And so the house of cards that is the Trump Organization begins to fall.
But here is how I indicted the Trump Foundation over two years ago in “Forget the Clinton Foundation. Shut Down the Trump Organization,” August 26, 2016:
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Trump calling for the charitable Clinton Foundation to be shut down if Hillary is elected is perhaps the ‘yugest’ example of pot calling kettle black in American political history. The psychopathology afoot here is called projection. It is defined by people attributing to others traits, faults, and blame that inhere in themselves. And it explains almost every insult Trump has hurled at his opponents throughout this presidential campaign.
So when you hear him calling other people crooked, insecure, weak, beholden to special interests, liars, etc., be mindful that he’s just revealing self-conscious truths about himself, dimwittedly. …
Even with all of [Bill and Hillary’s] faults, Donald J. Trump has no leg to stand on when it comes to accusing the Clinton Foundation of any wrongdoing or shady dealings.
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And here is why New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood dissolved it today, as reported by The New York Times:
The Donald J. Trump Foundation has agreed to close following a court decision that allowed a lawsuit against the foundation to move forward, the New York attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.
The attorney general, Barbara Underwood, accused the foundation of ‘a shocking pattern of illegality’ that was ‘willful and repeated’ and included unlawfully coordinating with Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
‘This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,’ Ms. Underwood said.
In gambling parlance, which Trump clearly understands, he folded. Moreover, he ceded the winding down of his foundation to state authorities.
But talk about perverting the proverb that charity begins at home. This shyster used donations to his charity to, among other illegalities, pay his legal bills and buy life-size portraits … of himself.
More to the point, though, this foundation was only one in a tangled web of dubious enterprises that compose the Trump Organization. And Trump knows that running his charity like a personal slush fund was just a misdemeanor compared to the high crimes that characterize his other enterprises – all of which Special Counsel Robert Mueller, feds in the Southern District of New York, and several state attorneys general are now investigating.
There are currently six separate investigations into Trump and his associates from four different investigative bodies. An additional lawsuit brought by two state attorneys general challenges whether Trump is in violation of the U.S. Constitution. There are further reports about probes into the financial dealings of the president’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, and his second eldest son, Eric Trump.
(HuffPost, October 3, 2018)
Of course, he will have to fold (a.k.a. resign) in the face of prosecution in these cases as well … or be impeached. This, especially if he wants to give his children (and son-in-law) get-out-of-jail-free cards for their alleged (state) crimes. It speaks volumes in this respect that, as part of this dissolution, Trump and his three kids will be barred from serving on the board of any other charitable foundation in New York.
Mind you, it was self-evident to some of us that Trump was running for president only as a vainglorious PR stunt to increase the value of his name brand; you know, to make ventures like his ill-fated Trump Tower in Moscow more lucrative. I duly warned in “Trump for President? Don’t Be a Sucker!” April 8, 2011.
Never in his wildest dream did he (or we) think he would win. But he wasted no time cashing in pursuant to that stunt. I duly lamented in “America’s First Family: Rich Getting Richer,” June 22, 2018.
As indicated above, though, things are falling apart all around Trump. And all the president’s supporters and all the president’s minions cannot put them together again.
But Trump must have been cursing his luck even before media klieg lights on his presidency began bringing investigators out of the woodwork. After all, even before his inauguration, his brand was already suffering such reputational damage that luxury condos, hotels, and other businesses were dropping his franchised name.
Nothing could have been more foreboding in this respect than Attorney General Underwood’s predecessor forcing him to pay a fine of $25 million just days after his election victory in 2016. He did so to finally settle lawsuits filed in 2010, which arose out of the fraudulent enterprise that masqueraded as Trump University. I duly reveled in “Nordstrom Rejects Trump Brand…,” February 10, 2017.
In any event, he seems bound to be the first man in history to rue the day he was ever elected president of the United States.
Apropos of this, I have advised that he now has little choice but to follow Nixon’s path to infamy. I refer you to such commentaries as “Trump Framing FBI, Appeasing Russia. Treasonous?” February 1, 2018, and “Trump and the Poisoned Chalice of the Pardon Power,” August 22, 2018.
Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail. Instead she is running for president in what looks like a rigged election.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2016
Unsurprisingly, the irony seems lost on Trump that the more he threatens to “lock her up,” the more that noose of legal jeopardy tightens around his neck. This, stemming from his lifetime of shady, and probably incriminating, dealings. #Projection!
Related commentaries:
Trump organization…
Trump for pres? Don’t be a sucker…
Rich getting richer…
Trump brand…
Treasonous…
Poisoned chalice…
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Tuesday, at 7:47 p.m.