Donald Trump agreed to pay $2 million in damages for misusing funds from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a tax-exempt charity — taking the charity’s money to pay debts for his for-profit businesses, to boost his campaign and to buy a painting of himself and other memorabilia, according to court documents reported by the Washington Post (11/7)
Trump acknowledged in a court filing that he had failed to follow basic laws about how charities should be governed. Previously, Trump had insisted the charity was run properly and the suit was a partisan sham by New York officials.
State Judge Saliann Scarpulla ordered Trump to pay the damages to settle a lawsuit filed against Trump in 2018 by the New York attorney general. “Mr. Trump owed fiduciary duties to the Foundation,” Scarpulla wrote in the order, meaning duties to safeguard the foundation’s money. “Mr. Trump breached his fiduciary duty to the Foundation.”
Among Trump’s admissions in court papers: The charity gave his campaign complete control over disbursing $2.8 million that the foundation had raised at a fund-raiser for veterans in Iowa in January 2016. The fund-raiser, Trump acknowledged, was in fact a campaign event, as a portion of the funds were dispersed on the eve of the Iowa caucuses as directed by then-campaign chief Corey Lewandowski.
The lawsuit filed by the state’s attorney general accused President Trump — along with his children, Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka — of conflating charity with politics, repeatedly using charitable donations for personal, political and business gains, including legal settlements, campaign contributions and even to purchase a portrait of Trump to hang at one of his hotels..
The three Trump children were required to take an “in-person interactive” training class in how to be better board members, and the suit against them was dismissed, court documents say.
The foundation has already agreed to cease operations and must pay the $2 million, as well as $1.8 million left in the foundation’s accounts, to eight charities: Army Emergency Relief, the Children’s Aid Society, Citymeals-on-Wheels, Give an Hour, Martha’s Table, United Negro College Fund, United Way of National Capital Area and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
If Trump ever joins another charity board — or starts a new charity of his own — the charity must fill a majority of board seats with people who have no relationship to Trump. It also must hire a qualified attorney, submit to audits and agree never to pay Trump or his company for any services.
When the lawsuit was filed in June 2018, Trump attacked it and claimed the lawsuit was politically motivated. “The sleazy New York Democrats, and their now disgraced (and run out of town) A.G. Eric Schneiderman, are doing everything they can to sue me on a foundation that took in $18,800,000 and gave out to charity more money than it took in, $19,200,000,” the president tweeted referencing former state attorney general Schneiderman, but then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood filed the suit that named Trump, his three eldest children and the Trump Foundation and alleged violations of campaign finance law.
Judge Scarpulla repeatedly rejected attempts by Trump to have the case dismissed.
Even with his admission of wrongdoing, Trump complained (11/7) that Attorney General Leticia James “refuses to investigate the Clinton Foundation with all of its problems.” Trump’s Justice Department reportedly has launched an investigation of the Clinton Foundation, which raised $213.7 million in 2018 and spent $198.2 million on programs and services, but no credible complaints have been made public against the Clinton Foundation and the Charity Navigator rates it four stars (of four possible) for its activities, including top marks for financial performance, accountability and transparency.
CIVIQS POLL OF BATTLEGROUND STATES SHOWS TIGHT PREZ RACE, NO MATTER WHO DEMS NOMINATE. On one hand, the New York Times/Siena College poll of battleground states (10/13-26) suggests that Joe Biden is running ahead of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump in general election matchups. On the other, a recent Washington Post poll showed little difference between those three (though with implausibly big Democratic leads), Markos Moulitsas Zúniga noted at DailyKos (11/6).
The Post found Biden, Sanders and Warren run strongest against the president nationally, with Biden leading by 17 points (56% to 39%), Warren by 15 points (55% to 40%) and Sanders by 14 points (55% to 41%).
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA), the other two Democrats tested against Trump, also lead the president among registered voters, with Buttigieg up by 52% to 41%, and Harris ahead by 51% to 42%.
Then Data for Progress and Civiqs released state tracking data (11/6) showing not only that the race is close, but it hardly even matters who the Democratic nominee is. “In the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, it’s scary close. Winnable close, but also losable close,” Zúniga wrote. “And it’s generic Democrat vs. Trump to the bitter end.”
That’s a big difference from the 17-point Biden lead in the Washington Post poll. The Civiqs numbers are far more realistic, Zúniga wrote.
“Having seen the tracking data over the course of the year, I can say that Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, and Wisconsin regularly flip from blue to red—they are on a razor’s edge, essentially tied, and the game will be decided by turnout. Michigan and Pennsylvania have maintained small-but-steady Democratic leads: nothing to take to the bank, but the edge clearly is ours.
“The only other state that we’re currently seeing as tightly competitive? Georgia, with a slight Trump advantage. Beyond that, it gets much harder for either side. So sure, you’ll need to lock down some of the reach states to prevent any 2016-style surprises (Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine, Nevada for the Dems, and Iowa, Ohio, and maybe Texas for the GOP), but really, the entire game looks to be those six states polled above plus Georgia.
“If you’re not terrified, you should be. And no, there’s no magic candidate that gives us a better chance than any other. You can vote with your heart, because when it comes to November, no one runs away with the victory.”
ANOTHER POLL SHOWS MANY UNDECIDED VOTERS IN ‘BLUE WALL’ STATES. One year out from the 2020 presidential election and without a clear frontrunner in the Democratic primaries, a large share of voters in four key Midwestern states – about 41% – say they have not yet made up their minds about who they plan to vote for in November 2020. These “swing voters” either report being undecided about their vote in 2020 or are leaning towards a candidate but haven’t made up their minds yet. With a substantial number of votes still up for grabs, The Kaiser Family Foundation and Cook Political Report conducted interviews with 3,222 voters in four states constituting the “Democratic Blue Wall” in the Upper Midwest where Trump narrowly won in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and narrowly lost in MInnesota. The “Blue Wall Voices Project" looks in-depth at this group of voters to explore the policy issues that could swing these voters to vote for either President Trump or the Democratic nominee.
Health care and the economy are the top issues leading into the election year, and while voters in the Blue Wall states narrowly supported Trump’s handling of the economy, by 1 point, they disapprove of his handling of health care by 21 points. His overall job approval for the four states was minus 18.
Majorities of Democratic voters view as good ideas a Green New Deal (92%), pathway to citizenship for immigrants who entered the US illegally (91%), ban on future sales of assault weapons (88%), ban on owning assault weapons with mandatory buybacks (83%), Medicare for All (62%), no longer detaining people for crossing the border illegally (56%) and a ban on hydraulic fracking (54%).
Most swing voters said Medicare for All is a bad idea (62%), but think it’s a good idea to offer a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the US illegally (70%), they think the Green New Deal is a good idea (67%) and it’s a good idea to ban future sales of assault weapons (66%) and ban owning assault weapons (54%). but they also said it would not be a deal breaker for them.
The poll finds Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden are front-runners among Democratic primary voters in the Blue Wall region. Warren is the first choice of 22% of Democratic primary voters, which is similar to the share who say Biden is the candidate they plan to support (21%). While Warren and Biden garner similar shares of top choice votes among Democratic primary voters across the Blue Wall, four in ten Democratic primary voters choose Warren as either their first or second choice in the Democratic primary. This is followed by 29% who choose Biden, one-fourth who choose Bernie Sanders, and 14% who choose Pete Buttigieg. Most of the shift over to Sen. Warren is from Sanders supporters, with half of Sanders supporters choosing Warren as their second choice of candidates.
ESTIMATED 15,600 DEATHS RESULT FROM GOP BLOCKING MEDICAID EXPANSION. The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) expansion of Medicaid from 2014 to 2017 saved the lives of at least 19,200 people aged 55 to 64. Meanwhile, state decisions to not expand during that time led to the premature deaths of 15,600 adults in that age group, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) reported (11/6), according to Jessica Corbett at CommonDreams (11/8).
Texas led the list of missed opportunities, with an estimated 2,920 Texans whose lives were lost because Republicans blocked the federally-funded Medicaid expansion, followed by Florida with 2,776, North Carolina with 1,400, Georgia with 1,336 and Tennessee with 964.
Medicaid is a joint federal and state health insurance program that provides coverage to low-income people, families and children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities. The ACA, signed in 2010, aimed to force states to expand Medicaid eligibility to adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level—but a 2012 US Supreme Court ruling made the expansion voluntary.
The CBPP report is based on a study conducted by Sarah Miller of the University of Michigan, Sean Altekruse of the National Institutes of Health, Norman Johnson of the Census Bureau, and Laura Wherry of the University of California, Los Angeles. The researchers looked at mortality trends for lower-income older adults in recent years, as several states expanded Medicaid eligibility.
Based on the study, Matt Broaddus and Aviva Aron-Dine explain in their CBPP report, “the lifesaving impacts of Medicaid expansion are large: an estimated 39 to 64 percent reduction in annual mortality rates for older adults gaining coverage.”
In a related blog post, Aron-Dine points out that “the study likely underestimates the lives saved by expansion because it doesn’t capture the policy’s long-term benefits or include certain expansion states. Nonetheless, expansion’s lifesaving potential ranks with other major public health interventions: if all states had expanded Medicaid, the lives saved just among older adults in 2017 would roughly equal the lives saved by seatbelts among the full population.”
CBPP’s report comes after 33 states and Washington, D.C. have expanded their Medicaid programs in recent years and three more plan to do so in 2020.
Aron-Dine’s blog post also summarizes previous research showing that Medicaid expansion boosts health and well-being by preventing evictions, improving quality of care, and increasing access to treatment for opioid use disorder. She concludes that “these findings should give the 14 states that haven’t yet decided to expand Medicaid more reason to do so.”
One of the charts created by CBPP as part of a collection explaining the “far-reaching benefits” of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion shows that many states which have not expanded eligibility are located in the South, where state legislatures and governor posts often have been dominated by Republicans in recent years:
Judy Solomon, a CBPP senior fellow who focuses on health policy, shared the institute’s new report on Twitter Wednesday and connected the ongoing fight for nationwide Medicaid expansion to some state-level results from the Nov. 6 election.
In Virginia, the Democratic Party took full control of the state government for the first time in nearly three decades by flipping seats in the state House of Delegates and Senate. In Kentucky, Democrat Andy Beshear declared victory in the race for governor with a lead of more than 5,000 votes—though the widely unpopular Republican incumbent, Matt Bevin, has refused to concede.
Last year, in a move decried as “vindictive and cruel,” Bevin cancelled dental and vision Medicaid coverage for 460,000 in Kentucky just after a federal judge struck down the governor’s attempt to impose work requirements on the state’s 1.4 million Medicaid recipients.
TRUMP ENDS FILIPINO WW2 VETS PROGRAM. The Trump administration found another Obama program it can sidetrack as it has announced it will end the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole Program (FWVP). The program, begun during the Obama administration, attempted to help reunite Filipino veterans and their families in the US while awaiting official federal decisions on their visas. The idea of the program is to allow elderly veterans the chance to have family members help support them in the States. It’s a decent and humane program, giving the very least back to people who sacrificed so much for the rest of us, Walter Einenkel noted at DailyKos (11/11).
When the decision to end support of the FWVP became news, US Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-HI, released this statement:
“To serve his pathological need to treat immigrants as cruelly as possible, and to undo any program ever created by Barack Obama, Donald Trump is dishonoring Filipino World War II veterans by ending the program that allows them to reunite their families in the United States. The President’s decision means many of these veterans in their 90s will likely die without seeing their families again.
“The depths of Donald Trump’s inhumanity where immigrants are concerned knows no bottom, but not even the most loyal of his supporters can be in favor of disrespecting the brave and distinguished service of veterans who fought alongside Americans and helped us win the war. There is no purpose to keeping the families of the quickly diminishing number of Filipino World War II veterans separated. They have been ignored and disrespected by this country for decades. They deserve our thanks, not spite from their unhinged president.”
For decades, Filipino veterans and their families have tried to get the full recognition they deserve for their service and sacrifice during the World War II. More than a quarter million Filipino soldiers enlisted to serve in the US Army during World War II and a little less than 30,000 were allowed to move to the US and become citizens. Many of those soldiers left family behind during that time. Reunions between soldiers in the US and their families back in the Philippines would frequently take many years.
The Philippines was attacked by Japan only 10 hours after the infamous Pearl Harbor bombing, as Japan occupied Manila. It became the location of American and Filipino resistance that lasted for months and set the tragic stage for the Bataan Death March of 60,000-100,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war, leading to death of thousands and decried as a war crime. Japan occupied the Philippines for nearly the entirety of the war, and the Philippines suffered almost 60,000 casualties during that time.
Retired US general and chairman of the Filipino Veterans Recognition and Education Project, Tony Taguba, wrote for The Hill that people like his father, who served the US during the Second World War, received American citizenship because they earned it, not as a gift. “Being granted American citizenship for completing their mission is not an entitlement or benefit. Soldiers were willing to die for our country, to suffer the brutality and ravages of war, and many lost their homes and livelihood.”
“This kind of service and sacrifice is something conservatives like Trump and the current Republican leadership have never understood, Einenkel wrote. “In their world, there are winners and losers, and 99% of us are not what they consider winners.”
UKRAINE EXPERT SAYS MULVANEY HELD UP MISSILE SALES TO UKRAINE TO AVOID UPSETTING RUSSIA. A State Department official and former National Security Council member told congressional investigators that then-White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney halted the sale of anti-tank Javelin missiles to Ukraine in late 2017 over fears that it would upset Russia, Kerry Eleveld reported at DailyKos (11/11).
Catherine Croft testified that the Mulvaney-led Office of Management and Budget (OMB) put a hold on the decision to sell the missiles to Ukraine over worries that “Russia would react negatively to the provision.” Croft said that was how OMB director Mulvaney described the reasoning. Asked if any other agencies involved in approval of the sale were similarly concerned about such a transaction, Croft called OMB the “lone objector.” Meanwhile, the National Security Council and State Department both supported selling the missiles to Ukraine, she testified, adding that in her opinion not providing the anti-tank missiles would serve Russia’s interests. Croft also characterized the OMB decision as policy based rather than budget based, which she said was an aberration. “Typically, its role is usually limited to the budget a side of things,” she said. “So it was rather unusual to have OMB expressing concerns that were purely policy-based and not budget-oriented.”
Croft said Mulvaney also placed the hold on security assistance to Ukraine earlier this year. She was informed of the delay during a July 18 video conference with an OMB staffer who revealed the hold. “The only reason given was that the order came at the direction of the President,” she said in her opening statement.
Croft also testified in her opening statement that she received “multiple” calls from former Republican congressman-turned-lobbyist Robert Livingston urging the firing of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was the target of a coordinated smear campaign.
“It was not clear to me at the time—or now—at whose direction or at whose expense Mr. Livingston was seeking the removal of Ambassador Yovanovitch,” Croft wrote. Croft further testified that she believed Yovanovitch “to be an extraordinarily competent and skillful diplomat.”
AT RICK PERRY’S SUGGESTION, 2 POLITICAL BACKERS GET UKRAINE GAS DEAL. When Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine in May to attend the inauguration of Volodymyr Zelensky, he gave the new president a piece of paper with four names he recommended as potential energy advisers to the country. At the time, Zelensky’s young administration was already grappling with the realization that the Trump administration wanted an investigation opened into Burisma, the gas company on whose board Hunter Biden sat, Kerry Eleveld noted at DailyKos (11/11).
About a month after Perry proposed the names, Ukraine awarded a potentially lucrative gas drilling contract to one of the men on the list, Michael Bleyzer, a longtime political benefactor of Perry, according to the Associated Press. Bleyzer and his business partner, Alex Cranberg, who lent Perry a corporate jet during his 2012 presidential bid, had reportedly bid “millions of dollars less” than their only rival to obtain the contract. But Ukraine gave them the 50-year contract because they demonstrated “greater technical expertise and stronger financial backing.”
Perry was, of course, one of the self-appointed “three amigos” who was advancing Trump’s agenda in Ukraine alongside special envoy Kurt Volker and Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland, both of whom have played critical roles in the impeachment hearings. Perry’s spokesperson said the former Texas governor was simply promoting the American energy sector abroad. “What he did not do is advocate for the business interests of any one individual or company,” said Energy Department press secretary Shaylyn Hynes.
Perry is due to leave his post on12/1 and he has refused to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry thus far. Nonetheless, Perry has emerged as a central player in testimony released to date, with Sondland naming him as the person who established a channel of communication between Ukraine officials and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
SENATE REPUBLICANS READY TO RUBBER STAMP WORST TRUMP JUDGE APPOINTEE YET. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled a floor vote on possibly the worst yet of Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, a very high bar, Joan McCarter noted at DailyKos (11/11). “It’s testament to just how in the bag for Trump the entirety of the Republican Senate is. Steven Menashi, the nominee to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, is a Trump White House lawyer. He has worked with white supremacist adviser Stephen Miller on immigration policy—both the Muslim ban and the kidnapping and caging of migrant children. He also provided legal counsel to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in developing her policy to rollback protections for survivors of sexual assault on college campuses under Title IX. He also shaped the Education Department’s plan to deny debt relief to students that were cheated by for-profit colleges, a plan a federal judge ruled against, saying it violated federal privacy laws.”
That’s just the last few years of his work. His past writings are inflammatory, to say the least: “In past editorials, Menashi compared race data collection in college admissions to Germany under Adolf Hitler; denounced women’s marches against sexual assault; opposed the ‘radical abortion rights codified in Roe v. Wade;’ and claimed that a Dartmouth fraternity wasn’t being racist when it held a “ghetto party” attended by white students donning Afros and carrying toy guns,” Jennifer Bendery noted at (11/7)
Oh, and he was also probably aware of Trump’s attempt to extort Ukrainian President Zelensky and the efforts to cover up the phone call. But that’s not known for certain because he’s refused to answer Democratic senators’ questions about what he knows because of his position in the White House counsel’s office. Perhaps the House should be calling him as a witness in the impeachment hearings.
He’s so bad even Republicans defending him are reduced to saying things like “He’s written some really weird stuff.” That’s Senator and Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who pushed him through committee. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, who was so irritated by Menashi’s arrogance and refusal to answer questions in committee that he helped hold over a committee vote for several weeks, now just says “Some of his views are eclectic and some of them I don’t agree with.” He’s voting for him anyway.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin pointed out how phenomenally inexperienced in actual, real law stuff he is: “He has never tried a case. He has never argued an appeal, nor has he made any oral arguments in court. He has never conducted a deposition. He has zero experience handling criminal cases. He could not even name a single time when he observed a criminal trial.”
As of now, the only Republican who says she’ll vote against him is Susan Collins, whose vote isn’t necessary anyway. McConnell wouldn’t be moving it forward if he didn’t know he had 51 votes, so he’s let her off the hook.
TRUMP HOTELS RAKE IN MILLIONS FROM REPUBLICANS EAGER TO SUCK UP. Republicans claim that they spend boatloads of money at Trump properties, not because it’s a great way to suck up to Donald Trump but because the hotels and resorts are just so nice. It’s an obvious lie, Laura Clawson noted at DailyKos (11/11), and one that can be easily blown up by looking at a few key numbers. Like $69,000. That’s the amount that campaigns and political groups spent at Trump businesses between 2012 and 2014. These days $16,000 probably isn’t even a good week of Trump Organization revenue from political sources—shoot, just one holiday party being hosted by Attorney General William Barr will cost $30,000.
In fact, political organizations have spent $8.3 million at Trump businesses since the 2016 election, according to a report from Public Citizen. The expenditures range from a couple hundred dollars on hotel rooms up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for multiple events. The biggest spender is the Trump campaign itself, giving the Trump Organization nearly $3.8 million in business. The Republican National Committee, showing Trump’s total ownership of the party, has spent $1.6 million. Trump Victory has spent $991,000 and America First Action is in for $545,000. The Trump hotel in Washington, D.C., has reaped $2.5 million in political spending, with one of its restaurants getting an additional $191,000.
But the 192 political campaigns or political groups—30 of which spent $10,000 or more—aren’t the only ethically questionable expenditures at Trump properties. They’re joined by 28 foreign governments, officials, or political groups and 51 U.S. businesses or business groups. Everyone knows that spending money at and praising properties owned by Donald Trump is a great way to get on Trump’s good side, and everyone knows that Trump doesn’t hesitate to base his official actions on his personal good (or bad) feelings about someone—good feelings that are so easily purchased.
If all those claims about how these political groups and businesses and foreign governments were spending millions at Trump hotels because Trump hotels are just so gosh-darned great were true, then the expenditures wouldn’t have spiked when Trump became president. The numbers tell the story here.
NEW CHINESE TRADE DEAL MIGHT MAKE CHICKEN A BOOBY TRAP. News reports indicate that a tentative trade deal has been reached between the US and China that would lift the yearslong ban on poultry imports and exports between the two countries.
In response, Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Action Executive Director said: “The Trump administration is bowing to China at the expense of public health in America with his new poultry deal. In one fell swoop, this trade deal means that American families can serve contaminated chicken for dinner and not even know it.
“Chicken from China has historically been so unsafe that hundreds of dogs have died from eating treats derived from Chinese poultry. Thousands of quality control inspections have shown that Chinese food-processing plants often fail basic hygiene standards and in some cases, outsource food containing abnormal levels of pesticides, antibiotics, heavy metals, bacteria, and viruses. Even the Chinese government admits that the country needs to improve its food safety system. Apparently, the Trump administration has no qualms about opening our doors to products from places with such poor food safety records - and even worse while keeping Americans in the dark about it.
“Without stronger country of origin labeling, this deal will mean processed chicken products containing Chinese chicken do not have to be labeled. The Trump Administration is subjecting Americans to a new world where munching on a chicken nugget could mean getting sick. This agreement also rewards outsourcing, as Cargill has plants in China that stand ready to export Chinese chicken products to the U.S. It is unacceptable to take such unnecessary risks with the health of American families in the name of ‘free trade.’”
From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2019
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us