Another Day In Trump World

Here is today’s probably incomplete wrapup of Donald Trump’s continued destruction of our democracy.  The Washington Post reports that filings from the Trump Foundation with the IRS show that it is admitting that it was self-dealing in violation of the law. The admission covers 2015 and some prior years as well. According to the Post, “[s]uch violations can carry penalties including excise taxes, and the charity leaders can be required to repay money that the charity spent on their behalf.” I’m guessing that this self-reporting of self-dealing might have something to do with David Farenthold’s relentless reporting and NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s ongoing investigation of the Trump Foundation. As the article also points out, Trump had signed prior year’s submissions which have now proven to be incorrect and that could present other issues for him. Of course, it might have helped if the media had actually stressed Trump’s illegal behavior rather than focusing on the “clouds” hanging over the Clinton Foundation and EMAILS!

Earlier Trump apparently indicated to the NY Times that he did not want to pursue a criminal prosecution against Hillary Clinton saying, “My inclination would be for whatever power I have on the matter is to say let’s go forward. This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseum.” KellyAnn Conway followed that up on Morning Joe with, “I think when the President-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content.” But, as Josh Marshall points out, this is just a total misapplication of how our criminal justice system actually works. It is not up to Trump to decide whether of not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. It is up to the prosecutors who may or may not decide to investigate her. Of course, the media will blow this off (although I’m not sure whether the Trump diehards will) because they always believed that it was an empty threat all along. But they played along with it all the same rather than pointing out how dangerous and unacceptable the rhetoric was.

The NY Times also passed along this gem from Trump in response to a question about his conflicts of interest, “The law’s totally on my side, the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” Trump also implied that he had spoken to Nigel Farage about eliminating the wind farms off the coast of his golf club in the UK. He also recommended that Theresa May appoint Farage as UK Ambassador to the US. There are still open questions about whether Trump discussed permits for his hotel in Buenos Aries with the Argentine President. I’ve already posted about the solicitation of foreign delegations for his hotel in DC and the talks with his Indian business partners about his hotels there.

And let’s not forget his settlement of the Trump University class action suit. So, in just the last few days, Trump has basically admitted to defrauding thousands of fellow Americans, lying to the IRS about his Foundation, and aggressively using his position as President-elect to promote his business interests. It’s going to be a long four years if he even makes it that far.