The Trump Foundation is a real scandal, and it should be a campaign-ending scandal

By Mark Sumner
Monday Sep 12, 2016 · 11:13 AM EDT

There’s really only one big question left unanswered by the work David Fahrenthold has been doing on the true nature of the Donald J. Trump Foundation: why is Fahrenthold the only one doing this work?

For months we’ve known that Trump used money from his charity to buy himself an autographed football jersey.

Trump won, eventually, with a bid of $12,000. Afterward, he posed with the helmet. His purchase made gossip-column news: a flourish of generosity, by a mogul with money to burn. "The Donald giveth, and The Donald payeth," wrote the Palm Beach Daily News. "Blessed be the name of The Donald."

But Trump didn't actually pay with his own money.

And we’ve learned that Donald Trump commissioned a 6-foot painting of—who else?—Donald Trump, using $20,000 of money intended for charity. And all those awards that litter his office come from money other people gave.

Donald Trump was in a tuxedo, standing next to his award: a statue of a palm tree, as tall as a toddler. It was 2010, and Trump was being honored by a charity — the Palm Beach Police Foundation — for his “selfless support” of its cause.

His support did not include any of his own money.

And Donald Trump has paid an IRS penalty for writing a $25,000 check to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

In that year's tax filings, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump's foundation listed a donation — also for $25,000 — to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi's political group. In fact, Trump's foundation had not given the Kansas group any money.

And that’s just the tip of a massive iceberg that Fahrenthold has uncovered simply by sitting down with the documents of the Trump Foundation and working the phone to check the relationship between what Trump says his foundation is about, and the reality that Donald Trump has created a money laundering scheme with which he buys political influence (and keen toys) using other people’s money.

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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/12/1569223/-The-Trump-Foundation-is-a-real-scandal-and-it-should-be-a-campaign-ending-scandal