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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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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