New York Attorney General Orders Trump Foundation To Halt Activity

The Donald J. Trump Foundation is being ordered to cease its activities in New York state by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

The charity was not properly registered under state law to conduct its activities and solicit donations, according to Schneiderman’s office.

“The Trump Foundation must immediately cease soliciting contributions or engaging in any other fund-raising activities in New York,” wrote James Sheehan, head of the NYS Attorney General’s Office Charities Bureau , in a letter sent Friday and released Monday.

The foundation has 15 days to come into compliance with the law, and must also ensure that no other charities or third parties raise funds or conduct related activities on its behalf. Failing to take the required steps within that period will amount to “a continuing fraud upon the people of the state of New York,” the letter stated.

The Huffington Post has reported extensively on the Trump Foundation’s questionable dealings.

The letter from Schneiderman’s office represents another political blow to Donald Trump , who has suffered an extraordinarily bad run since his disappointing debate performance last week.

The stretch of political foibles includes the GOP presidential nominee’s ongoing body-shaming of a former Miss Universe and his pulled-from-thin-air suggestion that his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton , has been cheating on her husband , former President Bill Clinton . On Saturday night, The New York Times reported that Trump claimed a nearly billion-dollar loss on his tax returns in the 1990s, which could have enabled him to avoid paying federal income taxes for 18 years.

Schneiderman also went after a Trump venture in June, when he said the beleaguered Trump University’s work amounted to “straight-up fraud .”

“It’s fraud. This is just straight-up fraud. It’s like selling people something you say is a Mercedes and it turns out to be a Volkswagen,” Schneiderman said in an interview on MSNBC ’s “Morning Joe,” adding that Trump’s so-called university wasn’t what it claimed to be.

Read the letter below: 

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar , rampant xenophobe , racist , misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

Sign up here to get Ryan Grim’s newsletter, Bad News, in your inbox.