LAWSUIT/TRUMP FAMILY: “The New York state attorney general’s office on Thursday [6-14-18] sued President Donald Trump, three of his children and the family’s foundation, accusing the charity of wide-ranging illegal conduct including coordinating with Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. The lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, calls Mr. Trump’s foundation ‘little more than an empty shell’ and accuses it of repeatedly violating laws that govern charities. In addition to the campaign allegations, the suit says Mr. Trump used the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s charitable assets to pay legal settlements and promote his businesses. The attorney general’s office seeks to dissolve the foundation and asks for $2.8 million in restitution. It also asks that Mr. Trump be banned from serving on the board of any charity in New York for 10 years and that Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump be banned from serving on boards for one year each…Charities, often funded with money that has been deducted from donors’ income taxes, aren’t permitted to engage in politics and generally aren’t allowed to advance the private interests of their officers and directors. Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller called the suit ‘politics at its very worst.’ She said the foundation had already proposed its own voluntary dissolution more than a year and a half ago.”
-Corinne Ramey, “Trumps Accused of Misusing Charity for ‘Self-Dealing’,” The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2018 2:02 pm