In what is turning out to be an ultra no good, terrible, rotten, truly awful week for Donald J. Trump, yet another shoe has dropped from the Cthulhu-like tentacles of the horrible, dreadful, cosmic evil known by the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods that rule the fates of really, really bad presidential campaigns.
You’ve heard of the Trump Foundation? That 501(c)3 organization that raises money for stuff that generally seems to turn out to be 6-ft. paintings of Donald Trump? Yeah, that’s the one.
There’s a problem.
Turns out, according to a just-released article in the Washington Post by David Fahrenholt, it seems that the Trump Foundation doesn’t have the proper certifications to ask for donations. You can see, no doubt, how that might prove to be an impediment to anything calling itself a charity.
Donald Trump’s charitable foundation — which has been sustained for years by donors outside the Trump family — has never obtained the certification that New York requires before charities can solicit money from the public, according to the state attorney general’s office.
Under the laws in New York, where the Donald J. Trump Foundation is based, any charity that solicits more than $25,000 a year from the public must obtain a special kind of registration beforehand. Charities as large as Trump’s must also submit to a rigorous annual audit that asks — among other things — whether the charity spent any money for the personal benefit of its officers.
This is a bad thing for Donald Trump.
If New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) finds that Trump’s foundation raised money in violation of the law, he could order the charity to stop raising money immediately. With a court’s permission, Schneiderman could also force Trump to return money that his foundation has already raised.
After a dreadful, incoherent, perhaps cocaine-fueled (we still need to see that certified lab report of a clean urine test, Donald) debate performance; the fat-shaming of a former Miss Universe; being dissed by USA Today and conservative newspapers from coast to coast; spending money in Cuba in violation of the embargo in 1999; this is yet another ten penny nail in the coffin lid of the Trump campaign. Keep in mind, the week isn’t over yet.