In case you missed it, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has indicated that he is taking a very long and very hard look at the Eric Trump Foundation’s shady business dealings—including how a $100,000 donation from Donald Trump’s foundation didn’t go to help kids fight cancer, but ultimately wound up in the Trump Organization’s bank account.
What you may not know is that if Schneiderman does move forward with this, any investigation could potentially put the squeeze on one of Trump’s closest White House confidants. Namely, Dan Scavino, Trump’s social media chief—the notorious fake news peddler who runs the White House Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram feeds, as well as Trump’s “official” Twitter account.
While delving into Schneiderman’s potential investigation at Liberal America, I noticed that Scavino had been one of a number of Trump Organization employees to find their way onto the Eric Trump Foundation board from 2011 to 2015—around the time that the Eric Trump Foundation’s financial practices started getting dodgy. As Forbes originally noted, by 2015, at least six Trump Organization employees served on the Eric Trump Foundation board—including Scavino.
Consider that Eric had to pay his father for using Trump National Westchester when he publicly told donors that he was using it for free. Even if he had been honest and told his donors that he was paying for the course, those fees exceeded any reasonable figure for a one-day charity golf tournament. Add in that he diverted charity money to causes unrelated to children’s cancer, and also used charity money for personal purchases. All things considered, anyone who served on that board from 2011 to 2015 better have a lawyer on speed dial.
Scavino, as it turns out, has been associated with Trump for the better part of a decade and a half—first as an employee and later an executive at Trump National Westchester, and as one of the earliest members of Trump’s campaign team. It goes without saying that if Schneiderman leans on Scavino hard enough, Scavino will have a lot to say.