Trump Inauguration Corruption Case Involving Ivanka and Don Jr. Moves Ahead

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/trump-inauguration-corruption-case-involving-ivanka-and-don-jr-moves-ahead/

Donald Trump’s expanding legal worries stemming from investigations in New York and Scotland have received much attention in recent months. But one Trump case, in which his 2016 inauguration committee and the Trump Organization were accused of a million-dollar grift, has been proceeding for almost two years without drawing much notice, and this week, a judge issued a major ruling indicating the case is likely heading to trial. And that could mean that Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who have each been deposed in this civil case, could end up on the stand and questioned about their involvement in an alleged brazen rip-off of nonprofit funds.

In January 2020, Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization and the Presidential Inaugural Committee (Trump’s inauguration committee, a nonprofit known as the PIC). He alleged that the PIC misused charitable funds to enrich the Trump family. As Racine put it, “The Inaugural Committee, a nonprofit corporation, coordinated with the Trump family to grossly overpay for event space in the Trump International Hotel…The Committee also improperly used non-profit funds to throw a private party [at the Trump Hotel] for the Trump family costing several hundred thousand dollars.” In a way, Racine was saying that one of the first post-election actions of the Trump gang was to illegally use the inauguration to make a buck—a lot of bucks.

The case has focused on several of the key players in Trumpworld. Racine has taken depositions from Tom Barrack, the investor and Trump pal who chaired the inauguration committee (and who was arrested and charged this summer with illegally lobbying for the United Arab Emirates); Rick Gates, the committee’s former deputy chair, who subsequently pleaded guilty to two charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation; and two of Trump’s adult children: Ivanka and Donald Jr.

According to Racine’s investigation, both Ivanka and Donald Jr. were involved in deliberations related the alleged misuse of funds. The lawsuit alleges that Ivanka knew the PIC was overcharging the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC, for event space during the inauguration in January 2017. Filings show that during the organization of the inauguration, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a lead producer of the event, raised concerns with the president-elect, Ivanka, and Gates that the Trump Hotel was overcharging the inauguration committee for events to be held there. Gates ignored the warning, the lawsuit notes, and the committee struck a contract with the Trump Hotel for $1.03 million, an amount the lawsuit says that was far above the hotel’s own pricing guidelines.

*snip*

[Me.]

1. What Did They Do At That Party For The TFG Family THat Cost Hundreds Of Thousands?

hand out diamonds as party favors

[Scrivener7]

2. Five years later.