I posted previously about the Notice of Violation letter that the New York Attorney General sent to the Trump Foundation at the end of September which required:
- The Trump Foundation to supply the state with all the legal paperwork necessary to register as a charity that solicits money within 15 days.
- The Trump Foundation must also look back and determine whether it violated state law in prior years by soliciting money without authorization. If so, it must provide the financial audit reports it should have provided for those years. Those reports, Sheehan said, are also due within 15 days.
- If the Trump Foundation does not comply, it will be considered “a continuing fraud upon the people of New York.”
The Trump Foundation said it intended to cooperate fully with the investigation. Its responses were due on Monday, October 17.
David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post reports, New York attorney general grants Trump Foundation more time to file proper paperwork, comply with state charity laws:
Monday was supposed to be the deadline for Donald Trump’s charitable foundation — which had been soliciting donations without the official registration required by New York state — to comply with state law.
But, early Monday afternoon, a spokesman for the New York attorney general said that Trump’s foundation had asked for, and been granted, extra time.
“They’ve requested more time, and we’ve agreed to provide the Trump Foundation with more time,” said Eric Soufer, a spokesman for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D). Soufer declined to say how much longer the attorney general’s office had agreed to wait.
I strongly suspect that it will be after November 8.
By failing to register, the Trump Foundation avoided a requirement to submit to annual independent audits. Those might have detected some of the apparent violations of charity law that have come to light this year, including instances where Trump used the charity’s money to buy paintings of himself and to help settle lawsuits involving his for-profit businesses.
* * *
Schneiderman’s office ordered the Trump Foundation to cease its fundraising immediately. The attorney general’s office gave Trump’s charity until Monday to file the correct registration paperwork and to obtain audits from past years where it had solicited gifts without permission.
Soufer, the attorney general’s spokesman, said that the Trump Foundation had assured them that it was complying with the order to stop raising money.
“They are complying with the order and confirm that they have stopped soliciting donations in New York,” Soufer said.
Trump’s presidential campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, sent on Monday afternoon.
So no audit reports and no tax filings before Election Day. That’s some real transparency there.
At this point, I am not surprised the AG allowed an extension. The AG has done what he intended to do…he damaged the Trump campaign as much as he could, and there isn’t much else he can do at this point, so an extension is fine. In fact, I suspect the end result of the investigation will be a fine and nothing more, if that. The important thing was to raise a ruckus during prime election time…
Trump will regret his about to fail candidacy, if he doesn’t already.
Running for POTUS brings intense scrutiny. Some of us knew for years that he was a con man, if more people would read the business section I suspect his run would never have happened.
Mark Cuban, a former Trump supporter and actual billionaire, predicts another bankruptcy in the next seven years because of the damage being done to the Trump name.
The people that can afford his “brand” no longer want to be associated with it, and the people who now want to be associated with Trump’s brand can’t afford it.
His golf courses are losing millions, and people are giving their street address instead of saying “Trump Tower” out of shame.
Before someone says “yeah, well, we’re learning about Hillary too!”, no, we’re not, we knew she was a Wall Street owned war hawk for years, and the right has been slamming her for decades.
Nothing coming out about her is surprising.
It is surprising how low John McCain, John Kavanagh, and the rest of the low life’s that make up the GOTeaP will go to deflect/defend their Orange Manbaby Nightmare.