The New York Times Is Picking on the Wrong Candidate’s Charitable Organization
Paul Krugman is clearly correct that the reporting on the Clinton Foundation has been terrible, filled with innuendo, and has, to date, found nothing untoward or unethical. He’s also right to get a sinking feeling that we’re seeing a repeat of what happened to Al Gore in 2000, when he somehow came off as the dishonest candidate when matched up against an opponent whose entire platform was based on “fuzzy math,” with predictable catastrophic consequences once he became president.
Krugman is also disturbingly correct about this:
True, there aren’t many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of honesty. But it’s hard to escape the impression that he’s being graded on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he’s being presidential. If he seems to suggest that he wouldn’t round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants right away, he’s moving into the mainstream. And many of his multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little attention.
That story on the payoffs can be followed in the pages of the Washington Post, but it doesn’t seem to interest Krugman’s own New York Times. It might shock you to learn that Trump even has a charitable organization since he gives almost no money to charity, but the Donald J. Trump Foundation does in fact exist, and it was fined by the IRS this year for making an illegal political contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. At the time, Bondi was supposed to be investigating claims that Trump University was a fraudulent organization designed to bilk people out of their money. After receiving the contribution (which she had solicited), Bondi decided to do nothing, effectively giving Trump impunity for ripping off unsuspecting Floridians.
More: Washington Monthly