CEDAR RAPIDS — A New York Attorney General’s lawsuit filed Thursday against the Donald J. Trump Foundation alleging unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign stems from a $2.8 million Iowa fundraiser held less than a week before the 2016 Republican precinct caucuses.
The lawsuit alleges “persistent illegal conduct” over more than a decade that includes unlawful political coordination, “repeated and willful self-dealing” transactions to benefit Trump’s personal and business interests as well as violations of basic legal obligations for nonprofit foundations.
Attorney General Barbara Underwood is seeking to dissolve the Trump Foundation and obtain restitution of the $2.8 million and additional penalties.
She also is asking the court to ban Trump from serving as a director of a nonprofit for 10 years and a one-year ban for foundation board members Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump.
On Twitter, the president vowed to fight the lawsuit:
“The sleazy New York Democrats, and their now disgraced (and run out of town) A.G. Eric Schneiderman, are doing everything they can to sue me on a foundation that took in $18,800,000 and gave out to charity more money than it took in, $19,200,000. I won’t settle this case! ...
“ ... Schneiderman, who ran the Clinton campaign in New York, never had the guts to bring this ridiculous case, which lingered in their office for almost 2 years. Now he resigned his office in disgrace, and his disciples brought it when we would not settle.”
The allegations stem from a Jan. 28, 2016, nationally televised fundraiser Trump held in Des Moines rather than participate in a GOP forum with other candidates competing in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.
His boycott of the Fox News forum with other Republican candidates stemmed from Trump’s ongoing feud with Megyn Kelly, a Fox anchor at that time. In an earlier candidate debate, she had challenged Trump’s treatment of women.
In protest, he had his fundraiser at Drake University, not far from the Iowa Events Center where seven rivals faced off.
Underwood said the funds were raised “in a manner designed to influence the 2016 presidential election at the direction and under the control of senior leadership of the Trump presidential campaign.”
The Trump campaign violated state and federal law, the New York Attorney General’s Office said.
The violations, according to the suit, included Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski dictating the timing, amounts and recipients of grants by the Trump Foundation to nonprofits.
Among the grant recipients were Central Iowa Shelter and Services, Puppy Jake Foundation and Support Siouxland Soldiers. Each received checks for $100,000.
l Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com