at his Mar-a-Lago Club. The town agreed to waive $120,000 in unpaid fines if Trump's club donated $100,000 to Fisher House, a charity helping wounded veterans and military personnel"... and Trump made the donation with foundation money! More self-dealing.

Additionally "Trump's golf course in New York's Westchester County was sued by a man who had won a $1 million hole-in-one prize during a tournament at the course. The man was later denied the money because Trump's course had allegedly made the hole too short for the prize to be valid... the Trump Foundation donated $158k to the unhappy golfer's charity (afterwhich the lawsuit was settled)".

As per the title of the WP article, "President-elect Donald Trump's charitable foundation has admitted to the Internal Revenue Service that it violated a legal prohibition against self-dealing, which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families. The admission was contained in the Donald J. Trump Foundation's IRS tax filings for 2015, which were... uploaded by the Trump Foundation's law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius".

This admission that the Foundation broke the law is NEW. Previously they said they did not break the law, now they said they did. Break the self-dealing law numerous times in multiple years. Note that the lies from the foundation were necessitated by actions of Donald and trophy wife. They are the ones who broke the law.

In essence Trump STOLE money from his foundation contributors. They thought they were giving money for the foundation to put to charitable use, not for Trump to buy shit for himself or settle personal lawsuits.

Which makes me wonder, now that the theft of foundation money has been admitted to, what are the consequences? Jail time for Trump? Unfortunately, no. According to IRS tax code "IRC 6684(2) imposes a penalty upon a person who becomes liable for a tax under IRC 4941 for actions that are willful and flagrant, and not due to reasonable cause. The penalty is equal to the amount of the tax imposed under IRC 4941".

I don't know about you, but that penalty sounds a little light for what amounts to theft. 258K according to the Washington post. Money Trump STOLE "from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the [supposed] billionaire's for-profit businesses" (Trump used $258,000 from his charity to settle legal problems).

Crooked piece of shit. Now that he's been "elected" preznit he's quietly paying back some of what he's stolen... using the excuse that he doesn't have the time for legal fights. His excuse when he settled the "Trump University" fraud case. Although he will pay $25 million (21 mil for the defrauded students & 4 mil for the lawyers)... but most students will only be able to recoup half of the money they were scammed out of.

crookeddonald.

SWTD #362

A 2012 Tweet From DJT I Agree With (The Orange Buffoon Who "Won" The WH By Way Of The Electoral College)

Perhaps, if he still feels the same way, he should urge his electors to vote for the popular vote winner, Hillary Clinton? (60,071,650 or 47% for DJT versus 60,467,245 or 48% for HRC).

I found this image (of the tweet) attached to a 10/10/2016 article from "The Wrap". Author Tim Molloy says Donald should work to get rid of the electoral college, "unless he's a giant hypocrite or something".

BTW, Donald thought it was going to be a "disaster" because (for awhile) it looked like Mittens might win the popular vote but lose the election. Which did not end up happening (or so The Wrap reports. Me, I don't recall that).

I read on a Conservative blog (WYD) that they're standing behind the electoral college because we're a Republic, not a Democracy Trump would have lost otherwise (although I just looked for the comment and could not find it. I am sure I read it, however).

However (as per the Wrap article, quoting the NYT), the electoral college is a compromise put in place by the Founders because "Southern delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, most prominently James Madison of Virginia, were concerned that their constituents would be outnumbered by Northerners".

The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise reached between delegates from southern states and those from northern states during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. The debate was over whether, and if so, how, slaves would be counted when determining a state's total population for legislative representation and taxing purposes. The issue was important, as this population number would then be used to determine the number of seats that the state would have in the United States House of Representatives for the next ten years.

Given that it's been quite a while since slavery was abolished, maybe it's time we got rid of this vestige of slavery?

#abolishelectoralcollege #notmypresident #republicanssuck.

SWTD #359