Former First Lady Melania Trump is under investigation for selling tickets to an event scheduled in April with proceeds going to a charity that doesn’t appear to exist, according to the New York Times.
“Mrs. Trump is now selling tickets to the April ‘high tea,’ with organizers saying that some of the profits will benefit an initiative of her ‘Be Best’ endeavor called ‘Fostering the Future,’ meant to provide computer-science scholarships to young people who have been in foster care.”
Though it remains unclear what portion of ticket sales will go directly to the former first lady, the bigger question is why her so-called “charity” hasn’t been registered, as is required by Florida law since Melania now lives in the Sunshine State:
“Florida requires any organization that raises charitable contributions in the state to register. No charity with the name ‘Fostering the Future’ or ‘Be Best’ is registered in Florida.
“Asked about the solicitation, officials at the Florida agency that oversees charitable fund-raising said they also could not find evidence of the required state registration and had opened an inquiry as a result.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time a member of the Trump family has been accused of using a charity for their own personal enrichment.
You probably recall that the state of New York forced the Donald J. Trump Foundation to be closed when it was discovered that donations had been diverted so the former president could buy things such as painted portraits of himself, as USA Today noted in November of 2019:
State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla of Manhattan ruled on Thursday that Trump pay $2 million in damages to various nonprofit groups to settle allegations that he and his family used the Trump Foundation to further his political and business interests.
Though Trump admitted the misconduct in court documents, he issued a defiant statement in which he accused New York’s attorney general of mischaracterizing the settlement process for political purposes. Trump claimed he had been attacked by “political hacks in New York State.”
Clearly, Melania is just as big of a grifter as her husband. It’s no wonder they were so attracted to each other when they first met in 1998.