Trump paid IRS fine after illegal political contribution

[GMDino]

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/294146-trump-paid-irs-fine-after-illegal-political-contribution

[/url]

Quote:[url=http://thehill.com/people/donald-trump]Donald Trump paid a $2,500 fine to the IRS this year after it was discovered that the mogul’s namesake charity had illegally made a $25,000 political contribution, The Washington Postreported on Thursday.



The Donald J. Trump Foundation gave the money to a group called “Justice for All,” which was supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s campaign. At the time, Bondi was weighing whether to pursue an investigation into allegations of fraud that had been leveled against Trump University. She eventually declined to bring charges.
The Post had discovered that in their 2013 tax filings, the charity did not list the contribution to the Florida group, but instead showed a $25,000 contribution to a charity in Kansas with a similar name — which it never made. 

The Trump foundation also answered no when the form asked if it had made any political contributions that year.


"It was just an honest mistake," Jeffrey McConney, a senior vice president at the Trump Organization, told the Post. "It wasn’t done intentionally to hide a political donation, it was just an error."



Trump later reimbursed his foundation for the contribution out of his personal account, which his employees say is more typically used to make such political donations.

Better check out the Clinton Foundation though....

[McC]

(09-01-2016, 10:31 PM)GMDino Wrote: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/294146-trump-paid-irs-fine-after-illegal-political-contribution

[url=http://thehill.com/people/donald-trump][/url]

Better check out the Clinton Foundation though....

He paid it back out of his own account.  End of story.  Nice swing and miss though.  Get back to me when HillBill ever pay anything back.

[Rotobeast]

(09-01-2016, 11:55 PM)McC Wrote: He paid it back out of his own account.  End of story.  Nice swing and miss though.  Get back to me when HillBill ever pay anything back.

I think they returned some of the White House China and furniture.
I could be wrong though.

Sent from my SM-S820L using Tapatalk

[Belsnickel]

(09-01-2016, 11:55 PM)McC Wrote: He paid it back out of his own account.  End of story.  Nice swing and miss though.  Get back to me when HillBill ever pay anything back.

So the fact that it is a fairly blatant bribe doesn't concern you? I mean, he fixed the IRS error, but that part about donating to an org backing the AG looking into his fraud case is shady as hell.

I have been saying all along, anyone who thinks he isn't part of the establishment is naive, because he is a part of the establishment that uses money to pull the strings.

[Benton]

normal person: Bribe an official or a cop and its anything From a fine to a few years in prison.

guys like trump (and Clinton): Bribe an officials boss and get closer to being elected preside while the majority of people dont realize the problem.

[GMDino]

(09-01-2016, 11:55 PM)McC Wrote: He paid it back out of his own account.  End of story.  Nice swing and miss though.  Get back to me when HillBill ever pay anything back.

Here is an actual, provable account of a Trump "charity" using funds to bribe an elected official.  Investigated, found guilty and fined.  And it get's an "oh well" from Trump's supporters.

Meanwhile every allegation against Clinton means she should be in jail or is worse.

Pretty much sums up the mindset these days.

[xxlt]

(09-02-2016, 08:51 AM)Benton Wrote: normal person: Bribe an official or a cop and its anything From a fine to a few years in prison.

guys like trump (and Clinton): Bribe an officials boss and get closer to being elected preside while the majority of MORONS dont realize the problem.

Cleaned that up for you.

[xxlt]

(09-02-2016, 10:03 AM)GMDino Wrote: Here is an actual, provable account of a Trump "charity" using funds to bribe an elected official.  Investigated, found guilty and fined.  And it get's an "oh well" from Trump's supporters.

Meanwhile every allegation against Clinton means she should be in jail or is worse.

Pretty much sums up the mindset these days.

See post 7.

[*bfine32*]

So there would have been no problem with this if he had made the donation and not his foundation?

Of course he made the donation hoping the AG would look favorably on his case; he was a business man back then. This is just more of that "2 wrongs make a right" mentality.

[GMDino]

(09-02-2016, 11:14 AM)bfine32 Wrote: So there would have been no problem with this if he had made the donation and not his foundation?

Of course he made the donation hoping the AG would look favorably on his case; he was a business man back then. This is just more of that "2 wrongs make a right" mentality.

Of course not.

Just make the connection between the allegations against the Clinton Foundation and the actual crime by the Trump Foundation.

Maybe that was too nuanced?

[GMDino]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/trump-pam-bondi-scandal-227823

Quote:The swirl of scandal around Donald Trump’s donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is intensifying, with the Republican nominee and his aides vigorously pushing back against the idea that he bought the decision by Bondi to not pursue an investigation into his Trump University.


The controversy whipped back up last week when news emerged that Trump paid a $2,500 fine because his foundation improperly donated $25,000 to Bondi’s political election committee in 2013 (tax-exempt charitable groups are not allowed to make political contributions).
Story Continued Below


Following the donation in 2013, Bondi’s office declined to join a fledgling multi-state probe into Trump’s real estate seminar program. The links between the two continued, with Trump hosting a lavish fundraiser for Bondi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in March 2014, and Bondi endorsing Trump in March of this year.


While Trump and Bondi say there’s no fire underneath the smoke, the Manhattan businessman’s political wheelings and dealings are now drawing more scrutiny, especially because Trump’s campaign has been driving hard at the idea that Hillary Clinton engaged in pay for play through her Clinton Foundation and her tenure at the State Department.


Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday morning brushed aside questioning from George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” remarking that Trump “has supported many, many Republican candidates” while suggesting that the two stories are not comparable in scale or consequence.


“But we do know Mrs. Clinton, Secretary Clinton used the State Department as a concierge for many foreign donors,” Conway said. “And I think there’s actually no comparison between man who gives consistently to Republican candidates in their re-election, George, and a woman who as secretary of state has had her official staff that we pay for bartering for position and bartering for state dinners and, you know, just making contributions that are inappropriate. The State Department is a very busy place. We should get human rights for those women and girls not disrespected and not worry about foreign governments coming in to influence.”


Conway later in the day repeatedly tried to sidestep forceful questions during an interview on Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect," dismissing the idea that Trump engaged in a pay to play as "ridiculous."

Co-host Mark Halperin tried to press Conway, saying, "You're just asking people to accept the timing as a coincidence, given the contribution came right around the time her office was making a decision?"


"Yes, they say that they never discussed it," Conway said about Trump and Bondi, adding, "I think there is absolutely no equivalence between that and Hillary Clinton using the State Department as a concierge for foreign donors to move hundreds of millions."


The Trump campaign is also facing a new crop of editorials, with the Miami Herald saying it’s “puzzling” why Trump’s controversy is not getting “equal billing” to that associated with the Clinton Foundation.


“Unlike the faux scandal over the Clinton institution, there were actual victims here — people who paid good money to Trump University and feel they were duped. Why is Pam Bondi not investigating that?” the Miami Herald editorial board wrote in an item titled, “Donald Trump’s gift to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi deserves a closer look.”


The New York Times also dug in, writing on its opinion page, “If Ms. Bondi promised to back off the Trump University suit in exchange for campaign money during that 2013 phone conversation, it could be a crime. As for Mr. Trump, the $2,500 I.R.S. fine is a tiny penalty, unless voters impose consequences of their own.”


The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell, citing records obtained from a public-records request, wrote in an column Tuesday that the “wrong person is receiving the brunt of the scrutiny here.”


“Imagine you were robbed and the prosecutor gave the suspect a pass after taking $25,000 from him,” Maxwell wrote. “There would be universal outrage — and rightfully so. This is not the behavior of an ethical prosecutor.”


Bondi’s 2010 opponent, former federal prosecutor and state Sen. Dan Gelber, said on his blog that the Trump money “taints” the Florida attorney general, who is at least guilty of a crime of optics.


“In fairness to Bondi, it is not at all clear whether she knew the details of the investigation when the check was solicited, or whether it influenced her Office's decision,” Gelber wrote. “But it doesn't have to. Bondi should have rejected the money, or returned it immediately upon learning that Trump was seeking an action - or in this case an inaction - from her Office.”


Bill Clinton ramped up his own attacks, taking a shot at Trump on Wednesday at a rally in Orlando as he told the crowd that Trump “attacked my foundation. He uses his foundation's money to pay off your attorney general."


And even as Trump and Bondi deny any wrongdoing, Trump’s own prior words are also coming back to haunt him.



The billionaire has repeatedly talked about freely donating to both Republican and Democratic politicians, saying they were smart business moves.



“As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal in July 2015.



At the first Republican debate last August, Trump ripped into his primary rivals for taking contributions from him in the past.



“I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people, before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give.” Trump said at the time. “And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.”



Trump laid out a similar rationale for deciding to run for president during his nomination acceptance speech in July, declaring, “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people who cannot defend themselves.”


He added, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”


But on Monday, Trump said there was nothing untoward.



“No. I never spoke to her,” Trump told reporters on his campaign plane, according to a CBS transcript. Trump added that Bondi is a “fine person beyond reproach. I never even spoke to her about it at all ... Never spoken to her about it. Never.”


While it wasn’t clear what the “it” was that he was referring to, a spokesman for Bondi told The Associated Press in June that the attorney general asked for the $25,000 donation during a phone call in 2013, and Bondi herself has called the timing of the donation a coincidence.


"I don't think this was a lengthy, memorable call," Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told AP about the conversation. "Mr. Trump talks to a hundred people in any given day. So, I don't know if I will be able to provide that information. That's not exactly a realistic or reasonable request."


The Trump campaign has sought to shift the focus back onto Clinton, particularly after the release last Friday of documents pertaining to the FBI probe into her handling of classified materials, including notes from her July interview with investigators.
Clinton should "come clean" and disclose every single one of the emails related to her time as secretary of state Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence declared Wednesday.


Pence, speaking to "Fox & Friends" from Indianapolis, talked up Donald Trump's speech the previous night in North Carolina in which he emphasized the ties between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department under Clinton from 2009 to 2013.


The Associated Press reported last month that at least 85 of the 154 people from private interests who had phone conversations scheduled or met with Clinton also donated to the foundation or pledged commitments to its international programs.


Pointing to that report, Pence remarked, "This pay-to-play politics has begun to come to light for the American people, but it's time for Hillary Clinton to come clean and make all of those emails available."


Pence has called on Clinton to “come clean” in the past with respect to the State Department and the Clinton Foundation, though the latest recommendation comes after the former secretary of state herself told reporters Tuesday that Trump ought to “come clean” about his tax returns. (Pence reiterated that he would soon release his own returns, with Trump doing the same after the audit has concluded.)


Asked whether Trump’s national and state poll numbers have increased because of the latest reports, Pence emphasized that it is the campaign’s message rather than Clinton’s troubles, driving voters to their corner.


...


Bondi affirmed that she had asked Trump for a contribution, but added “that’s not what this is about,” remarking that Clinton erred in her description of the circumstances surrounding the $25,000.


"Of course I asked Donald Trump for a contribution, that's not what this is about," Bondi said. “[Clinton] said he was under investigation by my office, at the time, and I knew about it. None of which is true.”


Clinton, in fact, said that Bondi “was being asked by her constituents to investigate Trump University.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/trump-pam-bondi-scandal-227823#ixzz4JiGCVDgG 
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

[JustWinBaby]

OH MY GOD!!!! Trump made a $25k pay-for-play political donation!!!! Pay no attention to the SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS Bill Clinton received from a for-profit school.


Yeah, this is disgusting. But you HAVE to laugh at all the flack over a BILLIONAIRE throwing around a few hundred thousand, or even a few million, which are barely rounding errors on his tax return....versus a couple that was DEAD BROKE leaving the White House and are now worth over $100M, never having owned or run a business or working for one. A++++ grifting, right there.

[Belsnickel]

(09-08-2016, 10:00 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: OH MY GOD!!!! Trump made a $25k pay-for-play political donation!!!! Pay no attention to the SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS Bill Clinton received from a for-profit school.


Yeah, this is disgusting. But you HAVE to laugh at all the flack over a BILLIONAIRE throwing around a few hundred thousand, or even a few million, which are barely rounding errors on his tax return....versus a couple that was DEAD BROKE leaving the White House and are now worth over $100M, never having owned or run a business or working for one. A++++ grifting, right there.

I just laugh more at those saying Trump is anti-establishment, even though this shows he is just as much a part of it as career politicians, and I have to laugh at all of the "crooked Hillary" stuff, when, well, Donald is crooked as well and there is proof of it. Yet people want to ignore it. It wouldn't be as funny to me if so many people weren't so gullible as to buy his load and support him enthusiastically. There are a lot of people that are supporting both of them in an unenthusiastic way, but the ones that are die hard for either one really are just dumb.

[McC]

(09-02-2016, 07:44 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: So the fact that it is a fairly blatant bribe doesn't concern you? I mean, he fixed the IRS error, but that part about donating to an org backing the AG looking into his fraud case is shady as hell.

I have been saying all along, anyone who thinks he isn't part of the establishment is naive, because he is a part of the establishment that uses money to pull the strings.

Two crooked narcissists with overblown opinions of their own abilities.  Kind of a pick 'em, really, with the country being the loser.  Next question.

[GMDino]

(09-09-2016, 08:31 AM)McC Wrote: Two crooked narcissists with overblown opinions of their own abilities.  Kind of a pick 'em, really, with the country being the loser.  Next question.

Except one has actually` been found guilty while the other is just accused over and over.

So not really a tough choice between those two.

[BmorePat87]

(09-01-2016, 11:55 PM)McC Wrote: He paid it back out of his own account.  End of story.  Nice swing and miss though.  Get back to me when HillBill ever pay anything back.

I think that makes it even worse than he gave the money to the person who was deciding whether or not to investigate his company for fraud. 

[GMDino]

Remember kids you can;t trust Clinton because...reasons.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/12/there-were-five-phantom-donations-in-the-files-of-donald-trumps-foundation-heres-what-we-know/?postshare=1391473698673815

Quote:There were five phantom donations in the files of Donald Trump’s foundation. Here’s what we know.






By David A. Fahrenthold September 12 at 12:38 PM 


The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold breaks down the controversy over Donald Trump's improper $25,000 donation to a political group connected to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was at the time considering whether to open a fraud investigation against Trump University. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Donald Trump's charity is not like other charities.

For one thing — as The Washington Post explained Sunday — the money in the Donald J. Trump Foundation does not come from Trump himself. Tax records show that Trump hasn't donated any money to his foundation since 2008. Instead, he has retooled his personal charity so that it gives away other people's money — although Trump has kept his name on the foundation, and atop its checks.

For another, the Trump Foundation seems to have repeatedly defied the Internal Revenue Service rules that govern nonprofits. It gave a prohibited political gift to help Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi ®. It appears to have bought items for Trump — including a $12,000 football helmet and a $20,000 portrait of Trump — despite IRS rules against "self-dealing" by charity leaders.

And, in at least five cases, the Trump Foundation may have reported making a donation that didn't seem to exist.

These five cases turned up in The Post's reporting, which looked at 24 years of tax filings and reached out to more than 200 people and groups listed in those filings as donors or recipients of gifts.

Five times, the Trump Foundation's tax filings described giving a specific amount of money to a specific charity — in some cases, even including the recipient's address. But when The Post called, the charities listed said the tax filings appeared wrong. They'd never received anything from Trump or his foundation.

The Post asked Trump's staff to explain these five apparent errors.

It has explained one.

Regarding that one (No. 5 on the list below), the Trump organization's explanation showed something very unusual. The incorrect gift had been listed on the Trump Foundation's tax filings in a way that served to hide a real gift — the improper donation to Bondi's group — from the IRS. Trump's staffers say there was no intent to mislead: The improper gift was left off, and the false gift was added, by accident.

It's still unclear how the four other apparent errors arose.

We post them here, in case somebody out there knows more of the story than we do.

INCORRECT LISTING 1): A $10,000 gift to the Giving Back Fund in 2008.

An excerpt of the Donald J. Trump Foundation's IRS filings for 2008.

The Giving Back Fund is a Los Angeles-based charity that serves as an umbrella group for smaller charities run by actors and celebrities. Marc Pollick, the group's president and founder, said the group had searched its donor files and found no evidence of this gift. "We have already reached out to the Trump Foundation to ask them to actually SEND us the $10,000 that they claimed they sent in 2008!" he wrote in an email.

Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for an explanation of this gift.

The Trump Foundation's accountants — the firm WeiserMazars — declined to comment about this gift, and all the others, citing company policy.

2.) A $5,000 gift to the Children's Medical Center in Omaha in 2010.

An excerpt from the Donald J. Trump Foundation's IRS filings for 2010.

"Children’s Hospital & Medical Center’s Foundation does not have a gift from the Donald J. Trump Foundation or Donald Trump in its records," said Sarah Weller, a spokeswoman for the medical center.

Weller suggested that the Trump Foundation may have sent the money to another children's hospital, in another city. But the foundation's tax returns had the right address for the one in Omaha, down to the suite number.

Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for an explanation of this gift.

3.) A $10,000 gift to the Latino Commission on AIDS in 2012.

An excerpt from the Donald J. Trump Foundation's tax filings for 2012.

This was one of the gifts that Trump promised on air during a taping of "The Celebrity Apprentice." During an episode in 2012, contestant Dayana Mendoza — a former Miss Universe — was there when Trump made a sweeping promise. "I'm gonna give $10,000 each to each one of you, everybody sitting at this table, for your charity," he said.

Five other contestants were at the table. The Trump Foundation sent $10,000 to each of their charities. This was typical for the show: Although Trump often made seemingly heartfelt promises to donate his own money, it seems that he never did so. Instead, the donations were made by a production company, or by Trump's foundation — by then, filled with other people's money.

The Trump Foundation told the IRS that it also had given $10,000 to Mendoza's charity, the Latino Commission on AIDS.

But the money didn't arrive. "No ... donations of any kind from Donald Trump or the Donald J. Trump Foundation were received," said Daniel Leyva, at the commission.

Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for an explanation of this gift.

4.) A $1,000 gift to Friends of Veterans in 2013.

An excerpt from the Donald J. Trump Foundation's tax filings in 2013.

We told the tale of this gift in our article Sunday:

Quote:

This January, the phone rang at a tiny charity in White River Junction, Vt., called Friends of Veterans. This was just after Trump had held a televised fundraiser for veterans in Iowa, raising more than $5 million.

The man on the phone was a Trump staffer who was selecting charities that would receive the newly raised money. He said the Vermont group was already on Trump’s list, because the Trump Foundation had given it $1,000 in 2013.

“I don’t remember a donation from the Trump Foundation,” said Larry Daigle, the group’s president, who was a helicopter gunner with the Army during the Vietnam War. “The guy seemed pretty surprised about this.”

The man went away from the phone. He came back.

Was Daigle sure? He was.

The man thanked him. He hung up. Daigle waited — hopes raised — for the Trump people to call back.

“Oh, my God, do you know how many homeless veterans I could help?” Daigle told The Post this spring, while he was waiting.

Trump gave away the rest of the veterans money in late May.

Daigle’s group received none of it.

Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for an explanation of this gift.

5.) A $25,000 gift to Justice for All in 2013

Sign up

An excerpt from the Donald J. Trump Foundation's tax filings to 2013, showing a nonexistent gift.

Justice for All is a nonprofit group in Kansas that seeks to "make abortion unthinkable" by training opponents of abortion to change minds about the issue.

"Our organization, Justice for All Inc., did not receive a $25,000 donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation in 2013," staffer Tammy Cook told The Post earlier this year.

This is the one incorrect listing that Trump's organization has explained.

We laid it out in our Sunday story:

Quote:

First, Trump officials said, when the request came down to cut a check to the Bondi group, a Trump Organization clerk followed internal protocol and consulted a book with the names of known charities.

The name of the pro-Bondi group is And Justice for All. Trump’s staffer saw that name in the book, and — mistakenly — cut the check from the Trump Foundation. The group in the book was an entirely different charity in Utah, unrelated to Bondi’s group in Florida.

Somehow, the money got to Florida anyway.

Then, Trump’s staffers said, the foundation’s accounting firm made another mistake: It told the IRS that the $25,000 had gone to a third charity, based in Kansas, called Justice for All. In reality, the Kansas group got no money.

“That was just a complete mess-up on names. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong,” Jeffrey McConney, the
Trump Organization’s controller, told The Post last week. After The Post pointed out these errors in the spring, Trump paid a $2,500 penalty tax.

[JustWinBaby]

LOL, so basically Trump's charity is like almost everything else he's done the past 20+ years....slaps his name on it and that's basically the extent of his involvement.

[Mike M (the other one)]

Next question, why is the IRS auditing Trump charity during a Presidential campaign? Why not audit The Clinton's charities as well? Hmmmmm

[GMDino]

(09-13-2016, 08:58 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Next question, why is the IRS auditing Trump charity during a Presidential campaign?  Why not audit The Clinton's charities as well? Hmmmmm

1) Well you don't know that they are not.

2) This is a newspaper investigation into public records...not the IRS.

3) If they ARE investigating the Clinton charities and not finding anything what would they report?