MONOPOLY MONEY. Trump Used His Charitable Foundation Like a Personal Checkbook, NY AG Alleges

MONOPOLY MONEY

Trump Used His Charitable Foundation Like a Personal Checkbook, NY Attorney General Alleges

The president's aides even deployed it strategically to help them during the run up to the Iowa Caucus, according to a new filing from the New York Attorney General’s office.

LACHLAN MARKAY
GIDEON RESNICK

06.14.18 11:30 AM ET

President Donald Trump’s personal foundation illegally acted as an extension of his 2016 presidential campaign, according to New York’s chief law enforcement officer.

Barbara Underwood, the state's acting attorney general, alleged a widespread campaign of misuse of charitable resources in the service of Trump’s political efforts in a complaint filed in New York’s supreme court on Thursday. Her office is now seeking $2.8 million in penalties, which Trump said on Wednesday he would refuse to pay.

The Donald J. Trump Foundation, Underwood alleges, “acted in a persistently illegal manner by repeatedly intervening in Mr. Trump's campaign for president in 2016 by, among other things, making expenditures during the first five months of 2016 that were intended to influence his election for president.”

The coordination between the foundation and the campaign was blatant and explicit, according to documentation posted on the AG’s website. In one instance, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski requested that a top foundation official give out grant money in Iowa in order to improve the campaign’s prospects in that state’s Republican caucus. Lewandowski even specified the date on which he wanted the grants rolled out—three days before Iowa Republicans went to the polls, he told a senior officer at the foundation.

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