Thursday, January 23, 2020
Trump Trial Defenders
Birds of a feather will gather together.
— Robert Burton, The Author’s Abstract
A man is known by the company he keeps. The make-up of Team Trump is known, and as this is written, the trial is under way and by the time it sees the light of day, may already be over. Nonetheless, is not too late to admire one of the almost members of the trump defense team, two of the well-known members and draw attention to one member who has been sadly overlooked. It is not that she has not had as illustrious a career as her colleagues. It is just that it is slightly less newsworthy.
The almost member of the defense team is, of course, Rudy Giuliani. He has gone around the world at great personal sacrifice in order to advance the trump interests by getting dirt on the Bidens, and getting rid of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine.
In all those efforts he has been single minded, always bearing the interests of the trump foremost in his mind. Nonetheless, on a personal level, Rudy wanted nothing more than to have his name and face forever implanted on the impeachment proceedings by being a highly visible part of the defense team. Although he had, in the past, made history by being the only New York mayor to announce at a press conference, that he was divorcing his wife, an announcement that was as much news to her as to the rest of the world, that feat would not have held a candle, when his obituary is written, to having been a part of the team that was defending a man who was not only the most corrupt but also the dumbest president to have ever lived in the White House. Rudy really wanted to ride into posterity on the back of the trump. It was not to be.
Among others, the defense team includes Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr. Alan is an excellent choice since he was one of the lawyers who enabled the billionaire pedophile and good friend, Jeffrey Epstein, to avoid prison time for his now famous sexual escapades. Epstein had faced multiple counts of soliciting and trafficking underage girls in Florida, but thanks to the able defense of Alan and others, he was sentenced to 13 months of house arrest. Alan was assisted in that highly successful effort by another member of the trump team, Ken Starr. Following his participation in the Epstein case, Ken went on to still more illustrious achievements. In 2011 he was named president of Baylor University and in 2016 he was kicked out for failing to respond appropriately to reports that football players at Baptist Baylor University had been convicted of sexual assaults.
Being among such successful defenders and enablers of men accused of sexual criminal activities, it is no surprise that she would go unnoticed. It’s not fair. She is just as exemplary as they-I refer to Pam Bondi.
Pam was the former attorney general for the state of Florida. When she was running for reelection to that post in 2013, she accepted a $25,000 check for her campaign from the Donald J. Trump Charitable Foundation. (On December 19, 2019 a suit against the foundation for using its money for, among other things, political purposes to further the trump’s presidential pursuit, was settled.)
Following receipt of the gift from the foundation, Pam made the carefully considered decision not to sue Trump University on behalf of Florida citizens who claimed the university had swindled them.
Among her many notable trump-like activities, Pam was active in taking steps to make it more difficult for voting rights to be restored to Florida ex-felons, repeatedly appealed federal court rulings against same-sex marriage bans until the U.S. Supreme Court definitively invalidated such prohibitions, and joined a lawsuit opposing the clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay, a bay that is several hundred miles from Talahassee.
Another notable act occurred when she was running for reelection as attorney general for the state of Florida. Marshall Lee Gore had been sentenced to death in Florida following his conviction for a vicious murder and rape. His execution was twice postponed but finally scheduled for September 10, 2014. It turned out that was the date that Pam, who was running for re-election, had scheduled her “hometown campaign kickoff” at her South Tampa home. Understandably, she did not want an execution to take away from the excitement of her day. Accordingly, she asked the governor’s office to postpone the execution. Her request was granted. Mr. Scott was put to death October 1, 2014. Ms. Bondi’s fundraiser went off without a hitch. She was reelected to a second term as attorney general of Florida the following month.
Pam is a great addition to the trump defense team. She will have no trouble fitting in. Trump, if no one else, should be grateful for her participation.
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Trump and Mormon Tutors
— Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift, or a sum of money. . . .Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204), Charity’s Eight Degrees
Tutors in the ways of the Internal Revenue Code can come from unexpected places as this week’s news shows. One tutor is the trump, and the other, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. Each provides us with new insight into the working of Section 501© 3 of the Code. It deals with tax exempt charitable organizations.
The Trump foundation was designated a 501©(3) charitable entity many years ago. Donors making gifts to the foundation were entitled to claim a charitable deduction on their income tax returns for the amount of the gift. The foundation, in turn, was required to use its funds for charitable purposes. As in many trump ventures, the way the law dictated that monies be used, and the way they were actually used, did not correspond.
According to testimony from the trump’s former lawyer, a blatant example of the misuse of the Trump foundation money, was its purchase of a portrait of the trump painted by William Quigley. At an ArtHamptons gala, the last work of art being sold was a portrait of the trump. The trump wanted to be sure that the portrait would be the highest priced artwork sold at that auction. To achieve that result, the efforts of a fake bidder were employed who purchased the painting for $60,000. The fake bidder had no use for the portrait and the foundation repaid the purchaser, even though he was not a charitable entity. The trump kept the portrait.
The trump’s fondness for his likeness was shown again in a lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General in 2018. In settling that lawsuit the trump admitted to, among other things, permitting his foundation to pay $10,000 for a portrait of him that was turned over to him. The trump never tires, it would seem, of looking at himself not only in mirrors, but on walls. A Washington Post investigation set forth numerous other misuses of foundation assets.
None of the foregoing is meant to be didactic since lots of foundations have misused their funds in the manner of the trump foundation. Here is the didactic part of this piece insofar as the taxpayer is concerned.
As part of the settlement of the New York lawsuit, the trump agreed to pay a fine of $2 million to be paid to assorted non-profit groups. The trump claims that since the fine is being distributed to charities, he should be able to treat the fine as a charitable contribution. Although the imposition of the fine in this case decrees that the fine go to certain named charities, the trump logic, if approved by the court, may have broader application.
If a fine is used by the entity levying the fine to support governmental activities, activities that, if given directly to the entity, would entitle the donor to a charitable deduction, the miscreant should be able, the trump believes, to treat the fines as charitable deductions on the payor’s tax returns. That would make fines imposed in criminal cases much less burdensome for defendants. Those more knowledgeable than I can decide whether that argument has any merit.
Shortly after reports surfaced of the trump settlement, 501© 3 was again in the news in a big way. According to a report in the Washington Post, David Nielsen, a senior portfolio manager at the Mormon church’s investment division, known as “Ensign Peak,” left Ensign and became a whistleblower.
As an integral part of the Mormon church, Ensign is required to operate exclusively for religious, educational, or other charitable purposes. It is not permitted to accumulate wealth. According to Mr. Nielsen, for the last 22 years, Ensign has not used its funds for the required charitable purposes, but has instead permitted the funds to accumulate. Mr. Nielsen says the church now holds billions of dollars that it should have been distributing to charitable causes.
According to Philip Hackney, a former IRS official who teaches tax law, the complaint lodged by Mr. Nielsen gives rise to the question of whether Ensign deserves to retain its status as a tax exempt entity. He suggests that simply amassing an enormous sum of money and not spending it for charitable purposes “does not meet the requirements of tax law.”
Church officials have a different take on its accumulated wealth. They say the billions it holds are for the “building of a prudent reserve for the future.” They say that practice: “is a sound doctrinal and financial principle taught by the Savior in the Parable of the Talents and lived by the Church and its members.” When teaching that, however, the Savior was unacquainted with the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code.
According to Mr. Nielsen, Ensign’s president once said the massive funds that had been accumulated would be used in the event of the second coming of Christ.
As of this writing we do not know whether the Judge in the trump case will permit the trump to treat a two million dollar fine as a charitable contribution. And it will probably be many years before we find out whether the IRS agrees that a church can accumulate billions it is supposed to use for charitable purposes as a war chest in anticipation of the second coming of Christ.
Legal scholars will eagerly await an IRS ruling on the trump claim. The rest of us will eagerly await the Second Coming to see how the Mormons will spend the billions. Jesus may well be as surprised as the rest of us, to see what they have planned for Him.
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
The Perry and the Tweet
— Mark Twain, Letter to William Dean HowellsI am a great & sublime fool. But then I am God’s fool, & all His works must be contemplated with respect.
It all made sense thanks to a simple trumpian tweet. At first glance it had seemed to be just another in the never-ending tweet storm inflicted on the country by the boy in the Oval Office. Placed in the proper context, however, it makes perfect sense.
It started on August 24, 2019, with a proclamation that caused surprise in some, astonishment in others, and cries of jubilation from yet others. It began when the trump was answering questions from reporters about the trade war with China. Without warning, he suddenly turned his gaze heavenward and proclaimed: “I am the chosen one.” Although his innate modesty caused him a few days later to tweet that he was “kidding, being sarcastic, and just having fun,” his modesty was soon for naught when Rick Perry, the outgoing Energy Secretary, confirmed the trump’s proclamation. Mr. Perry was not being sarcastic and “just having fun.” He was being dead serious.
In an interview on Fox News, the Secretary said he believed the trump was chosen by God to lead the country. Acknowledging something virtually all democrats, and perhaps a handful of Republicans such as Mr. Perry are aware, Mr. Perry said that the trump is not perfect. He said: “God’s used imperfect people all through history. King David wasn’t perfect. Saul wasn’t perfect. Solomon wasn’t perfect.”
Not content to make that proclamation on Fox News, Mr. Perry said that he had personally said the exact same thing to the president. He told him: “Mr. President . . . you are here in this time because God ordained you.”
Mr. Perry is obviously a biblical scholar and a deeply religious man. He is one of the regular attendees at Bible study gatherings of cabinet members in the White House. And being a religious man, he got it right when he used King David as the reason God got it right when he picked the trump. That is because King David and the trump have a great deal in common.
For my insights into the comparison between King David and the trump, I am indebted to Msgr. Charles Pope who has written regularly for the Catholic Registry, publishes on the internet and has travelled widely lecturing on matters liturgical. He was, of course, not drawing parallels between the trump and King David, since his writing, on which I am relying, was published in 2012, long before the trump was on the scene.
In a piece published in 2012 entitled “David, A Great King, Yet with a Critical flaw. What is the Lesson for us Today?” he describes David in a way that immediately causes the reader to think of the trump. David, like the trump, liked women. Instead of bragging about how he could grab women by their private parts whenever he wanted, as the trump did, David simply married them. He had at least eight wives and, according to Msgr Pope, probably more. In addition, notwithstanding his many wives, David had Uriah the Hittite killed so that he could marry Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. According to Msgr. Pope, David eventually felt bad about what he had done and to do penance as it were, wrote Psalm 51 known as the Miserere.
Mr. Perry gave further solace by observing that David was not the only king, who like the trump, had serious flaws. David’s son, Solomon was another. King Solomon, like his dad and like the trump, also liked women. In the Bible, 1 Kings chapter 11, the author says that Solomon had 700 wives, princesses and 300 concubines. Those sorts of statistics would, if known by the trump, infuse him with a sense of envy that might well cause him to collapse in a jealous rage because of the injustice of the Lord dealing him such a lousy hand that all he had were several wives (not even in the dozens), and many, but probably not hundreds of occasional sexual encounters.
The pronouncements from Mr. Perry explaining that trump is the “chosen one,” helped me understand the recent tweet by the trump. It was designed by the trump to show that he was more than a mere mortal like those over whom he proudly rules. Since it is now uniformly recognized, not only by the trump but by his thousands of evangelical followers, that he is God’s chosen one, the trump realized that he is deserving of more than the hundreds of thousands of pictures that have been taken of him since his ascendancy. He needs a portrait that properly glorifies him. And thus, his tweet.
At 8:45 AM on November 27th, the trump tweeted a picture of his head superimposed on the magnificent body of a shirtless Sylvester Stallone. Many who saw that magnificent portrait of our president, came away with a new appreciation of the trump and a sense of gratitude to the trump and God for sharing with us with this portrait of God’s chosen one. A few of us came away thinking that the trump and God have presented us with the portrait of a fool.