Court Fines Trump $2 Million for Diverting Money From Veterans Fundraiser to His Campaign
An honest businessman. Photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images
Ajudge ordered President Trump to pay $2 million to a group of charities on Thursday, ruling that the president had broken the law by directing the proceeds from an event advertised as benefiting veterans to his presidential campaign instead.
The lawsuit stems from the wild days of the 2016 Republican primary. Because of a feud he maintained with Fox News at the time, Trump decided to skip a debate hosted by the network just before the Iowa caucuses in January 2016, and hold his own, competing event instead — a televised fundraiser for veterans. Shockingly enough, it turned out the event wasn’t quite on the level. Rather than having the foundation run the event and direct all proceeds to the charities, as promised, Trump did something quite different. As New York State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla put it in her decision on Thursday:
Mr. Trump’s fiduciary duty breaches included allowing his campaign to orchestrate the Fundraiser, allowing his campaign, instead of the Foundation, to direct distribution of the Funds, and using the Fundraiser and distribution of the Funds to further Mr. Trump’s political campaign.
The lawsuit was brought by New York State attorney general Barbara Underwood, who announced last year that the Trump Organization would shut down amid her investigations into its well-documented chicanery. Though Trump had said on Twitter that he would fight the fundraiser case, his lawyers and the state have been in talks for months to negotiate a settlement.
It’s a loss for Trump, but $2 million is a minor blow in his universe — and the judge could have been harsher. She decided not to impose any punitive damages on the president, nor impose lifetime bans on him and his children from serving on the boards of New York–based charities in the future, conditions the state had been seeking. (Though she did put into place other restrictions involving his future charitable endeavors.)
Trump suffered another legal setback on Monday, when a federal appeals court ordered him to produce eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns, in a case likely headed for the Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump flanked by riot police in Lafayette Park after it was cleared using tear gas for the president's Monday press event outside St. John's Church across from the White House Monday, June 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
THERE'S NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DEMS AND GOP. THEY SERVE THE SAME PAYMASTERS.
Democrats cover for Trump’s coup d’état
3 June 2020
Following Trump’s announcement that he would deploy the military to crush protests against police violence throughout the country, the Democrats are working to cover up and downplay Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional coup d’état.
Trump has operationalized his efforts to establish a presidential dictatorship, based on the military and the police, through a massive military deployment in Washington, D.C., which is under his direct control. He is also escalating pressure on states to crack down on demonstrations after his threat on Monday to send in the military if they do not respond aggressively enough.
Late Tuesday night, Trump singled out New York City, writing on Twitter that “New York’s Finest are not being allowed to perform their MAGIC but regardless, and with the momentum that the Radical Left and others have been allowed to build, they will need additional help”—that is, the deployment of the military, under the president’s control.
President Donald Trump flanked by riot police in Lafayette Park after it was cleared using tear gas for the president's Monday press event outside St. John's Church across from the White House Monday, June 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
In innumerable public statements, Democratic members of Congress, governors and mayors commenting on Trump’s actions ignored the fascistic and authoritarian character of Trump’s actions, focusing instead on declarations that Trump is not being “helpful” in controlling the demonstrations.
“Let’s not overreact,” said Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, calling Trump’s statements “bluster.” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was asked if she would request military intervention, replied that this would only be necessary “because they’ve [the Trump administration] thrown a lot more gas on a fire that was burning.”
In contrast to the heroism of the demonstrators, who showed up by the tens of thousands in defiance of Trump’s threats, the Democrats have responded with their typical display of fecklessness, cowardice and complicity.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden delivered a 30-minute address on Tuesday full of mournful moralizing. He declared his wish that Trump had read the Bible, as he “could have learned something” and criticized Trump for fomenting “fear and division.”
Biden effectively equated the actions of protestors with the actions of the fascistic president and the police rampage he has incited. “There is no place for violence,” Biden said. “No place for looting or destroying property or burning churches, or destroying businesses. … Nor is it acceptable for our police, sworn to protect and serve all people, to escalate tensions or resort to excessive violence.”
Biden avoided the central political issue—that the president is engaging in illegal actions and seeking to overthrow the Constitution of the United States.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer issued a perfunctory four-paragraph statement on Trump’s Rose Garden speech which did not include the word “military.”
“At a time when our country cries out for unification, this President is ripping it apart,” they said. “We call upon the President, law enforcement and all entrusted with responsibility to respect the dignity and rights of all Americans.”
Mirroring Trump’s own photo-op in Washington following his speech, Pelosi clutched a Bible before cameras while giving a two-minute address Tuesday morning. “We would hope that the President of the United States would follow the lead of so many presidents before him to be a healer-in-chief and not a fanner of the flame,” Pelosi concluded.
Only six months ago, the impeachment campaign of the Democrats concluded in the House of Representatives, which was presided over by Pelosi. The House approved articles of impeachment against Trump for “high crimes and misdemeanors” that centered on a phone call with the president of Ukraine and allegations that Trump withheld military aid to the country in its war against Russia. Trump was ultimately acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.
While the Democrats considered the Ukraine call a basis for removing the President, they pass over in silence the attempt to deploy the military on US soil against domestic protests. Neither Pelosi nor any other Democrat has called for a reconvening of the House and the introduction of a new motion for Trump’s removal from office.
Trump’s demands that opposition to his government be “put down” by deployment of active duty military personnel is blatantly illegal. As Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman commented last year:
From the founding onward, the American constitutional tradition has profoundly opposed the President’s use of the military to enforce domestic law. A key provision, rooted in an 1878 statute and added to the law in 1956, declares that whoever “willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force” to execute a law domestically “shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years”—except when “expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.”
As the WSWS has noted repeatedly, the aim of the Democrats in their opposition to Trump over the past three-and-a-half years was to carry out a palace coup. From the beginning of his administration, the Democrats worked to suppress and derail broad-based mass opposition to Trump’s fascistic policies, channeling it behind their own reactionary, anti-Russia campaign.
Now when there is a mass popular movement against Trump, the Democrats devote themselves to the futile effort at calming the situation. When they criticize Trump for “fanning the flames,” they are expressing their fear of a massive social eruption in the working class.
For the past three-and-a-half years, the Democrats have worked with Trump on the essential elements of the domestic policy of the financial oligarchy. Amidst the expanding coronavirus pandemic, they unanimously endorsed the multitrillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and are helping to enforce the back-to-work campaign spearheaded by the Trump administration.
Absolutely nothing good will come from the Democratic Party. It is a party of Wall Street and the military-intelligence agencies. It is thoroughly hostile to the sentiments that are animating the massive and expanding protests against police violence and the broader social anger among workers that is behind them.
The struggle against the Trump regime can be taken forward only through the independent political mobilization of the working class, in opposition to the Democrats, Republicans and the entire political apparatus of the corporate and financial elite. The fight against police violence and Trump’s moves to presidential dictatorship must be fused with the struggle against inequality, exploitation and the capitalist system.
Joe Biden’s Campaign Is Awash in Wall Street Cash
Joe Biden’s Campaign Is Awash in Wall Street Cash
2 Jun 202080
4:01
Joe Biden has adopted the anti-Wall Street rhetoric of some of his former rivals for the Democrat nomination, but that has not stopped him from collecting an enormous war chest of campaign cash from the financial sector.
Biden on Tuesday said that America “wasn’t built by Wall Street bankers and CEOs, it was built by the great American middle class.”
· 6h
Biden: “The president held up the Bible at St. John’s church yesterday. I just wish he opened it once in a while.”
Biden: “If it weren’t clear before, it’s clear now: This country wasn’t built by Wall Street bankers and CEOs, it was built by the great American middle class.”
Securities industry employees, a close proxy for Wall Street, have donated $29,703,244 to Biden’s campaign or to political committees supporting his campaign for the presidency, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The sector is the second-largest source of campaign contributions to Biden’s campaign, coming only after Democrat Party and left-wing organizations.
Donald Trump, by contrast, has only received around $6,320,861.
Biden has also received far more campaign cash from employees of J.P.Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs than his Republican rival, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. For example, Biden has taken more than 6 times as much money from J.P. Morgan Chase employees than Trump.
Employees at those four firms have donated a total of $508,259 to Biden’s campaign, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Morgan Stanley was the biggest contributor to Biden of the group, with donations totaling $171,274.
Trump has received just $27,981 dollars from Morgan Stanley employees. J.P. Morgan employees have contributed $23,942. Bank of America employees given $40,448. Goldman’s contributions add up to a grand total of $4,211, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. A total of $96,582, less than one-fifth of Biden’s take.
Political contributions from Citigroup were unavailable at the time of publication.
The campaign cash from the big Wall Street banks have poured into Democrat coffers in the 2020 election cycle. Slightly more than 58 percent of Goldman’s contributions to Congressional candidates have gone to Democrats. More than 62 percent of Morgan Stanley’s contributions went to Democrats. Bank of America was nearly even, with 49.9 percent going to Republicans and 49.6 percent going to Republicans. J.P. Morgan favored Democrats by nearly 60 percent to 30 percent, with 10 percent going to independent candidates.
This is not a function of just giving to the majority party. Goldman’s contributions favor Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate, while Morgan Stanley’s and J.P. Morgan’s favor Democrats in both. Bank of America contributors favor Republican candidates for the House and Democrats in the Senate.
When measured by contributions to all federal candidates, all four skew Democrat. J.P. Morgan’s contributions are the most tilted, with 73.4 percent going to Democrat candidates, and Bank of America’s the least, with 58.5 percent going to Democrats. Morgan Stanley tilts 67.9 percent Democrat. Goldman lean is 61.28 Democrat.
This is a further shift leftward by Wall Street from the last election cycle, when between 50 percent and 52 percent of the contributions through mid-year 2017 from J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America went to Republicans. Those banks sent between 37 percent and 45 percent of the contributions to Democrats.
No comments:
Post a Comment