CT Blue

Here’s another one for the What if Obama (or Hillary) had Done it? file.

A state judge ordered President Trump to pay $2 million in damages to nonprofit groups on Thursday after the president admitted misusing money raised by the Donald J. Trump Foundation to promote his presidential bid, pay off business debts and purchase a portrait of himself for one of his hotels.

….

The settlement, which was finalized last month and announced on Thursday in the judge’s order, included a detailed admission of misconduct that is rare for the president, who has long employed a scorched-earth approach toward fighting lawsuits.

Among Mr. Trump’s admissions in court papers: The charity gave his campaign complete control over disbursing the $2.8 million that the foundation had raised at a fund-raiser for veterans in Iowa in January 2016, only days before the state’s presidential nominating caucuses. The fund-raiser, he acknowledged, was in fact a campaign event. (Emphases Added)

So, the (technically) President of the United States has admitted in writing that he ran a fraudulent charity, basically stealing other people’s money to engage in what were also probably violations of campaign finance laws, not that those laws are ever enforced, and he has been fined two million dollars for doing so. The fine was, as I understand it, more or less something to which he consented, as the judge set the fine based on an agreed statement of facts. I.e., the parties left it to the court to determine the sentence, but the defendant entered his “guilty” plea without knowing what that sentence would be.

There was a time when this would be considered a monster of a story, even if a Republican had done it, never mind a Democrat.

The above quote, from the New York Times, appeared on the bottom of page 1 of the paper edition. You can be sure it will be the last time it is mentioned by the newspaper that couldn’t get enough of Hillary’s emails or of the nothing that was Whitewater. (Yes, I know I’m showing my age with that one).

But the Times beat out the other two papers we get every morning, the Boston Globe and New London Day, both of which tucked the story away on page two. Each of the three had rather subdued headlines for their pieces, none using something appropriate like Trump admits to charity fraud or something of that nature. 

We have a broken media in this country. The wagons are already circling around Elizabeth Warren. She is not likable, how is she going to pay for Medicare for All, she’s so unfair to the rich, yada yada yada. We will hear those drumbeats from now until someone else is nominated, or until the election, whichever comes first. The fact that Trump has admitted in writing that he is a con man will be yesterday’s news by ….well, by tomorrow.