During the campaign, Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of being "crooked" by selling access to the Secretary of State for donations to the Clinton Foundation charity. Clinton never got a penny of those donations, and it was never proven that access was granted because of a donation -- but Trump acted like she had done something unethical and illegal.I was surprised too learn then, that Trump is basically doing the same thing now. Two of Trump's sons, Donald Jr. and Eric (the Beavis and Butthead of Trump's billionaire boy's club), have joined with a Dallas businessman to form a "non-profit" organization.
That organization will raise funds by selling access to (and a photo op with) Donald Trump immediately after the inauguration. Donors, who are expected to donate up to a million dollars each, can also get a hunting trip with one or both of the Trump sons.
The Trump family scheme is actually worse than what they accused Clinton of doing. All of donors to the Clinton Foundation were made public. But donors to the specious Trump non-profit will be able to remain secret -- so we won't be able to know who bought access to the president.
We also knew exactly what Clinton Foundation money was being spent on. It's listed openly on the Foundation's website. But we don't know where the money used to buy presidential access through the Trump non-profit will go. They just said it will go to "conservation" charities, without naming who any of those charities might be. We can only guess where the money will go, and whether all of the money will go to charity (without at least some being siphoned off for the Trump family).
Personally, I think this shows Trump's hypocrisy has reached an epic new height. How can he accuse Clinton of doing something, and then turn around and do the same thing himself (only worse). He has obviously bought into the GOP's idea that the same rules don't apply to them that they happily apply to Democrats (i.e., it's only bad when a Democrat does it).
I guess he figures if Americans were stupid enough to elect him to be their president, then they would also be stupid enough to accept his hypocrisy (and corruption).
(The cartoon image of Trump above is by Arcadio Esquivel at cartoonmovement.com.)
