Donald Trump, left, stages a check presentation with an enlarged copy of a $100,000 contribution from the Donald J. Trump Foundation to Support Siouxland Soldiers during a campaign event in Sioux City, Iowa., during Trump's run for president in January 31,2016.
The Donald J. Trump Foundation has agreed to shut down under court supervision on Tuesday after the lawsuit opened by the New York state attorney general Barbara D. Underwood.
The state attorney general said that US president Donald Trump misused the New York based foundation's resources to advance his 2016 presidential campaign and his businesses.
“Our petition detailed 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,” Underwood said.
The lawsuit against the foundation also seeks to recover $2.8 million and ban Trump and his three eldest children from leadership roles in any other New York charity.
In a 20-month state investigation, Underwood said there are “possible violations” of federal campaign law and tax law by Trump Foundation.
Since 2016, Trump had paid back $330,000 for penalty taxes and reimbursements for some violations.
Underwood said: “As our investigation reveals, the Trump Foundation was little more than a check book for payments from Mr. Trump or his businesses to non-profits, regardless of their purpose or legality.”
According to attorney, the US president’s foundation had been used repeatedly for many transactions that violated the law of tax-exemption for charity foundations.
The money of the foundation was used for private benefits of Trump family not for public good.
The US president Donald Trump had not donated money to his foundation between 2008 and 2015.
The money collected from donations also used to settle Trump’s legal disputes, coming from his private businesses.
Underwood identified also that the foundation paid some private expenses of Trump hotels such as for advertisements and luxury spending for decoration.
Trump donated foundation money to support Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Republican, who was considering launching an investigation into Trump University, Trump’s for-profit education venture.
The controversial Donald J. Trump Foundation was established by Donald Trump in 1998 in New York as a private foundation, initially its mission was to distribute income from his book of The Art of the Deal.
The board of directors consisted of Donald Trump and his three children, Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization's CFO Allen Weisselberg till 2017.
According to the Washington Post, Weisselberg did not know his membership of the foundation until a New York state investigator asking him.
The sleazy New York Democrats, and their now disgraced (and run out of town) A.G. Eric Schneiderman, are doing everything they can to sue me on a foundation that took in $18,800,000 and gave out to charity more money than it took in, $19,200,000. I won’t settle this case!...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2018
Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for the Trumps, responded in a statement that the lawsuit had delayed the foundation’s plan to dissolve after Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November 2016.
He added that over the past decade, the foundation had distributed about $19 million, including $8.25 million of Trump’s personal money, to over 700 charitable organizations.
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