Trump Donated Cash to Florida AG Who Decided Not to Join Trump Univ. Lawsuit

Florida's attorney general personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates

The new disclosure from Attorney General Pam Bondi's spokesman to The Associated Press provides additional details around the unusual circumstances of Trump's $25,000 donation to Bondi.

The money came from a Trump family foundation in apparent violation of rules surrounding political activities by charities. A political group backing Bondi's re-election, called And Justice for All, reported receiving the check Sept. 17, 2013 — four days after Bondi's office publicly announced she was considering joining a New York state probe of Trump University's activities, according to a 2013 report in the Orlando Sentinel.

After the check came in, Bondi's office nixed suing Trump, citing insufficient grounds to proceed.

Associate Press: FL Atty Gen Solicits $$ from Trump

Trump University Documents Expose Fraud
and High-Pressure Sales Tactics

Sales manager Ronald Schnackenberg testified that Trump University "was a fraudulent scheme" that pressured financially-strapped people to sign up for $35,000 real estate seminars. Students were told they would learn how to buy real estate cheaply in a declining market and resell properties quickly for big profits.

He said the company "preyed upon the elderly and the uneducated to separate them from their money."

Former employees of the company, founded by Trump in 2005 and closed in 2010, said they were told to pressure potential customers into opening charge accounts to pay for the classes. One major selling point was that Trump hand-picked the instructors and would be actively involved in their education. Neither was true. Employees said his involvement was limited to approving ads and marketing materials to promote Trump University.

The internal documents were ordered released by the judge overseeing the class action lawsuit filed by Trump University students in California. Trump is scheduled to testify in that suit, slated to start shortly after the election.



New York Times 

How Donald Trump Treats Workers

Trump Tower Built with the Sweat of Undocumented Foreign Workers

Donald Trump repeatedly says he will bring jobs back to America. He failed to make an effort to do that when he was building Trump Tower in 1980.

200 demolition workers—nicknamed the Polish Brigade—worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week with no overtime to knock down the old Bonwit Teller building and make room for Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

According to testimony in a protracted civil suit in federal court, the Polish laborers were paid $5 an hour or less, when they were paid at all. Some went unpaid after the contractor had financial troubles. A few never received even the paltry sum that was owed them for their dirty and hazardous efforts preceding the construction of Trump’s monument to his own wealth.

“They were undocumented and worked ‘off the books,’” Manhattan federal Judge Charles Stewart said of the workers after they became the subject of a 1983 lawsuit. “No records were kept, no Social Security or other taxes were withheld.”


Daily Beast article on Trump Tower

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016 McConnell in '05: 'The President Alone Nominates Judges' "The Constitution of the United States is at stake. Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the president, and the president alone, nominates judges. The Senate is empowered to give advice and consent. But my Democratic colleagues want to change the rules. They want to reinterpret the Constitution to require a super-majority for confirmation. In effect, they would take away the power to nominate from the president and grant it to a minority of 41 senators." -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in 2005, defending the absolute right of a sitting president to nominate judges. This followed Democratic and Republican opposition to President George W. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers, who served as his White House counsel. CNN

Trump has trouble telling the truth about three-quarters of the time.

Here are his statements through mid-February as ranked by Politifact:

Mostly False 18%
False 40%
Pants on Fire 19%

Politifact

A Few of Donald Trump's Greatest Hits


Trump Air, like a presidential term, lasted four years. Then it went bankrupt.

Trump Casinos filed for bankruptcy for the fourth time in 2014.

Trump launched mortgage company in 2006.Housing market collapsed. Company folded in 18 months.

In 2013, the NY Attorney General sued Trump and Trump University for $40 million for allegedly defrauding students. Some students of the "University" are suing Trump, as well.

Trump University lawsuit

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Sarah Palin Supports Abstinence Education 

Daughter Bristol Pays the Price

Sarah Palin has put her estate in Scottsdale, Arizona, up for sale while welcoming the birth of a new granddaughter, as daughter Bristol became a single mother for the second time.

The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee has been in the news lately as a defender/advocate for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, with Trump hinting that Palin is potential cabinet material.

The Los Angeles Times first disclosed that the Palins’ digs in the desert are on the market for $2.5 million. The home is 8,000 square feet with six bedrooms, six-and-a-half bathrooms, a six-car garage and high ceilings with chandeliers.  Out back are four acres with a pool, a spa, a sports court, a fire pit plus a synthetic lawn.

Palin cashed in on fame.  She quit in mid-term as governor of Alaska, and in the following year took in an estimated $23 million as book author, Fox News personality and in-demand, six-figure speaker.   She used a limited liability corporation to purchase the Scottsdale home in 2011, then in foreclosure, for $1.65 million.

The fame has faded, although Palin has flirted with two presidential runs.  Fox News did not renew Palin’s contract when it came up in July, and she pulled the plug on the pay-to-view “Sarah Palin Channel” due to low viewership. 

In at least one huge deal in L.A., Trump got schooled

Long before his run for president and his reality TV career as the ruthless boss, Trump fought an ugly decade-long battle over a Los Angeles landmark.

It's not an exploit he's bragging about on the campaign trail. The prize was the Ambassador Hotel. A legendary Hollywood celebrity hangout and the site of the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, it had endured a long downward spiral before closing in 1989.

The Board of Education already had its eye on the property for a badly needed high school when a Trump syndicate swooped it up for $64 million in 1989 and announced plans to erect a 125-story office tower.
The school board countered with a 7-0 vote to take the property from Trump via eminent domain.
Usually that would start a process in which the parties and their appraisers, or a court, would settle on a price. But not when one of the parties was Trump.

His team launched a fierce lobbying campaign to block a $50-million state allocation to help the district buy the property. Goldberg, then the president of the school board, took on the notoriously tough negotiator.

Roused by Goldberg, protesters outside the Ambassador chanted "Dump Trump" and carried signs saying, "Public need over private greed."

In January 1991, he and his partners decided to take the nearly $48-million deposit the school board offered as part of its eminent domain condemnation suit.

In doing so, Trump Wilshire Associates, in effect, conceded the district's right to take the property.

Two and a half years later, as the eminent domain suit was set to go to trial, the school board abruptly dropped its bid to buy the land. The recession had driven the property's value down to $50 million, and Horton saw no reason to pay the previously estimated value of $74 million.

Barbara Res, executive vice president for Trump Wilshire Associates,  accused the district of duplicity, saying it reneged on a promise to pay $82 million for the entire 23.5-acre site "because they said politically it wasn't a good idea." Horton discounted that, saying the offer was only "a potential deal that we didn't accept, because we couldn't figure out a way to pay for it." Early in 1994 a judge sided with the district. Soon Trump, whose share was reported to be 20%, left the partnership with no signature building and little, if any, cash.

Los Angeles Times

Trump Economic Strategy: Bankruptcy

Trump Economic Strategy: Bankruptcy

Donald Trump -- or companies that bear his name - have declared bankruptcy four times.

Trump has built an American empire from Las Vegas to New York with towering hotels and sparkling casinos. Forbes estimates he's worth $2.7 billion. But not all of Trump's business ventures have been constant money-makers. In 1991, 1992, 2004, and again in 2009, Trump branded companies or properties have sought Chapter 11 protection. 

"I've used the laws of this country to pare debt. ... We'll have the company. We'll throw it into a chapter. We'll negotiate with the banks. We'll make a fantastic deal. You know, it's like on 'The Apprentice.' It's not personal. It's just business," Trump told ABC's George Stephanopoulos last Thursday.

A business declaring bankruptcy is nothing new in corporate America, where bankruptcy is often sugar-coated as "restructuring debt." But it might seem alarming to everyday Americans who can't get a bank to restructure their home loans. If you want to get Donald Trump hot under the collar, accuse him of declaring bankruptcy.

Doug Heller, the executive director of Consumer Watchdog, said Trump is the "most egregious, almost comical example" of the disparity between what the average American faces when going through bankruptcy and the "ease with which the very rich can move in and out of bankruptcy."

"Under the American bankruptcy laws, if you end up in bankruptcy because you're struggling with divorce or medical payments or a sudden change of income, it's a disaster. If you fail miserably with huge dollars involved then you just need some accountants to rework your books," Heller said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-filed-bankruptcy-times/story?id=13419250