Category: Unpresidential

Trump: ‘I Would Have Far Less Reason to Tweet’ If the Media Covered Me ‘Honorably’

Twitter

President-elect Donald Trump tweeted Monday that he’d have “far less” of a reason to use Twitter if he received what he believed to be more fair coverage.

“If the press would cover me accurately & honorably, I would have far less reason to ‘tweet,'” Trump tweeted. “Sadly, I don’t know if that will ever happen!”

Trump used the social-media platform to bash NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” as “unwatchable” and “totally biased” for a skit in which Alec Baldwin impersonated the Manhattan billionaire and his tweeting habits.

“The Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse. Sad!” Trump tweeted.

He also used Twitter recently to defend himself for what he described as a congratulatory from the president of Taiwan. The call, which broke decades of US foreign-policy orthodoxy, was the first communication between the leaders of the two countries since 1979 and risked angering the Chinese government.

As is typically the case when Trump criticizes the media, he did not point out anything that was inaccurately reported but merely sowed doubt about whether the media was being forthcoming regarding its coverage of him.

(h/t Business Insider)

Reality

If only the press would stop reporting on the lies he makes…

Donald Trump ‘supports policy’ that has killed 4,500 people in the Philippines in five months

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s plan to “kill all” the country’s suspected drug users and dealers has many foreign critics, including the United States, the European Parliament and the International Criminal Court. It now has at least one high-profile supporter: President-elect Donald Trump, at least according to Duterte.

In a statement on Saturday, Duterte shared details of a seven-minute conversation that took place on Friday. He said that during the call, Trump endorsed his campaign against drug users and dealers — a campaign that has left at least 4,500 Filipinos dead in about five months. Trump told Duterte that he was doing it the “right way,” according to Duterte’s account.

“I could sense a good rapport, an animated President-elect Trump,” he added. “And he was wishing me success in my campaign against the drug problem.”

The comments, which have not been confirmed by Trump’s team, could signal another significant twist in U.S.-Philippine ties.

The Philippines is a former U.S. colony that has been a close U.S. partner for decades. Since sweeping to power last spring, Duterte has repeatedly lashed out at his longtime ally, threatening to ditch the United States for China and Russia.

In September, when President Obama raised questions about the bloody anti-drug crusade, Duterte lectured him on colonialism, referring to him with a slang term that translates, roughly, as “son of a whore.”

In the weeks that followed, he made several surprise announcements on U.S.-Philippine military ties, calling for the ouster of U.S. Special Operations forces from the southern island of Mindanao and the end of joint U.S.-Philippine military exercises — only to backtrack repeatedly.

But Trump’s triumph in the US presidential race saw Duterte switch direction again. Weeks after railing against “uncivilized” Americans, Duterte greeted the U.S. president-elect with an enthusiastic “long live” Trump. Duterte also mused that they might get along — because they both like to swear.

For the Philippine president, an expression of support from Trump could help reset ties with the United States. But endorsing Duterte’s crackdown may put Trump at odds with allies such as the European Union, whose parliament issued a resolution urging the Philippines to halt “extrajudicial executions and killings” in connection with the drug war.

(h/t Independent)

Reality

Duterte, also an authoritarian, threatens political rivals and other enemies with baseless claims that they too are drug dealers in order to intimidate into submission or move them aside, even having one political rival murdered under police custody.

Donald Trump Angrily Tweeted About the SNL Sketch About Him Tweeting

President-elect Donald Trump unleashed another tweet of rage targeting “Saturday Night Live” — slamming the show as “unwatchable” and “totally biased.”

“Just tried watching Satruday Night Live – unwatchable!” he tweeted just after midnight on Sunday. “Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse.”

“Sad,” he added.

He posted it after a sketch on Saturday night made fun of Trump’s persistent use of Twitter. The clip featured Alec Baldwin, playing Mr. Trump, obsessively retweeting other users.

“There is a reason actually that Donald tweets so much,” said Kate McKinnon, playing Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway in the sketch. “He does it to distract the media from his business conflicts and all the very scary people in his Cabinet.”

Baldwin and McKinnon have both been celebrated for their impressions on the comedy show, which has a history of poking fun at everyone, including politicians, through impersonations.

(h/t CBS News)

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3g_laToxE

Trump ‘Thank-You Tour’ Revives His Campaign Rallies’ Scariest Hits

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday appeared as if he never ended his campaign, attacking “the extremely dishonest media,” boasting about his “landslide” victory, and dashing speculation he might pivot and start acting like a president.

At a rally in Ohio billed as the beginning of a “thank-you tour,” Trump repeatedly pledged to unite the country and “find common ground.” But his rhetoric, almost word for word, matched the raucous and incendiary rallies of his campaign.

The crowd chanted “lock her up” at the first mention of Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, even though Trump since the election has backtracked on his pledge to prosecute Clinton for her use of a private email server. He galvanized supporters during the campaign by calling her “Crooked Hillary” and alleging she broke the law, even though the FBI cleared her.

“I’m going to discuss our action plan to make America great again,” Trump said on Thursday. “Although we did have a lot of fun fighting Hillary, right?”

The rally followed an earlier event at a Carrier Corp. factory in Indiana, where Trump boasted about his deal with the company to keep 800 jobs from moving to Mexico in exchange for tax incentives.

The two events were Trump’s first public appearances since winning the election last month.

Trump showed at the rally that he prefers campaigning to governing. Since the election, he has reportedly turned away classified intelligence briefings and has resumed tweeting conspiracy theories and late-night ramblings. He has also said he wants to continue holding rallies as president.

Trump on Thursday trotted out a few lies ― as was his style at campaign events. He falsely suggested terrorists are “pouring into our country” and described a “violent crime wave” in America’s cities.

He went on an extended riff slamming “the extremely dishonest media” and pointed at reporters covering the rally for admonishment. Trump’s transition team has restricted press access to the president-elect, setting his administration on a path of secrecy.

Trump also took a stab at a GOP primary rival, Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

“Hey, in the great state of Ohio, we didn’t have the upper echelon of politician either, did we?” Trump said, a mocking reference to Kasich, who refused to support Trump and was a vocal critic.

Trump bragged that world leaders have joined in celebrating his victory in phone calls to him.

“They all tell me, they sat in their magnificent rooms in wonderment,” he said. “One of them told me, ‘I truly respect the United States again because of what happened.’”

Those calls have sparked controversy with reports that Trump discussed his businesses with foreign leaders. Trump has already been dogged by conflicts of interest between his elected office and his businesses.

Trump confirmed his appointment of retired Gen. James Mattis as defense secretary, but bizarrely claimed it was a secret until a formal announcement later, telling the crowd: “Don’t tell anyone.”

The president-elect also delivered a healthy serving of pie in the sky ― free of any facts ― just like he did during his campaign. He promised to unify the country and “overcome decades of stalemate and gridlock.”

“Now that you have put me in this position, even if you don’t help me one bit, I’m going to get it done, believe me,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. It would be easier if you helped, but that’s all right. Don’t worry, I’ll get it done.”

(h/t Huffington Post)

Reality

I thought it was “time for us to come together“?

Media

Trump Calls For Jailing, Revoking Citizenship of Flag-Burners

Trump humps American flag

Burning an American flag should be a crime, President-elect Donald Trump wrote Tuesday morning on Twitter, perhaps punishable by a forfeiture of U.S. citizenship or a year in jail.

“Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” Trump wrote in a post to his social media account.

Laws prohibiting the burning or desecration of the flag have been struck down by the Supreme Court, most recently in 1990, because they were found to have violated the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects freedom of speech. A 1958 Supreme Court decision rejected the practice of stripping U.S. citizenship as a form of criminal punishment, on the grounds that it violates Eighth Amendment protections against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

In a 5-4 decision in 1989, the Supreme Court upheld the right of protesters to burn the flag, with the late Justice Antonin Scalia siding with the protesters. He later said he based his ruling on a “textual” reading of the Constitution.

“If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag,” Scalia said in 2015 in Philadelphia. “But I am not king.”

A 2005 bill that would have reinstituted a ban on flag burning was co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton, then a senator from New York. That legislation was unsuccessful.

A constitutional amendment that would allow the government to ban flag desecration has been proposed multiple times but has never passed. It was last voted down in 2006 in the Senate, where current Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and former Democratic presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee, then a Republican, were among three GOP lawmakers to vote against it. Then-Sen. Clinton also voted against it.

McConnell disagreed sharply with Trump’s tweet when asked about it during a press availability on Tuesday.

“The Supreme Court has held that that activity is a protected First Amendment right, a form of unpleasant speech, and in this country we have a long tradition of respecting unpleasant speech. I happen to support the Supreme Court’s decision on that matter,” McConnell said.

Some protesters upset with Trump’s Election Day victory have set fire to American flags at demonstrations throughout the country. At Hampshire College, a small school in western Massachusetts, administrators removed the American flag from campus after protesters there burned one, according to WWLP-TV. That decision prompted a protest of more than 1,000 people, many of them veterans, upset with the school’s decision.

Jason Miller, Trump’s senior communications adviser, struggled to defend the president-elect’s post in an interview on CNN’s “New Day” just minutes after the tweet appeared online. He refused to concede that flag burning is constitutionally protected speech, insisting that it should be illegal even as he tried in vain to pivot to the announcement of Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) as Trump’s pick to be secretary of health and human services.

“Chris, flag burning is completely ridiculous. And I think you know that and I think the vast majority of Americans would agree,” Miller told CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.

“But legal,” Cuomo interjected.

“But Chris, it’s completely ridiculous. And I don’t think there’s a big universe of people out there who support flag burning. It’s terrible and it’s despicable,” Miller replied.

The two continued in circles for several more rounds of back-and-forth as Cuomo tried to pin down Trump’s spokesman on the issue of flag-burning before Miller finally succeeded in turning the interview to Price’s selection, telling his interviewer that “flag burning should be illegal. End of story. Let’s get in and talk about how we’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare and these fantastic picks that the president-elect announced this morning.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) readily acknowledged during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that flag burning is constitutionally protected free speech, telling panelist Willie Geist that “we’ll protect our First Amendment” even though he does not agree with the practice.

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), asked about Trump’s tweet in a separate “New Day” interview, said, “I love my flag, and I love what it stands for, and I hate those who want to go out and burn it.” Still, Duffy added: “The court is probably right that we want to protect those people who want to protest and their right to actually demonstrate with disgracing our flag even though so many of us who love our country and love our flag object to it.”

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a libertarian-leaning member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, also took issue with Trump’s flag-desecration stance, writing on his own Twitter account that “Nobody should burn the American flag, but our Constitution secures our right to do so. No president is allowed to burn the First Amendment.”

Trump received a modicum of support from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Armed Services Committee chairman with whom he clashed throughout his presidential run. As he made his way through a Capitol Hill office building, McCain told CNN that “I do not approve of burning the flag. I think there should be some punishment, but right now, the Supreme Court decision is that people are free to express themselves that way.”

McCain declined to offer any further comment on Trump’s social media post, telling a CNN reporter that the president-elect’s bombast is a distraction from the work he faces on Capitol Hill.

(h/t Politico)

Trump Gives Petraeus a Pass

Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for classified State Department emails made her unfit for high office. But that isn’t stopping him from considering David Petraeus, who pleaded guilty to knowingly leaking secret government files — and lying to the feds about it — for secretary of state.

Trump’s hourlong meeting Monday with Petraeus, a retired general and former CIA director, to discuss the Cabinet position is the latest in the president-elect’s outreach to retired military leaders who have clashed with President Barack Obama on foreign policy and national security.

But it also calls into question the sincerity of Trump’s stance on the importance of safeguarding the nation’s secrets, according to former government officials and intelligence experts — a stance that was driven home with campaign trail chants of “Lock her up.”

“The very consideration of Petraeus for a senior position reveals that the Trump campaign’s rhetoric regarding Hillary Clinton was totally bogus,” said Steven Aftergood, a specialist on government classification at the Federation of American Scientists. “Candidate Trump was generating hysteria over Clinton’s handling or mishandling of classified information that he likely never believed or took seriously himself.

“Petraeus admitted lying to the FBI, which distinguished his case from Clinton’s and made his case a good deal worse,” Aftergood added. “I think once again President-elect Trump is revealed as a rather hypocritical figure.”

Petraeus’ stint as head of the CIA came to ignominious end in 2012 when it was discovered he was having an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, his biographer, and had shared reams of classified information with her. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and was sentenced to two years of probation and forced to pay a $40,000 fine. Investigators also claimed that Petraeus separately shared classified information with journalists.

It is likely to be a major point of contention if he is nominated and faces confirmation by the Senate, where he has significant supporters but there is already some angst about having to grapple with his law-breaking.

A former senior intelligence official who was once Petraeus’ boss said he would not hire Petraeus for the top diplomatic post for several reasons, including that his professional experience has mostly been limited to military operations in the Middle East.

However, his leaking of classified information seems an obvious disqualifier, said the former spy, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

“The fact someone who acknowledged committing that would even be considered is surprising to me,” he said. “Especially since Trump made that such a part of his campaign against Clinton. It is asking for trouble. [Petraeus] left the CIA in disgrace.”

Trump himself frequently used the retired general’s case to assert that Clinton was getting preferential treatment.

“Other lives, including Gen. Petraeus and many others, have been destroyed for doing far, far less,” Trump said at a rally in October of Clinton’s email troubles. “This is a conspiracy against you, the American people, and we cannot let this happen or continue.”

Trump also singled out retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, who recently pled guilty to lying to the FBI about allegations he shared classified information with the news media on a highly classified program to disrupt Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

But while the FBI concluded Clinton was reckless in her decision to use a private computer for government business, her actions were not deemed serious enough to warrant prosecution.

Conversely, the bureau concluded what Petraeus did was far more significant.

“So you have obstruction of justice, you have intentional misconduct and a vast quantity of information,” FBI Director James Comey told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee of Petraeus’ actions. “He admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do. That is a perfect illustration of the kind of cases that get prosecuted.”

Others said the mere fact that Petraeus is on Trump’s short list for such a position of authority demonstrates how valuable he is.

Petraeus is considered one of the most accomplished battlefield commanders of his generation, a thinking general with a Ph.D. who helped orchestrate the counterinsurgency strategy that reduced some of the worst violence in Iraq and who was tapped by Obama to run the war in Afghanistan before being elevated to run the CIA in 2011.

He also has powerful friends on Capitol Hill, including Republican Sen. John McCain, the Armed Services chairman. It was before McCain’s committee last September that Petraeus made his first appearance before Congress after his departure from the CIA.

“I made a serious mistake, one that brought discredit on me, and pain closest — to those closest to me,” Petraeus said. “It was a violation of the trust placed in me and a breach of the values to which I had been committed throughout my life. There’s nothing I can do to undo what I did. I can only say again how sorry I am to let — to those I let down, and then strive to go forward with a greater sense of humility and purpose, and with gratitude to those who stood with me during a very difficult chapter in my life.”

“In light of all that, it means a great deal that you have asked me to share my views on the challenges in the Middle East, where, as you noted, I spent most of my last decade in government,” he added. “I thank you for that, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you for the support and friendship that you have long extended to me.”

Despite the black mark on an otherwise stellar career, Petraeus’ advice remains highly sought after. For example, he was back at the White House in April, according to the public logs, to meet with the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Some of Petraeus’ former colleagues believe his transgressions should be overlooked as Trump seeks to build his national security team.

“Gen. Petraeus’ service to his country was cut short by mistakes he made and acknowledged,” Mike Morell, who served as his deputy at CIA, told POLITICO. “The nation would be lucky if he were able to serve again. The general is a man of deep talent and experience.”

Others aren’t so sure.

“I think it’s a difficult case because his virtues are so unusual and the misdeed is so significant,” Richard Danzig, a former Navy secretary who also still holds a security clearance, said in an interview. “I think it is a comment on his extraordinary virtues that he would would be considered even in the case of the flaw. It is a decision Trump will have to make.”

Some on Capitol Hill also expressed deep reservations on Monday.

“Hillary does it — ‘lock her up.’ Gen Petraeus does it — CABINET POST! No.” Doug Stafford, Sen. Rand Paul’s chief strategist, wrote on Twitter on Monday.

Those who know and admire Petraeus say there is also something else driving his candidacy: Ever since his scandal he has been fiercely plotting how to write a new chapter of his public career.

“David is the guy who has always raised his hand,” said the former senior intelligence official. “His a very ambitious guy.”

After their meeting at Trump Tower in New York on Monday, Trump praised Petraeus on Twitter. “Just met with General Petraeus — was very impressed!” he wrote.

Not to be outdone, Petraeus briefly stopped to talk to reporters, saying that in their meeting Trump demonstrated an impressive understanding of world affairs.

“He basically walked us around the world,” Petraeus said of Trump. “Showed a great grasp of a variety of the challenges that are out there and some of the opportunities as well. Very good conversation and we’ll see where it goes from here. We’ll see where it goes from here.”

Trump is reportedly also considering former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for secretary of state. Trump is due to meet with Romney to dicuss the job on Tuesday, along with Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).

But in Trump’s own estimation, Petraeus deserves another chance at the highest rungs.

When Petraeus quit the CIA, Trump told ExtraTV, an entertainment news outlet, that the general “was really beyond reproach, there was nobody like him. And now he showed certain frailties, certain weaknesses. It can never be the same, but certainly he can make a comeback.”

(h/t Politico)

Trump Tweets New Voter Fraud Claims, Blasts CNN, But Offers No Evidence

Donald Trump lashed out on Twitter Monday night and into early Tuesday morning over a CNN report refuting his unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud on Election Day.

The report by CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny, airing on “Anderson Cooper 360” earlier Monday, dismissed Trump’s assertion that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally” as “blatant and baseless” and accused Trump of acting as a “sore winner.” Zeleny also highlighted that the president-elect had yet to provide any “hard evidence” to back up his “staggering claims of fraud.”

In response, Trump fired off a series of tweets aimed at CNN and Zeleny, some original and some retweets of his online supporters, including one user who apparently is a teenager.

“CNN is so embarrassed by their total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton, and yet her loss in a landslide, that they don’t know what to do,” the president-elect said.

Quoting a tweet directed at Zeleny that panned him as “just another generic CNN part time wannabe journalist,” Trump added: “CNN still doesn’t get it. They will never learn!”

In another quoted tweet, Trump cited a 16-year-old Twitter user who cast Zeleny as a “bad reporter.”

Zeleny replied: “Good evening! Have been looking for examples of voter fraud. Please send our way. Full-time journalist here still working.”

Trump continued his criticism into Tuesday morning, tweeting at 6:34 a.m.: “I thought that @CNN would get better after they failed so badly in their support of Hillary Clinton however, since election, they are worse!”

Trump’s Sunday claim of mass voter fraud in California, Virginia and New Hampshire was rebuffed by officials in all three states Monday.

“We have heard claims like this in the past, relative to our elections, but we have been provided no evidence that suggests that there is voter fraud on a widespread scale in New Hampshire,” David Scanlan, New Hampshire’s deputy secretary of state, told POLITICO in a phone interview Monday.

(h/t Politico)

Trump: ‘I Won the Popular Vote If You Deduct’ Illegal Votes

Twitter

President-elect Donald Trump declared Sunday he would have won the popular vote if “illegal” votes were discounted.

“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The president-elect also tweeted that he would have won more easily if he had based his campaign strategy on winning the popular vote, instead of visiting states with a larger number of Electoral College votes.

Trump’s second series of tweets Sunday comes as Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s campaign has said it will file for a recount in Michigan, and Pennsylvania, after making an effort in Wisconsin official. All three states are traditionally blue states that Trump won in the presidential election.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump predicted that the recount effort in three states will not change the results of the election.

“Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in. Nothing will change,” he tweeted.

Clinton’s campaign is participating in the Wisconsin recount, which is already set to begin this week.

Clinton is currently leading Trump by more than 2 million in the popular vote. Politicians, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have called for an examination of using the Electoral College to decide who wins the presidency, rather than the popular vote.

Trump warned during his campaign that the election could be rigged, though election officials scoffed at the claims, noting the country’s use of a decentralized system in which ballots are counted by thousands of Democratic and Republican officials across the country.

The group of election lawyers and computer scientists pushing the recount effort says election results in the three states could have been manipulated or hacked.

However, there is no evidence of millions of people voting illegally, as Trump suggested on Twitter.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

No one candidate has done so much damage to the integrity of the democratic process as Donald Trump, constantly putting into question a fair and valid election, often calling it “rigged.”

Yet he is not above calling a recount of voting in several states a “scam.”

A Distraction From

Trump Disavows Alt-Right But Still Holds Their Policies

President-elect Donald Trump is again distancing himself from the alt-right movement as its white supremacist members claim his election as a boon for their agenda.

“I disavow and condemn them,” Trump said Tuesday during a wide-ranging interview with staff members of The New York Times.

It’s the latest attempt from Trump to separate himself from groups and individuals widely condemned for their advocacy of white supremacy in American culture.

The Republican president-elect added that he does not want to “energize” the groups, one of which garnered viral headlines this weekend with a gathering in Washington, where organizers and attendees evoked Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich with cries of “Heil Trump” and reprisals of the Nazi salute.

The Times has not yet released a full transcript or video of the meeting, but participants used Twitter to share his remarks throughout the exchange.

Richard Spencer, an alt-right leader who convened the weekend gathering sponsored by his National Policy Institute, told the Associated Press he was “disappointed” in Trump’s comments. But Spencer said he understands “where he’s coming from politically and practically,” adding that he will “wait and see” how the real estate mogul’s administration takes shape.

Still, Spencer argued Trump needs the alt-right movement and should be wary of shunning it because of a few news cycles of bad publicity “that do not define what we’re doing.” Spencer said Trump needs people like him “to actualize the populism that fueled his campaign.”

Trump’s denunciation also comes amid continued criticism over Trump tapping Steve Bannon, who managed the final months of the billionaire businessman’s presidential campaign, as chief White House strategist. Bannon was previously the leader of Breitbart News, an unapologetically conservative outlet that Bannon has described as a “platform for the alt-right.”

At the Times, Trump said Breitbart “is just a publication” that “covers subjects on the right” and is “certainly a much more conservative paper, to put it mildly, than The New York Times.”

Before Trump’s latest denunciations, Spencer told AP earlier Tuesday that he doesn’t see either Trump or Bannon as members of his movement, though “there is some common ground.”

(h/t Salon)

Reality

This is a step in the right direction and something that was a year-and-a-half overdue, but actions speak louder than words and Trump has yet prove he disavows the racist, sexist, and white-nationalist campaign promises that made him a darling of the alt-right .

Once Trump reverses course on the policies of mass deportations of immigrants, blocking all entry to immigrants from certain countries, and singling out minority communities for heavier policing, only then can he honestly disavow the anti-Semitic and white supremacist alt-right movement.

Trump Foundation Admits to Self-Dealing in New Tax Filing

President-elect Donald Trump’s charitable foundation transferred assets to a disqualified person, possibly Trump himself, according to a 2015 tax filing submitted to the nonprofit watchdog group GuideStar and posted online Tuesday.

Trump has been under heavy scrutiny in recent months for using tax-exempt foundation money to pay for personal expenses, such as legal settlements with governments and personal expenses, including paintings of himself.

On page five of the Donald J. Trump foundation’s 2015 tax filing, the preparers checked the “yes” box to the question about whether the New York-based nonprofit organization had transferred “any income or assets to a disqualified person (or make any of either available for the benefit or use of a disqualified person.”

The preparers checked yes again in another box that asked if the foundation had transferred money to disqualified people in previous years. Trump signed past filings under penalty of perjury, and the forms for several earlier years indicated the foundation had not transferred money to a disqualified person.

The IRS Manual states that transactions involving a disqualified person “bears importantly upon the treatment and status of exempt organizations as private foundations in several situations.”

It was unclear Tuesday whether the nation’s tax agency had received an identical document from Trump’s nonprofit. The IRS said it could not discuss any tax filing or comment on whether the tax agency was investigating the person or organization associated with a filing.

Trump presidential transition spokespersons also did not immediately respond to questions from USA TODAY.

However, the apparent admission of self-dealing “could be assessed as an IRS penalty against the person who received the benefit, potentially at three times the value,” said Robert McKenzie, a tax law expert who is a partner at the Arnstein & Lehr law firm in Chicago.

The IRS potentially could also seek penalties against the directors of the foundation — who include Trump and three of his children — “for allowing such a transaction,” said McKenzie.

However, attorneys for charitable organizations often are able to negotiate lower penalties than those proposed by the IRS, said McKenzie.

The foundation’s new admission could potentially result in separate penalties by state agencies that oversee the nonprofit, added McKenzie. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had been conducting an examination of filings submitted by Trump’s charitable organization.

That investigation is continuing, Amy Spitalnick, Schneiderman’s press secretary, said Tuesday.

Schneiderman last month ordered the foundation to cease any fundraising in New York, saying the charity had not filed the required registration with his office.

The New York official also demanded, and received, written confirmation that the foundation would pay no part of the $25 million settlement reached last week over fraud allegations against Trump University — the now-defunct real estate training program created by the billionaire developer and reality television star.

According to Guidestar spokesperson Jackie Enterline Fekeci, the new tax filing was “was uploaded by a representative from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP directly onto the foundation’s GuideStar Nonprofit Profile on November 18. We allow organizations to submit their 990’s voluntarily because sometimes the form’s route through the IRS causes a delay before we get the officially filed version. We do that in the good faith that the version they upload onto GuideStar is identical to the version they submit to the IRS.”

The Washington Post has reported in great detail about problems with the Trump foundation and its spending, citing how it paid $258,000 in foundation money to settle Trump’s personal legal issues. The Post was the first to report on the new filings Tuesday.

The 2015 tax filing showed that Trump’s company donated $566,370 to the foundation last year, while it received another $50,000 from Trump Productions LLC.

It’s possible these contributions came from Trump, because they listed the donations as coming from a “person.” These contributions are the first that Trump or his companies have made to Trump’s own charity since 2008. His foundation’s tax return for 2008 showed a $30,000 contribution from Donald J. Trump, care of The Trump Organization.

The foundation’s new filing also show the nonprofit received $150,000 from the British office of a foundation run by Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who owns four Ukrainian television stations and a variety of industrial companies. Pinchuk and his foundation were donors to the foundation run by former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the defeated Democratic nominee for president, Clinton Foundation records show.

Trump spoke at a conference in Ukraine in 2015 hosted by Pinchuk. Then, according to a report in Politico, he said: “Viktor, by the way, is a very, very special man, a special entrepreneur. When he was up seeing me I said, ‘I think I can learn more from you than you can learn from me.’”

(h/t USA Today)

Links

Trump Foundation 2015 990 form

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