Trump says he will dissolve foundation amid NY investigation

December 25, 2016

West Palm Beach, Dec 25: President-elect Donald Trump today said he will dissolve his charitable foundation amid efforts to eliminate any conflicts of interest before he takes office next month.trump

The revelation comes as the New York attorney general's office investigates the foundation following media reports that foundation spending went to benefit Trump's campaign.

Trump said in a statement that he has directed his counsel to take the necessary steps to implement the dissolution of the Donald J Trump Foundation, saying that it operated "at essentially no cost for decades, with 100 per cent of the money going to charity."

"The foundation has done enormous good works over the years in contributing millions of dollars to countless worthy groups, including supporting veterans, law enforcement officers and children," he said in a statement.

"I will be devoting so much time and energy to the presidency and solving the many problems facing our country and the world. I don't want to allow good work to be associated with a possible conflict of interest," he said.

Trump said he will pursue philanthropic efforts in other ways, but didn't elaborated on how he'd do so.

The Democratic National Committee criticized Trump for what it called "a wilted fig leaf to cover up his remaining conflicts of interest and his pitiful record of charitable giving." The statement from party spokesman Eric Walker also took a jab at the president-elect over his controversial business holdings: "Shuttering a charity is no substitute for divesting from his for-profit business and putting the assets in a blind trust - the only way to guarantee separation between the Trump administration and the Trump business."

A 2015 tax return posted on the nonprofit monitoring website GuideStar shows the Donald J Trump Foundation acknowledged that it used money or assets in violation of IRS regulations, not only during 2015, but in prior years.

Those regulations prohibit self-dealing by the charity. That's broadly defined as using its money or assets to benefit Trump, his family, his companies or substantial contributors to the foundation.

The tax filing doesn't provide details on the violations. Whether Trump benefited from the foundation's spending has been the subject of an investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

In September, Schneiderman disclosed that his office has been investigating Trump's charity to determine whether it has abided by state laws governing nonprofits.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press in September showed Schneiderman's scrutiny of The Donald J Trump Foundation dated back to at least June, when his office formally questioned the donation made by the charity to a group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Bondi personally solicited the money during a 2013 phone call that came after her office received complaints from former students claiming they were scammed by Trump University, Trump's get-rich-quick real estate seminars.

The Trump Foundation check arrived just days after Bondi's office told a newspaper it was reviewing a lawsuit against Trump University filed by Schneiderman. Bondi's office never sued Trump, though she denies his donation played any role in that decision.

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News Network
May 28,2020

New Delhi, May 28: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today reinforced his stance on pointing out "incorrect or disputed information about elections globally", a day after US President Donald Trump threatened to shutter social media over Twitter's actions on his posts.

Mr Dorsey appealed to "leave our employees out of this" as the face-off with Mr Trump is likely to escalate.

"Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make," Mr Dorsey tweeted.

"This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth.' Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions," said the Twitter CEO.

Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.

— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020

"Per our Civic Integrity policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/election-integrity-policy), the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don't need to register to get a ballot (only registered voters receive ballots). We're updating the link on

@realDonaldTrump tweet to make this more clear," Mr Dorsey tweeted.

Twitter had tagged two of Mr Trump's tweets in which he claimed that more mail-in voting would lead to what he called a "rigged election" this November. There is no evidence that attempts are being made to rig the election, and under the tweets Twitter posted a link which read: "Get the facts about mail-in ballots."

Five states in the US already conduct elections primarily by mail-in vote: Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon.

For years, Twitter has been accused of ignoring the US President's violation of platform rules with his daily, often hourly barrages of personal insults and inaccurate information sent to more than 80 million followers, news agency AFP reported.

But Twitter's slap on the wrist was enough to drive Mr Trump into a tirade - on Twitter - in which "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.

He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.

"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.

"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.

 he claimed that the political right in the US is being censored.

"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.

He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.

"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.

"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.

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News Network
June 24,2020

Geneva, Jun 24: The global cumulative count of confirmed coronavirus cases is approaching nine million, with 133,326 cases recorded over the past day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in its daily situation report on Tuesday.

Over the past 24 hours, 3,847 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, taking the cumulative death toll to 469,587 fatalities, according to the report.

The global case total has now reached 8,993,659.

The Americas still account for the majority of cases and deaths -- 4.4 million and 224,207, respectively.

The United States remains the country with the highest count of cases and fatalities -- 2.3 million and 119,761, respectively.

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News Network
June 3,2020

Islamabad, Jun 3: Pakistan has reported a record 4,132 fresh cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of infections to 80,463, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The Ministry of National Health and Services said the new infections were detected after conducting a maximum of 17,370 tests in a day.

Of the total cases, Sindh has so far detected 31,086 patients of the coronavirus, Punjab 29,489, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 10,897, Balochistan 4,747, Islamabad 3,188, Gilgit-Baltistan 779 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir reported 289 patients of the viral disease.

"In total 67 patients died in the last 24 hours, taking the tally of deaths to 1,688. Another 28,923 people have fully recovered from the disease," the ministry said in a statement.

The authorities have so far carried out 595,344 tests in the country.

Officials said that Pakistan has more than 100 labs that can conduct over 30,000 tests per day and the number of daily tests will be gradually increased to the maximum level.

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