Trump Golf Club Reimburses Trump Foundation for Lawsuit; Judge Blocks Trump's Sanctuary Cities Order
BALDWIN: There is new reporting out today on questions about how President Trump's foundation actually used its money. One of Donald Trump's golf courses paid back $158,000 to the charity. The money had been used to settle a lawsuit against this golf club. The reimbursement happened after the state of New York launched an investigation into the charity. And it was David Fahrenthold who broke this story wide open from "The Washington Post," and also a CNN contributor. David Fahrenthold, at it again. Let's start with the reimbursement. Tell me about that.</s>DAVID FAHRENTHOLD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: This is a weird case we uncovered last year. I can tell you at the start one of the things you're not allowed to do as a charity if you run a charity not allowed to use the money to pay off your businesses' debts or legal settlements. The money in the charity is meant for charity. Trump's golf course involved in a lawsuit. A guy had one a hole in one prize the golf course took away. He sued the golf course and in settling the lawsuit the golf course agreed to pay the guy's charity money. But it wasn't the golf course that paid. It was the charity, the Donald j. Trump Foundation that paid the guy's -- the golfer's charity. That's the kind of thing you're not allowed to do. What they're doing here later is paying it back.</s>BALDWIN: So, you write, you know, in your piece about this reimbursement the $158,000 paid back to the charitable foundation but then there was another, David, chunk of change, the $62,000 that you say the foundation received? What was that regarding?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: It's hard to know because they don't -- the Trump Foundation, we know this because the Trump Foundation put out a tax filing yesterday. It didn't spell out what it's talking about. There were a number of cases we found where the Trump Foundation, Trump had used it to buy things basically shouldn't have bought, things he should have paid for with his money used the charity's money to buy, autographed Tim Tebow football helmet, giant portraits of himself, list a couple examples. The tax filing said somebody reimbursed the foundation for donations it shouldn't have given before. Was that the portrait the helmet or something else? We're still waiting for those details.</s>BALDWIN: OK. Between the portrait and the helmet and the money the political committees, which is a no-no to paying legal fees, did you come across anything authentically charitable about the Trump Foundation?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: The Trump Foundation is a strange foundation. It has Donald Trump's name on it, but he doesn't give it money. Gives away other people's money under his name. There are gifts to veteran charities made as a result of fund-raiser Trump had on the campaign trail for veterans in Iowa. A few other gifts. He gave $50,000 to his son's school in Manhattan. Gifts that have to do with his business or personal life. Those are real charity. But there's a lot of other things that have been questionable about this over the years.</s>BALDWIN: Which is what you have been spending much time writing about. David Fahrenthold, thank you.</s>BALDWIN: As always, good to see you. Another one of President Trump's executive orders has been blocked now by a federal judge. This one intended to cut funding from sanctuary cities in the country. And now the Department of Justice is firing back. We have those details next.