Eric Trump
Eric Trump, back-channel to his dad's bottom line? Jeff Vinnick / Stringer

This Forbes story is as fascinating as it is unsurprising. The damning headline: "How Donald Trump Shifted Kids-Cancer Charity Money Into His Business."

While donors to the Eric Trump Foundation were told their money was going to help sick kids, more than $500,000 was re-donated to other charities, many of which were connected to Trump family members or interests, including at least four groups that subsequently paid to hold golf tournaments at Trump courses.

All of this seems to defy federal tax rules and state laws that ban self-dealing and misleading donors. It also raises larger questions about the Trump family dynamics and whether Eric and his brother, Don Jr., can be truly independent of their father.

According to Forbes, the manner in which money sloshed between Eric Trump's foundation and Donald Trump's private company "would appear to have more in common with a drug cartel's money-laundering operation than a charity's best-practices textbook."

David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post, who won a Pulitzer for his 2016 reporting on Trump's dodgy charitable giving, says that the Forbes story means Eric Trump lied to him last year: