What to Know
- President Donald Trump defended the Trump Foundation a day after it reached a deal with New York's attorney general to shut down
- The office claims the foundation unlawfully coordinated with Trump's campaign
- Trump says the foundation “has done great work and given away lots of money, both mine and others, to great charities over the years
President Donald Trump took to Twitter to defend his charitable foundation on Wednesday — a day after it reached a deal with New York’s attorney general to shut down amid allegations that it misused its assets.
Attorney General Barbara Underwood hit the Trump Foundation with a lawsuit in June, and said in a statement Tuesday that her office had found a “shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation — including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more.”
Trump on Wednesday refuted the allegation, saying the foundation “has done great work and given away lots of money, both mine and others, to great charities over the years — with me taking NO fees, rent, salaries etc.”
“Now, as usual, I am getting slammed by Cuomo and the Dems in a long running civil lawsuit started by…. Sleazebag AG Eric Schneiderman, who has since resigned over horrific women abuse, when I wanted to close the Foundation so as not to be in conflict with politics,” he wrote in a pair of tweets.
Trump said Underwood "does little else but rant, rave & politic against me."
In response to Trump's tweets Wednesday morning, Amy Spitalnick, spokeswoman for Underwood, said "President Trump should know that the New York Attorney General who sued the Trump Foundation is Barbara Underwood" and not Schneiderman, adding that Underwood "believes that there should be one set of rules for everyone – no matter who they are. That’s why she filed suit against the Trump Foundation, after an investigation found a shocking patter of flagrant and repeated illegality – including willful self-dealing to serve Mr. trump and his business and political interests."
Local
Underwood and lawyers for the Trump Foundation agreed on a court-supervised process for shutting down the charity and distributing about $1.7 million in remaining assets to other nonprofit groups.
The agreement resolved one part of the legal drama surrounding Trump, whose campaign, transition, inauguration and real estate empire are all under investigation.
The lawsuit, filed in June, seeks $2.8 million in restitution and a 10-year ban on Trump and his three eldest children — Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka — from serving on the boards of other New York State-based charities.
Trump had long pledged to dissolve the foundation and donate its funds to charity, but his lawyers claim they were thwarted by the attorney general's office, which wanted oversight over the process. Trump Foundation lawyer Alan Futerfas said the three-decade-old foundation has been looking to fold since Trump got elected in 2016.
Schneiderman, who resigned in May amid allegations he physically abused women, started investigating the foundation in 2016 and ordered it to stop fundraising in New York after The Washington Post reported that some of its spending personally benefited the presidential candidate.
Underwood referred the office's findings to the IRS and the Federal Election Commission. Those agencies have not commented on the matter.
Attorney General Barbara Underwood's lawsuit alleging Trump and his family illegally operated the foundation as an extension of his businesses and his presidential campaign will continue.
Underwood alleged that Trump used the foundation to help bolster his campaign by giving out big grants of other's people money to veterans' organizations during the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, the first presidential nominating contest of 2016.
Trump was also accused of directing that $100,000 in foundation money be used to settle legal claims over an 80-foot flagpole he had built at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, instead of paying the expense out of his own pocket.
The foundation also paid $158,000 to resolve a lawsuit over a prize for a hole-in-one contest at a Trump-owned golf course; $10,000 to buy a 6-foot (1.8-meter) portrait of Trump at a charity auction; and $5,000 for ads promoting Trump's hotels in the programs for charitable events.
"This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump's business and political interests," she said.
Trump's lawyers previously argued that several impermissible donations by the foundation were due to clerical errors and were all corrected when brought to the attention of foundation officials.
Trump Foundation lawyer Alan Futerfas maintained that the attorney general's office was giving a misleading account of what led to the charity's dissolution in a "further attempt to politicize this matter" and that the state's resistance was "depriving those most in need of nearly $1.7 million."
He said the foundation has distributed approximately $19 million over the past decade, including $8.25 million of the president's own money, to hundreds of charitable organizations.
Tuesday's agreement was reached after a New York judge last month rejected arguments from the foundation's lawyers that the lawsuit was politically motivated and should be thrown out.
Once the judge approves the deal to dissolve the charity, the two sides will have 30 days to provide her with a list of nonprofit organizations that should get the remaining funds. Each charity will get the same amount, and the attorney general's office will have the right to reject ones it deems unfit to receive funds.
The Trump Foundation will only be able to pour the charitable assets it still has into "reputable organizations" approved by the attorney general's office, Underwood added.
