Oh, listen, dear children of America. There was a time, a generation ago now, when the financial conduct of president of the United States was enough to prompt an endless investigation by the Justice Department. You might have heard about how, way back in the 1990s, President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about getting blow jobs from a White House intern (Monica Lewinsky, who is ten kinds of awesome nowadays).
Except, see, what started the investigation into Bill Clinton was a hinky land deal that both Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in before Bill became president. Without getting too much into the weeds of Whitewater, there were allegations of fraud and financial improprieties, none of which had anything to do with Clinton's job as president, but it was enough to stoke the engine of the right-wing rage machine for years.
Except, see, the Clintons were cleared of any wrongdoing on it, by the same independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, who ended up finding the blow job lie. They didn't do the supposedly really bad crimes, so the GOP had to settle for the semen-stained dress.
Today, in the New York State Supreme Court, Justice Saliann Scarpulla agreed to a settlement on a case involving Donald Trump, his three terrible older crotch spawn, and his disgraced charitable foundation. The settlement had the president of the United States admitting to breaking the law and being forced to pay a $2 million penalty. Those laws include "breach of fiduciary duty and waste under New York’s Not-for-Profit Corporation Law" and "failure properly to administer Foundation assets and waste under New York’s Estates, Powers, and Trusts Law."
The decision goes on, "A review of the record, including the factual admissions in the Final
Stipulation, establishes that Mr. Trump breached his fiduciary duty to the Foundation and
that waste occurred to the Foundation." I'm no fancy lawyer, just a big city blogger, but that seems to me that Trump is admitting he broke the law. A "factual admission" here means that the defendant, Trump, agrees with the court.
Scarpulla gutted Trump's big 2016 show where was going to raise and give a bunch of money to veterans: "Mr. Trump’s fiduciary duty breaches included allowing his campaign to orchestrate the Fundraiser, allowing his campaign, instead of the Foundation, to direct distribution of the Funds, and using the Fundraiser and distribution of the Funds to further Mr. Trump’s political campaign." Trump has to pay $2 million that will be distributed to charities like the United Negro College Fund and, in an in-yer-stupid-face to Trump's Nazi supporters, the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
The reason the judge gave for no additional penalties is that "Mr. Trump has stipulated to a number of proactive conditions so that the conduct which engendered this petition should not occur in the future." Yeah, tough guy Trump totally punked out and did what Scarpulla wanted. As New York Attorney General Letitia James, who did want more fines, put it, "No one is above the law — not a businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the President of the United States." I suppose we shall see about that in the long run.
So this is where we are: Bill Clinton would have been excoriated had any slight illegality been proven on Whitewater, which was over and done before he even ran for president, but he was innocent. Donald Trump admits, in a court document, that he broke laws that govern charities, laws that were broken in service of him running for president. It's a bit worse than Whitewater.
Donald Trump is guilty of bilking people out of money, lying that it was going to help veterans' organizations and instead using charity to further his campaign. It seems like it ought to be a really big deal.
And somehow that's just supposed to be okay now and it's just another log tossed on the scandal bonfire, ready to burn into ash and blown away, forgotten, like the Trump University lawsuit, in the smoke that engulfs and chokes the whole goddamn country now.
