The President Just Admitted in Court He Ran a Crooked Charity and We're All Just Gonna Shrug It Off?

It's easy to get caught up in impeachment, or the hastening ecological decline of our world, or the fact that the president posted more than 80 tweets before 9:30 this morning, including a suggestion to a teenage climate activist that she should "chill" and consider "Anger Management" classes.

But did you see the charity thing? You should see the charity thing. It was almost water under the bridge. Our politics have gone so far down the rabbit hole that a story about how the President of the United States agreed to pay $2 million at a court's order—while admitting he used his charity for his own gain—barely made a splash. Folks saw the headline and thought to themselves, Well, yeah, of course Donald Trump ran a crooked charity. But really. Look at this.

As part of the settlement, the president paid eight charities a total of $2 million while admitting "he misused funds raised by the Donald J. Trump Foundation to promote his presidential bid and pay off business debts, the New York State attorney general said on Tuesday."

By the 2000s, the charity was largely holding other people's money, which was donated to benefit philanthropic causes. Trump used some of this money to buy a $20,000 portrait of himself.

The philanthropist-in-chief presents a giant check two days before the Iowa caucuses. Scott Olson Getty Images

He also used the money to buy a $12,000 signed Tim Tebow helmet, which he kept for himself.

He spent more than a quarter of a million dollars of the charity's money to settle lawsuits involving his for-profit businesses. This is not legal.

Even earlier on, Trump abused the foundation. In 1989, it appears he used Foundation money to pay Donald Trump Junior's $7 initiation fee for the Boy Scouts. Seven dollars. A self-styled Rich Guy. Too cheap to pay himself.

The largest donation the Foundation made in those days—and indeed ever, according to the Washington Post—was a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989. This appears generous until you learn it was used to restore a fountain outside the Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time. It directly benefitted his business.

‘Please Guide Me In My Darkest Hour Lord,’ Prays Trump Kneeling Before Portrait Of Himself https://t.co/wUrXFCTJe6 pic.twitter.com/DTB4wdhVU1 — The Onion (@TheOnion) October 3, 2019

And we haven't even gotten to the veterans fundraiser. In January 2016, Trump boycotted a Republican debate just ahead of the Iowa caucuses to play up a feud with Fox News—this disagreement did not last—and counter-programmed it by holding a charity event for vets. Except, as he admitted this week, he gave his political campaign control over the event—and the task of distributing the money raised. It was a campaign event, which he now admits. While Trump did give to five Iowa charities by publicly presenting giant checks that read, "Make America Great Again," the New York judge ruled that he had used this private charity, around which there are strict rules, to pump up his political campaign.

It is a sign of how far gone we are that the President of the United States self-dealing on a veterans charity event is barely a blip on our radar. This kind of scumbaggery is just baked in. (This morning, the president openly promoted the private business he still profits from, which he's trying to brand the Southern White House, and reminding potential customers that they could get an audience with the President of the United States if they pay the small membership fee of $200,000.) That phrase, "what If Obama had done this" is instructive here. The answer is it would be fucking Ragnarok on Fox News. But now, nobody bats an eye. And forget about whether spending 20-grand in other people's charity money on a six-foot portrait of yourself points to some troubling psychological...issues.

In the end, the $2 million won't matter much to Trump, and neither will the fact that he just admitted to all this stuff. He can just brazenly lie about it in public. He has been ever since he agreed to shutter the crooked shop. His offspring, however, who were officers in this distinguished philanthropic endeavor—Eric, Junior, and Ivanka—have been ordered as part of the settlement "to undergo mandatory training to ensure they do not engage in similar misconduct in the future." As if this was all a mix-up, a misunderstanding. Again, you have to ask what the consequences would be for someone who did not inhabit a golden tower in the sky above Fifth Avenue. You also have to wonder if rich folks would normally face any scrutiny at all for this kind of behavior.

As for Trump himself, he avoided the New York Attorney General's desired outcome of a lifetime ban on running any charitable organizations. Should he seek to engage in philanthropy by opening another charity, the President of the United States will face "numerous restrictions."