I got a very important part of today’s front page post wrong. As you can see in the post, I placed an update (which I’ve since relabled CORRECTION, to make it even more clear) at the top of it that reads as follows:
UPDATE: CORRECTION: I got a very important part of this wrong. I said that Trump stole from the veterans and spent the money on his campaign. I blew that part. Here is the relevant quote from New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s website announcing the settlement between her office and the Trump Foundation:
The lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation was filed in June 2018 — charging the Foundation’s directors with ignoring their oversight duties under New York’s charity laws and demonstrating how Mr. Trump repeatedly used Foundation money for his own personal, business, and political interests, including the unlawful coordination with his 2016 presidential campaign. In the first half of 2016 — at the height of the Republican primaries — Mr. Trump used Foundation money, raised from the public, to demonstrate his purported generosity and attract votes. Mr. Trump and his campaign doled out $500,000 at a campaign rally in the days leading up to the first primary election in the nation, the Iowa caucuses, then took credit for all $2.8 million in grants the Foundation made.
What Trump and his campaign did was bad enough, but what I wrote was, again, wrong. It was inaccurate. I deeply apologize to all of you reading this, in particular to those who have shared it. I also apologize sincerely to Daily Kos, and to the editorial staff.
Monday, Nov 11, 2019 · 2:55:25 AM +00:00
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Ian Reifowitz
This New York Times editorial lays out what happened with some greater clarity. Clearly, the campaign took control of the funds raised for vets, and it sure sounds like it spent the money on the campaign. A few months later, it seems, after a reporter started snooping, money ended up going to the vets.
The president acknowledged in the settlement that his 2016 campaign controlled the $2.8 million the foundation had raised at a fund-raiser for veterans in Iowa in January 2016, only days before the state’s presidential nominating caucuses. The fund-raiser was used, in the words of the judge, “to further Mr. Trump’s political campaign.”
Reporting by The Washington Post, which led to the New York State attorney general’s investigation of the foundation, found that the foundation could not provide evidence that it gave anything to veterans groups until a reporter started asking about it, months after the fund-raiser.