As a country, most of us like dogs. We care about our animals. They are friends, and we want to make sure they have humane lives. Dogs love us without many conditions, and if you want to anger America, you start attacking the handling of dogs or cats.
What if a charity claiming to help dogs were to funnel nearly $1.9 million worth of donations straight into Donald J. Trump’s high-end resorts? And what if, let’s say, an event chairwoman of that charity was the daughter-in-law of the one who financially benefits?
Those are the questions everyone is asking right now.
Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law in question, imagines herself a potential candidate for U.S. Senate in North Carolina next year, as Trump reminded everyone at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for Big Dog Ranch Rescue on Friday.
The would-be candidate may regret this video being out there, though, as it shows that these dog events are a great way to give her father-in-law funds.
A dog rescue charity with links to Lara Trump has spent as much as $1.9 million at former President Donald Trump’s properties over the last seven years and will drop an additional quarter-million at his Mar-a-Lago country club this weekend.
According to a permit filed with the town of Palm Beach, Florida, Big Dog Ranch Rescue estimates it will spend $225,000 at the club where Donald Trump has taken up full-time residence since leaving the White House. All the profit from that spending winds up in his pocket.
This kind of self-dealing has been the subject of an investigation by state attorneys elsewhere and the results have not been good.
Daughter-in-law Lara Trump has been advertised as a “chairwoman” of the charity’s fundraisers over the past several years. The spending by a charity she is associated with at her family’s businesses mirrors practices at Donald Trump’s now-shuttered Trump Foundation and Eric Trump’s Eric Trump Foundation, which also spent donor money at Trump properties.
The self-dealing by the Trump Foundation was so egregious that New York state Attorney General Letitia James cited it as the reason the charity could no longer operate.
You might consider helping your local Humane Society instead.