I wonder if anyone remembers the Presidential debate in October 2016 where Donald J. Trump claimed the Clinton Charitable Foundation was a “criminal enterprise”? Here is just one of the comments that he made, “The Clintons have spent decades as insiders lining their own pockets and taking care of donors instead of the American people,” Trump said in a statement in October 2016. “It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history.”

And what are the facts, facts that existed then…and facts that exist now? In 2016 the most trusted watchdog of foundations, Charity Navigator, sited the Clinton Foundation as one of the best foundations for the percent of donated money going to its stated beneficiaries, with one of the lowest overhead costs. The Clinton Foundation from 2009 to 2016 (the time of Trump’s claims) had been rated four out of four, the highest rating Charity Navigator could give a charitable enterprise. Jump forward three years later and in 2019 Trump’s Foundation was forced to close after courts found that Trump and his children had ran the foundation to their own benefit, fraudulently. The Foundation was forced to close and pay millions of dollars to eight different charities as part of the court ruling. The court ruled that donors’ funds went directly into Trump’s and his children’s pockets and very little went to the foundation’s beneficiaries.

And for the last few years Donald J. Trump and his supporters, in an ever-rising crescendo, claim Joe Biden and his family are a criminal enterprise. Even to the point of the Republican House majority opening an “impeachment inquiry” as to allegedly the Biden family receiving millions of dollars from foreign sources. Even though there has been no evidence that Joe Biden was associated in any way with his son Hunter’s business activities.

And yet, here again, who has been found to be running a fraudulent business enterprise? None other than Donald J. Trump and his family. Point in fact, they have already been found guilty of conducting fraudulent business practices. One is overvaluing their assets to get privileged loan rates and access to funds from lenders, and two, while at the same time undervaluing the very same assets to local communities to reduce their tax base on those assets. The Judge has already ruled they are guilty, the ongoing hearings pertains as to how much they will be penalized (currently the target is $250 million but might be more) and even more importantly the Trump Organization will lose their license to do business in New York and must disband their business.

I have noted for quite some time that the wheels of justice grind slowly, but that they grind fine. Donald J. Trump has been, and is, a corrupt individual, running a corrupt business enterprise. The current legal issues he faces with Trump Enterprises are issues that have been years in the making. The issues he faces due to his actions after the 2020 election, claiming the election was stolen, the election was fraudulent (isn’t that sadly, pathetically ironic?), leading up to the January 6^th storming of our Capitol all lie at the feet of a critically flawed individual, lacking ethics, lacking character, lacking morals.

Donald J. Trump is an individual who should never again be allowed onto the grounds of the White House, let alone sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.