Two big stories dropped this morning concerning Donald Trump's fake "charity" foundation and his dubious donations.
Christina Wilkie at the Huffington Post reported this morning that Trump gave $45,000 to former New York comptroller Alan Hevesi. Hevesi literally went to prison for pay-for-play bribery, but not before he helped Trump avoid paying taxes.
The bulk of Trump’s donations went to Hevesi’s campaign for state comptroller, a race Hevesi won in the fall of 2002. In the fall of 2003, by which point Trump had given Hevesi $35,000, the city settled Trump’s lawsuit, a decision that would have involved both the state comptroller ― i.e., Hevesi ― and the new city comptroller.
The city reduced the tax assessment for Trump’s newest building by 17 percent and awarded the building a special tax abatement.
It gets better worse.
Hevesi and California businessman Elliott Broidy both plead guilty to corruption for steering state taxpayer dollars to Broidy's firms. Broidy now works for Trump and the RNC as the vice chairman of the Trump Victory fund.
Meanwhile, David Fahrenthold at the Washington Post continued his Pulitzer-worthy campaign this morning with a report that Trump has used Trump Foundation money to pay the legal bills of his private, for-profit businesses.
In one case, from 2007, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club faced $120,000 in unpaid fines from the town of Palm Beach, Fla., resulting from a dispute over the size of a flagpole.
In a settlement, Palm Beach agreed to waive those fines — if Trump’s club made a $100,000 donation to a specific charity for veterans. Instead, Trump sent a check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a charity funded almost entirely by other people’s money, according to tax records. [...]
In another case, court papers say one of Trump’s golf courses in New York agreed to settle a lawsuit by making a donation to the plaintiff’s chosen charity. A $158,000 donation was made by the Trump Foundation, according to tax records.
Why did someone sue Trump's golf course?
You can't make this shit up.
In 2010, a man named Martin Greenberg hit a hole-in-one on the 13th hole while playing in a charity tournament at Trump’s course in Westchester County, N.Y.
Greenberg won a $1 million prize. Briefly.
Later, Greenberg was told that he had won nothing. The prize’s rules required that the shot had to go 150 yards. But Trump’s course had allegedly made the hole too short.
Some people have compared Trump to a carny, but that doesn't feel fair. Say what you will about carnies, but they haven't scammed taxpayers and donors out of millions of dollars and used it to pay themselves.
To be clear, what Trump and his foundation have done is illegal. The good news is New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation of the Trump Foundation. Some critics blasted Schneiderman last week for opening a probe by saying it looks politically motivated, but they may want to consider walking that back now.
Donald Trump is the most corrupt man to ever run for office.