New York files civil suit against President Trump, alleging his charity engaged in ‘illegal conduct’

New York’s attorney general filed suit against President Trump and his three eldest children Thursday, alleging “persistently illegal conduct” at the president’s personal charity and saying that Trump had repeatedly misused the nonprofit organization to pay off his businesses’ creditors, to decorate one of his golf clubs and to stage a multimillion-dollar giveaway at 2016 campaign events.

In the suit, Attorney General Barbara Underwood asked a state judge to dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation. She asked that its remaining $1 million in assets be distributed to other charities and that Trump be forced to pay at least $2.8 million in restitution and penalties.

Underwood also asked that Trump be banned from leading any other New York nonprofit organization for 10 years — seeking to apply a penalty usually reserved for the operators of small-time charity frauds to the president of the United States.

The allegations of sweeping misuse by Trump of his personal foundation came the same day that he faced another legal setback, with the rejection by an appeals court in New York of his request to halt a defamation lawsuit filed by a former “Apprentice” contestant. That decision leaves open the possibility that Trump could be deposed in the case.

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