It must provide certain documents
The Times has more on Trump’s little difference of opinion with the New York state AG.
Mr. Trump’s foundation has come under increasing scrutiny amid questions about his fulfillment of large charitable pledges and his lack of financial support in recent years.
The foundation’s compliance with the rules that govern nonprofit groups has also been a concern. The New York Times reported last month that Mr. Trump’s foundation does not show up on the charity registers in many states and The Washington Post subsequently reported that the foundation did not have the certification necessary to solicit money in New York.
Well he’s a very busy man. Very busy. So many women to insult, so many contractors to cheat, so many lies to tell. I’m sure he simply overlooked the certification thingy.
Mr. Schneiderman’s office is investigating Mr. Trump’s foundation to determine if it is in compliance with state laws, including how it spends its money.
In the letter, his office provided notice to Mr. Trump’s foundation that within 15 days it must provide certain documents required to be filed by organizations that solicit contributions, including audited financial statements and annual financial reports. It also must file any “delinquent reports” for past years within that time frame.
Uhhh oh. 15 days to file reports for past years? That sounds like a tall order. But maybe he has them on file and just forgot to send them year after year?
Or could it be that the reason he never registered is because he didn’t want to be audited and that’s because…
Oh no surely not.
It’s quite extraordinary, that Trump didn’t even consider that someone might find out about this little scam. Especially once he started swaggering about insulting journalists left, right and center.
Claire,
He’s mostly gotten away with it his whole life. I don’t mean the Trump Foundation specifically, but lying generally. He portrayed himself as this brilliant businessman, even after four bankruptcies; prior to entering politics, he seemed to be basically a brand name more than a real estate developer. The self-made man who got his start with $14 million from his father, and who was still having Daddy bail him out during his 40s.
And then this campaign merely affirmed the power of lies. He’s taken the Gish Gallop technique and applied it to politics — fact checkers can’t keep up with his many lies, his base of supporters doesn’t care because they’re more about emotion than facts, and editors are so limited by the practice of false equivalence that they’re still figuring out how to cope with an election where one candidate constantly tells bald-faced lies.
Plus, he’s surrounded by yes-men (and yes-women), from his closest advisors down to the hordes of adoring fans who rave about what a smart businessman he is. His team has taken to leaking to news reporters so they can get him to take any constructive criticism or warnings seriously.
I had another thought about the yes-man thing. It’s been pointed out many times that Trump is easy to manipulate, but usually in the sense that it is easy to provoke him to anger and distraction. I think an under-discussed aspect to his personality is how susceptible he is to flattery. His regard for Putin seems to be largely based on the belief that Putin likes him (and if I recall correctly, that was a sort of translation snafu, where a more ambiguous Russian term was translated as “genius” or “brilliant”). He frequently expresses opinions about others that are explicitly based on reciprocity (“he’s said some very, very nice things about me.”). Many people who have dealt with him have noted that he seems to lump people into one of two categories: if you’ve been nice to him, or simply shown basic politeness and he wants something from you, then you’re nice, brilliant, really great, capable, etc., but if you’ve ever criticized or disappointed him, then you’re awful, nasty, dummy, sad!
How hard would it be for a foreign leader to influence Trump through simple flattery? “I have tremendous respect for President Trump, he is a brilliant leader and is making America great again. I know many Americans are upset with my government for [list of atrocities], but I am sure that together President Trump and I will be able to negotiate an excellent deal [that allows me to continue doing exactly what I want].”
Excellent point.
I think this tells us everything we need to know about Trump. Anyone else might have thought that running for president might be a reason to clean up a little bit due to the scrutiny that would inevitably ensue. But Trump obviously didn’t. Didn’t think it would matter, didn’t think it would be a problem. Didn’t think he’d done anything wrong in the first place because – and only because – he’s the one doing it. If Clinton’s foundation had been so *ahem* incompetent there’s no doubt that Trump would have babbled incoherently about it as though it were, say, fraud. The same criticism doesn’t apply to him because he’s SMRT.
Trump seems to think that his unethical and often downright illegal behaviour will all be sorted out in the wash and that the small business owners being hurt and/or bankrupted; the public being cheated out of tax; and the people suffering personally and in public from his childish vendettas don’t matter.
This is a man who seems to think that fraud is mere detail that can be sorted out with the right kind of pulling of strings and fiddling with knobs and who cares about other people being hurt? A man who sets up a charitable foundation almost in mockery of actual charitable foundations that actually help actual people and then can’t even resist screwing the people involved with that and believing – quite possibly correctly – that the responsibility for this fraudulent and – more importantly – unethical behaviour will never really touch him.
i apologise for my over-use of hyphens, but for fuck’s sake
Ah don’t apologise. That was an excellent rant.
Rant mode engages automatically whenever I write about that ‘person’. And, to be fair, about most other things.
Same here, obviously. My rant engine is drinking pints of oil every day.
You should have seen me that time some kids went on my lawn.
And besides, also too, tan gets in your eyes.