Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf: Things feel different from 2016" video.
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In April 2018, a federal judge finalized the $25 million settlement between Trump and students of his now defunct fake Trump University with New York's attorney general claiming “victims of Donald Trump’s fraudulent university will finally receive the relief they deserve.”
The order from a U.S. District Judge came a year after he first approved the settlement. It marks the end of two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit from NY accusing Trump of "swindling thousands of Americans out of millions of dollars through Trump University," in the words of NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
"This settlement marked a stunning reversal by President Trump, who for years refused to compensate the victims of his sham university," Schneiderman said in a statement.
Trump University was not an actual university but a for-profit seminar scam, and former students waged a years-long battle claiming the course misled them with claims of teaching real estate success. The program ended in 2010. Some elderly plaintiffs who paid $20,000-plus in tuition died waiting to receive their checks from the settlement.
November of last year, Trump was ordered by a judge to pay $2 million in damages for illegally using funds intended for charity to boost his 2016 presidential election campaign.
Trump had to admit to personally misusing charity money, according to the New York’s attorney general office, despite having previously denied any wrongdoing. The fine adds to several other investigations into allegations that he is using public office for self-enrichment..
The lawsuit last year states that Trump, and his three money grubbing useless children - Don Jr, Ivanka and Eric - broke campaign finance laws in 2016 by using Trump Foundation’s tax-exempt status “as little more than a checkbook to serve Trump’s business and political interests.
Trump and his crime family had violated their fiduciary duties as officers and directors of the now-shuttered Trump Foundation. As a result of that failure, charitable dollars — consistently and over many years — often benefited Trump rather than the causes he repeatedly claimed he supports.
There was “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,” the suit claimed.
In the agreements, Trump admitted to misusing funds from the foundation, which he dissolved last year, including to pay for a portrait himself that cost $10,000. He also agreed to pay back $11,525 he spent on sports memorabilia and champagne at a charity gala.
Trump also directed the foundation to use money for charity to buy a Tim Tebow helmet for himself, and to settle a couple of lawsuits.
Trump also admitted in the agreements to 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, instead of paying the expense out of his own pocket..
The biggest donation that Trump’s fake foundation ever gave appears to have been to contribute $264,632 to fixing a fountain outside of the Plaza Hotel, which he owned at the time. “It shows you what this "foundation" was all about. Which was basically all about advancing Trump’s interests,” said Brian Galle, a professor of tax law at Georgetown University.
In addition, Trump used his charity foundation to pay-off a $158,000 lawsuit over a prize for a hole-in-one contest at a Trump-owned golf course, and $5,000 for ads promoting Trump’s hotels in the programs for charitable events. Trump admitted these transactions were also improper.
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