Donald Trump, His Foundation and Florida’s Attorney General Epitomize Corruption

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:09 pm

*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*

It is true that elections are nasty affairs, at least in America, but one expects the media to do its due diligence and report all stories about all candidates accurately and fairly. But this is America and it is getting more difficult every day to find much in the mainstream media that comes close to being accurate or fair. Obviously, truth doesn’t sell and if large media outlets were relegated solely to Internet posting, they would join an increasing number of websites being labeled “clickbait sites.” It must sell ad space to report lies from Republicans, because the media has spent no small amount of time parroting lies and fabrications from Donald Trump’s campaign about Hillary Clinton. While the media assists Trump’s mudslinging, it has ignored a world of highly unflattering stories about the Donald because bashing a powerful woman obviously sells ad space.

It should have been painfully apparent that when Donald J. Trump, WWE and reality television celebrity, hired Citizens United founder David Bossie as his campaign deputy manager, the level of mudslinging targeting Hillary Clinton would get seriously nasty. Remember, it was Citizens United’s long campaign ad disguised as a legitimate documentary defaming Hillary Clinton’s character, and the subsequent action stopping it, that prompted Citizens United and then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. It’s not as if Trump needed more aid in attacking Clinton’s character with lies and fabrications, he has made a mockery out of the campaign process by inventing “issues” and lying to sate his particularly ugly pathology.

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One of the irritating, seriously irritating, aspects of Trump’s dirty lies is this perpetual claim that Hillary Clinton is corrupt and as of late calling the Clinton Foundation corrupt and a scam; something the mainstream media refuses to stop reporting as if it is a legitimate claim. What the media also refuses to do is shine the same glaring light on real corruption in the form of Donald Trump’s phony foundation, or report that Trump admitted guilt in using his foundation illegally, or that the illegality was also a bribe and an attempt to cover up the bribe, and that doesn’t count using his “foundation” as a tax shelter disguised as a charity.

It was hardly mentioned anywhere, but Donald Trump was forced to pay the IRS a $2,500 penalty earlier this year after the Internal Revenue Service revealed that Trump’s phony “charitable foundation” violated tax laws, and likely campaign finance laws as well. Although the violation, and subsequent admission of guilt by Trump, was over the “foundation” violating tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group, it was also a political contribution that any reasonably intelligent human being woulda bribe to another Republican and high-ranking law enforcement official.

A few weeks ago this column noted that while Trump University was under investigation by several states’ attorneys general, the Florida attorney general’s investigation into the fraudulent “university” came to a screeching halt. It ended immediately after Trump University “owner” Donald J. Trump illegally used his “Donald J. Trump Foundation” to hand over a $25,000 gift (bribe) to none other than Florida’s Republican attorney general, Pam Bondi.

In typical Republican fashion, Bondi claims there was no impropriety on her part, but she is as big a liar as her sugar-daddy Donald Trump. Internal emails reveal that Bondi actually solicited the “donation” from Trump, accepted it, and then dropped the case. There is sufficient evidence that Bondi and her office were considering joining other states’ attorneys general in investigating the hundreds of fraud allegations made against Trump’s phony university, but after being handed the $25,000 she asked for, Bondi did what Trump paid her to do and said there was nothing improper to investigate and the case, in Florida at least, was never pursued.

Trump said his charitable foundation illegally donating to a political campaign was just a silly little oversight and gladly forked over a measly $2,500 as a penalty, but even that is a lie. Not surprising, not only did the Donald J. Trump Foundation “forget” to list its pay-off to the pro-Bondi group “And Justice for All,” it lied in its Internal Revenue tax filing that year to cover up the illegal “donation” to dissuade Florida’s top law enforcement official from investigating and prosecuting Trump and his fraudulent university.

The Trump Foundation charity actually did list a $25,000 donation to some group on its IRS filing, but it was a group unrelated to Bondi to cover up the illegal donation’s impropriety and purpose. The group based in Wichita Kansas, not Florida, is a non-profit called “Justice for All,” and they reported their non-profit never received a penny from the Trump Foundation. It lends credence to Trump being guilty of attempting to cover up a bribe, bribing a law enforcement official and violating the IRS rules governing his charitable, tax-exempt fraudulent foundation.

This is a story involving a presidential candidate that should be leading at least a couple of news cycles and warrant an investigation by the Department of Justice, Federal Elections Commission and Florida’s legislature. However, mainstream media is not going to utter or print a word about Trump’s corruption when there is a woman candidate seeking the same office as a man. It is telling, too, that the media is rabid to cover Trump’s phony corruption accusations and fabricated Republican scandals against Hillary Clinton when they know damn well there is a veritable mountain of evidence detailing many Trump scandals and corruption.

Only dyed-in-the-wool fascists, racists, Aryans, Republicans and the mainstream media know Donald Trump is as corrupt as they come and still pretend he is an upstanding citizen. Donald Trump, like his phony foundation, his scam university, and his bought-and-paid-for attorney general Pam Bondi, is corrupt to the bone and if the media would spend even a fraction of the time reporting just a fraction of Trump’s corruption, one might say American media is fair, accurate and balanced. But it’s not and in aiding Trump’s campaign by reporting his lies that Clinton is corrupt while ignoring his scandals, one has to conclude that the mainstream media is as corrupt as Donald J. Trump and his fraudulent foundation.

Rmuse

Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.

Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.

Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.