We begin today’s roundup with The New York Times and its editorial on the Trump family incredible corruption in its handling of the Trump Foundation:
It’s long been clear that Donald Trump’s family foundation, the Trump Foundation, is not a generous and ethical charity, but just another of his grifts. He branded it the way he brands his buildings, using his name to generate income that he then has used largely for his own benefit. In 2016, The Washington Post reported that many of Mr. Trump’s boasts about his charitable giving could not be verified. Those that could be were often gifts to himself.
For instance, the largest reported donation the foundation has made — $264,631 — was used to refurbish the fountain in front of Mr. Trump’s Plaza Hotel in New York. He has not given any of his own supposed fortune to the foundation since 2008, relying instead on the beneficence of others, whether pro-wrestling mavens or simply Americans who thought they were supporting, say, veterans. And yet the Trump Foundation was repeatedly compared with the Clinton Foundation, which, despite justifiable concern about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s dual roles as philanthropic boosters and politicians, is a credible charitable enterprise that focuses on global health and has saved perhaps millions of lives.
Bess Levin at Vanity Fair explains how the foundation was essentially another Trump slush fund:
Here’s a taste of the allegations regarding how the family charity misappropriated its funds:
- $5,000 was used to advertise Trump Hotels;
- $10,000 was spent on a portrait of the president, later found on display at the the sports bar at Trump’s Doral golf resort;
- $100,000 was allegedly used to settle a legal dispute with the city of Palm Beach, which Trump resolved by contributing the amount to the Fisher House Foundation;
- $258,000 was allegedly used to settle lawsuits against Trump and his businesses, including $158,000 paid to a man named Martin Greenberg, who sued the Trump National Golf Club after it failed to pay him a promised $1 million for scoring a hole-in-one at a charity golf tournament.
On that last point, the suit helpfully includes a large photocopy of a note, written in Trump’s signature style, explicitly directing his staff to use the charity’s money to fix his legal problem.
Amber Philips at The Washington Post:
What's so striking about this lawsuit is how much wrongdoing it alleges. The lawsuit's takeaway slams you in the face: Trump's use of the charity was unethical and illegal. His primary motivation, according to the lawsuit, was to enrich himself rather than helping others. Read another way, the state of New York is alleging that the president's charity was a sham.
On the issue of the cruel and inhumane separating of children from their families at the border, Sebastian Murdock at Huffington Post reminds us the context for that Trump quote on the wall that greets the terrified kids:
“Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war,” the quote, printed in both English and Spanish, reads.
The quote from his book references Trump’s failed attempt to evict tenants from their homes in 1985.
“This is a story about a group of tenants who fought very hard to keep me from tearing down the building they lived in and constructing a new one in its place,” Trump continued in his book.
Trump’s plan ― to tear down the building to make way for a luxury high-rise condominium complex ― was shattered after a group of tenants threw lawsuits at him that took years to finally get settled. When the dust finally cleared, Trump lost and the tenants kept their homes.
Michael Paarlberg at The Guardian pulls no punches on America’s policy of imprisoning children:
It’s impossible to look at the Trump administration’s practice of migrant family separation and see it as anything other than what it is: institutionalized child abuse.
By now, there have been real horror stories: parents hearing their children screaming in the next room; a man who committed suicide when his three-year-old was taken from him; children kept in what Oregon senator Jeff Merkley described as a “dog kennel”; a woman being told by a border patrol agent: “You will never see your children again. Families don’t exist here. You won’t have a family any more.” [...]
By declaring the immigration system “broken”, the Trump administration attempts to justify any and all measures they seek to use, up to and including child trauma and psychological torture of parents. None of this is unavoidable. It is the product of individual politicians looking for creatively perverse ways to exploit a hot button issue, immigration.
Over at New York magazine, Margaret Hartmann analyzes the Republican reaction to the Inspector General’s report:
Like many GOP efforts to discredit the special counsel, it didn’t go exactly as Republicans hoped. Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s main finding was that there’s no evidence that political bias affected the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe, or that she should have been prosecuted. [...] On Fox News, Giuliani and Sean Hannity tackled the broader theme of anti-Trump bias at the FBI, cherrypicking details from the IG report to make their case, while simultaneously suggesting that Horowitz can’t be trusted because he didn’t conclude that Clinton should have been prosecuted. [...]
To reach that conclusion, you have to ignore the major findings in the IG report – and the FBI’s bias against a candidate who was actually prevented from becoming president.
And here’s David Leonhardt’s take at The New York Times:
I recommend keeping your focus on the big picture. The report addresses one question that’s more important than any other: Did the Justice Department and F.B.I. use their power, as Trump has repeatedly claimed, to help Clinton’s campaign and hurt his? [...]
And the report’s answer is clear: No.
On a final note, don’t miss Michael Tomasky’s latest on the blind loyalty the GOP has to Trump, even in the face of unprecedented corruption and incompetence:
Remember the “cult of Obama”? Of course you do. They carried on about it nonstop. [...]
I see Paul Ryan finally said he’s not comfortable with babies being taken from their mothers. Well hoop de do. He and Corker and Jeff Flake, who are all so brave they’re headed back home (or to K Street to make millions of dollars from whatever remains of the Trump presidency), aren’t going to matter soon anyway. They have been, and have let themselves be, steamrolled.
If only we weren’t subjects in this experiment, it would be fascinating to behold in a perverse sociological way. No American political party has ever descended into authoritarianism. The Republican Party now undeniably is somewhere along that road.
How low can it go? If they stop at cult , we’ll be lucky.