November 23, 2016

Trump, Bannon Charities Looking Even Dodgier Than Ever

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Shorter Washington Post: Trump advisor and alt-right superstar Steve Bannon set up a charity in 2012 which was then used to pay nearly $2 million in salaries to himself and two other Breitbart writers over the next four years. Bannon supposedly worked 30 hours a week for the charity while also working full-time for Breitbart. The other two worked 40 hours a week for the charity. How did they manage that? “They all work long hours,” the charity’s spokesperson said.

Well OK then! In other news, Donald Trump’s foundation admitted to the IRS in 2015 that it had engaged in illegal self-dealing. It also admitted that it had done this in previous years.1 Trump denied this all through the campaign, but it was probably an oversight. After all, he just signs the forms, he doesn’t read them.

And in yet other news, the Clinton Foundation continues to have done nothing wrong, as near as I can tell. Funny how these things work out, isn’t it?

1This presumably includes the Tim Tebow football helmet, various enormous portraits of Trump, fines paid to Palm Beach, etc. These are all things the foundation paid for that Trump should have paid for out of his own pocket.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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