It's nice when young people get acknowledgment from the (so-called, but still) president at the State of the Union, right?
Despite all his tearing up of constitutional and human decency norms, Trump did a nice thing for a little girl (Philadelphia fourth-grader Janiyah Davis) at the State of the Union. Oh wait no he didn't. Associated Press:
It turns out the money wasn’t coming from any pot of state or federal dollars.
Instead, it came from the personal accounts of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Elizabeth Hill, a Department of Education spokeswoman, told The Associated Press that DeVos, who donates her annual salary to charity, would be “directly providing the scholarship for Janiyah” and that the money would go directly to the school of her family’s choosing.
Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington is looking into this back door campaign contribution from DeVos.
Providing academic scholarship to needy children is a laudable goal, but Trump’s grandiose announcement and DeVos’s payment of this scholarship raise concerns that she is making a personal gift at the behest of the president for his political gain, which raises serious ethics questions. The documents [CREW] requested will reveal how DeVos and the DOE identified their scholarship recipient and whether the White House put political pressure on DeVos to award it. In addition, the documents requested will reveal whether the DOE consulted with agency ethics officials before awarding this scholarship and inviting Davis and her mother to the SOTU to be recognized by the president.
We should be looking at DeVos's tax returns to see how and whether she writes off the "donation."
Everything Trump does, EVERYTHING, is a lying scam.
