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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 2018)
NATION/WORLD Friday, June 15, 2018 East Oregonian Page 9A Trump accused of misusing charitable foundation By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK — New York’s attorney general sued President Donald Trump and his foundation Thursday, accusing him of illegally using the charity’s money to settle disputes involving his business empire and to boost his political fortunes during his run for the White House. The president called the case “ridiculous.” The lawsuit against Trump and the foundation directors — his children Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka — seeks $2.8 million in restitu- tion, additional unspecified penalties and the dissolution of the foundation, which Trump had already pledged to dismantle. The attorney general’s office detailed what it said was a closely coordinated effort by Trump’s campaign and the foundation to bur- nish his political image by giving out big grants of oth- er’s people money to veter- ans’ organizations during the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, the first presidential nomi- nating contest of 2016. “The foundation’s grants made Mr. Trump and the campaign look charita- ble and increased the can- didate’s profile to Repub- lican primary voters and among important constituent groups,” Democratic Attor- ney General Barbara Under- wood’s lawsuit said. It accused the foundation of “improper and extensive political activity, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions, and failure to follow basic fiduciary obligations.” AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File New York Attorney General sues the Trump Founda- tion, Thursday saying it engaged in a pattern of illegal self-dealing. Underwood referred her findings to the IRS and the Federal Election Com- mission for possible fur- ther action. IRS and FEC representatives declined to comment. The Trump Foundation’s mission says its funds are to be used “exclusively for charitable, religious, scien- tific, literary or educational purposes,” according to the lawsuit. In exchange for tax-ex- empt status, charities are required to follow rules that include a strict prohibition against involvement in polit- ical campaigns. In tweets, Trump vowed: “I won’t settle this case!” He said former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who started the investiga- tion, “never had the guts to bring this ridiculous case” before resigning last month after being accused of phys- ically abusing women he dated. Schneiderman has denied the allegations. Trump’s foundation called the case “politics at its very worst,” noting that Schneiderman, a Democrat, was a vocal Trump oppo- nent. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, meanwhile, called Underwood “outrageously biased.” The 31-year-old foun- dation said that it has given more than $19 million to charitable causes while keeping expenses mini- mal, and that Trump and his companies have contributed more than $8 million. Underwood is a career government lawyer who was appointed after Schnei- derman’s resignation. She has said she doesn’t intend to run for election. Schneiderman began investigating the charity in 2016, after The Washington Post reported that the foun- dation’s spending person- ally benefited the presiden- tial candidate. Some of the expenditures uncovered by The Post were cited in the lawsuit. In a handwritten note, Trump directed that $100,000 in foundation money go to settle legal claims against Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, the lawsuit said. Trump’s halt of ‘war games’ could weaken defenses in Korea By ROBERT BURNS AP National Security Writer WASHINGTON — Pres- ident Donald Trump’s deci- sion to suspend major U.S. military exercises in South Korea could weaken allied defenses, depending on the length and scope of the hia- tus. But the potential for dip- lomatic damage seems even greater. The United States, South Korea and Japan were mak- ing a public display of sol- idarity Thursday over the outcome of Trump’s sum- mit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. But analysts and former officials with expe- rience in U.S.-Asia policy were shaken by Trump’s failure to inform the Asian allies — or even the Penta- gon — before mothballing the military maneuvers. “Those exercises are crit- ically important because they are deterrence,” said Chuck Hagel, a former defense secretary in the Obama administration. He welcomed Trump’s willing- ness to talk to Kim but wor- ried that the president has underestimated the compli- cations he has introduced for the Pentagon by suspending the military drills. “You don’t just shut them on and off like a water fau- cet,” he said. The exercises in ques- tion go well beyond routine training, which apparently is unaffected by Trump’s decision. Large-scale exer- cises are done to ensure that evolving tactics, procedures and plans can be carried out smoothly and that U.S. and South Korean forces are in sync. They also are a means of showing allied solidar- ity, which is part of the psy- chology of deterring enemy attack. The U.S. has stationed combat troops in South Korea since the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice and no peace treaty. The more than 28,000 U.S. forces serve as a mili- tary tripwire against North Korean aggression. The next major exercise with South Korea is known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian; last year’s version was held for 11 days in August and involved about 17,500 U.S. troops. The U.S. has insisted these kinds of drills are defensive measures to demonstrate U.S. and South Korean preparedness to respond promptly to any aggression by the North. But when Trump announced his decision to halt them, he characterized them as “provocative” and as “war games.” SWITCH AND GET 50% OFF NO TRADE-IN REQUIRED Choose from the latest Samsung Galaxy Smartphones Watchdog calls Comey ‘insubordinate,’ not biased in Clinton probe By ERIC TUCKER and CHAD DAY Associated Press WASHINGTON — In a stinging rebuke, the Jus- tice Department watchdog declared Thursday that for- mer FBI Director James Comey was “insubordinate” in his handling of the Hil- lary Clinton email investi- gation in the explosive final months of the 2016 presi- dential campaign. But it also found there was no evidence that Comey’s or the depart- ment’s final conclusions were motivated by political bias toward either candidate. President Donald Trump had looked to the much-an- ticipated report to pro- vide a fresh line of attack against Comey and the FBI as Trump claims that a polit- ically tainted bureau tried to undermine his campaign and, through the later Rus- sia investigation, his presi- dency. He is likely to use the harsh assessment of Comey as validation for his decision to fire him, an act now cen- tral to special counsel Rob- ert Mueller’s investigation into whether the president sought to obstruct justice Clinton and her support- ers, on the other hand, have long complained that she was the one whose elec- tion chances were torpedoed by Comey’s investigation announcements about her email practices, in the sum- mer and then shortly before the election. Yet the report’s nuanced findings — that the FBI repeatedly erred, though not for politically improper rea- sons — complicated efforts by Republicans and Dem- ocrats alike to claim total vindication. The conclusions were contained in a 500-page report that documents in painstaking detail one of the most consequential investi- gations in modern FBI his- tory and reveals how the bureau, which for decades has endeavored to stand apart from politics, came to be entangled in the 2016 presidential election. The report also under- scores efforts by senior FBI and Justice Department leaders in the final stages of the presidential race to juggle developments in the Clinton investigation — she had used private email for government business while secretary of state — with a separate probe into poten- tial coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. 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