But that's what everyone is bickering about. It's not like the charity went and bought a campaign bus, which all reasonable people would agree is illegal. How do you define what counts as funding a campaign? Does getting publicity count?
I don't know, does it? Are you seriously arguing that no other politician has ever had publicity support from a charity or the unspoken endorsement of a charity?
I mean again, I asked this upfront, is the message on the main beef that got NY interested, that Trump had a charitable event for Veteran's instead of participating in a debate, really conduct you think makes us worse? Is that really something you think is important to punish? As shady? Or Nefarious?
Maybe there's a good argument there. But I haven't seen it made here.
As for identifying shady charities, I trust Charity Navigator
Unsurprisingly, the Trump Foundation made the list, probably quite some time ago.
You trust them? Does that mean you searched on the list for Trump? Cause the "Trump Foundation" did make the list, and probably a long time ago. And its "official" rating? Not rated. Why? Cause it's a private foundation.
You know what else made the list? "Donald J. Trump Foundation" which shows with a "High Concern" rating - why? Not because of any financial issues, but largely because of the post 2016 negative media coverage, and then the AG's agreement to dissolve it. You can't make this up, literally, you trust their rating, which is just repeating the negative media and nothing about how they spend money. Might ask yourself why it isn't "unrated" given what it is - a private foundation.
So the "shadiness" that they are reporting on is completely based on the events in the AG report and a very hostile media covering him. That's pretty much just repeating what we know. Why am I having to take the 30 seconds to do the search on the link you provided to get to the truth that it's not adding anything to the debate?
And I followed your link to the situations similar to Trumps to "prove" it wasn't selective enforcement. You have to be kidding, each of those cases involves significant fraud and misappropriation - the exact thing that doesn't exist in the Trump Foundation. As I noted - way above - these cases are never brought as a routine matter without fraud and your link
proves that in the lengths it goes to assert these are the same thing.
Case one. The guilty party "took" $500k from his father's foundation. That's theft (ie fraud). The "similarity" to Trump? Trump approved actual charitable payments without calling a Board meeting (with his two kids and employees). Given that in case one, there's no way to make that legit, and in Trump's case there's no chance the Board wouldn't have approved. Fail.
Case two. The guilty party redirected funds from a charity he controlled to other charities he controlled to raise his profile. That's oddly also theft, the first charity can not divert it's funds as a matter of law so long as it's charitable purpose exists. That doesn't apply - at all - to a foundation that is authorized to contribute to any charity. The "similarity" apparently is that the guilty party was "trying to raise his profile" which they assert is the same as Trump. The fact that first is patently theft from the charity and the other is not is kind of a big difference to ignore to make the tangential claim the point. Fail.
Case three. Actual fake charity that didn't do anything it said it was going to do. Given that doesn't match the Trump situation - at all - how did they create a similarity? Oh yeah the Trump foundation bid - at another charities event - $10k on a portrait of Trump. There's nothing actually illegal about that though, it's not an uncommon thing to bid the amount of an intended donation on something the charity doesn't really need. The only real thing this tells you is about Trump's vanity. The actual problem that the Trump foundation had on that point wasn't that this purchase was illegal, its that the Foundation let the Trump hotels hang the picture without charging them "rent". This one seems more like a lie than anything else, but it's a fail.
Case four. The guilty party bought themselves a house with the charity's money. Nothing like that happened with Trump. How is this "similar" well the charity had a "failure of oversight" just like how Trump did (oh yeah, except in Trump's case there's no chance that the legal Board wouldn't have signed off on what he wanted, so this one is completely fake). Fail.
Case five. The guilty brothers used the charities funds on shopping sprees for themselves. How is that similar to Trump? Well the assertion is that these guys mixed family and charity business - just like the Trumps. Even though nothing remotely like this occurred with the Trumps. This one is the most arguable as they site to Trump paying personal legal expenses - by which they are referring to Trump agreeing to make a charitable donation and actually making it from the Foundation. That's an actual violation, but it's almost completely a technical one given that Trump would be the ultimate source of the payment no mater which person paid it. Still, the similarity has nothing to do with the theft that brought charges on the brothers, which was not justifiable under any fact pattern.
Case six. The guilty party used the charities funds to pay for his meals, vacations and entertainment. They don't explain how this one was similar other than to claim "allegations resemble" those against Trump. They literally don't. There are no allegations that Trump ever took money from the Foundation in this manner, in fact money flowed the other way from Trump or in lieu of payments that could have been to Trump. This one was a complete fail, but I note, even on the lean facts presented, I'd expect that the guilty party here may have had a legitimate dispute - travel by an officer of an entity, even a charity is often legitimately reimbursable (the allegation is that these were "vacations" which likely means they were mixed use trips and may have been shady), as would be certain meals (again the allegations were that these were excessive, though they easily good have been for legitimate fund raising or other purposes) and entertainment (which personally I don't think should ever be okay on a "personal" level, but would often be legit in a fund raising context).
Pretty much that list was garbage to make you think there's some kind of NY AG ruthlessness towards charities that doesn't exist. Those were all cases where charitable funds were clearly converted to illegal uses (except maybe the last, though it isn't clear from what they described). That didn't happen with Trump's charities. Even in the argument about "settlements" the settlements were literally donations to charities. One could actually argue that what in fact happened was that the Foundation made a free standing donation and that Trump still owes another, but I suspect that the donations were always papered the other way. A technical violation, but NOTHING LIKE FRAUD.