Steering clear of shady schemes is not in Squirrel-Hair's skill base

Example one: one of the vet organizations to which he contributed:

 . . . the problem with deciding to hastily send out a bunch of checks after the media has embarrassed you into doing so is that you can’t do a good job of actually vetting them. And so, in less than 24 hours after releasing his list, the media has already found that one of the charities Trump donated to has… wait for it… spent more money fundraising for themselves than they have on benefitting veterans:

One of the charities that Donald Trump selected to receive a donation from his veterans’ fundraiser is a group with a rating of “F” from CharityWatch, and has been criticized in the past for spending less than half of its incoming donations on programs that help veterans.

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An examination of the group’s tax filings shows that the foundation spent just $2.4 million of its total $8 million budget on helping veterans directly in 2014.

The group spent the rest of the money in 2014 on fundraising and management expenses, with $3.5 million paid out to professional fundraising companies. Another $2 million went toward salaries and general expenses, including billing and collection services.

Those spending priorities are part of a larger pattern revealed in several years of disclosures to the IRS. Nonprofits are required to submit IRS Form 990 each year for accountability.

In 2013, the group spent just $2.5 million on veterans from its $8.1 million budget. It spent more than than $3.3 million on fundraising that year and an additional $2 million on “other expenses.”

Here’s the thing: getting this information is the easiest thing in the world. By law, any nonprofit organization is required to turn over a copy of its 990 return (you are allowed to redact donor info but the rest has to be turned over) to anyone who asks. You don’t even have to be a prospective donor to ask for this stuff. You send them a request and they have 30 days to turn it over to you, at the very least for inspection. And one of the things you have to clearly display on your 990 return if you are a nonprofit is how much you have actually spent on programs that are in accordance with your stated charitable purpose.

In other words, determining whether the veterans’ charity you are donating to spends less than 25% of their budget on actually helping vets is easy. They are actually required to hand over this information to you whether you are going to donate to them or not. It’s not even part of a rigorous vetting process, it’s the absolute first step. The rigorous vetting process begins when you ask for an explanation of what the actual veterans programs areand demand an accounting for those – which, I’m guessing, would reveal some further embarrassing information when it comes to a charity that starts by giving such a paltry amount of its budget to these programs to start with.

Example two: his own Squirrel-Hair University:

In blunt testimony revealed on Tuesday, former managers of Trump University, the for-profit school started by Donald J. Trump, portray it as an unscrupulous business that relied on high-pressure sales tactics, employed unqualified instructors, made deceptive claims and exploited vulnerable students willing to pay tens of thousands for Mr. Trump’s insights.
One sales manager for Trump University, Ronald Schnackenberg, recounted how he was reprimanded for not pushing a financially struggling couple hard enough to sign up for a $35,000 real estate class, despite his conclusion that it would endanger their economic future. He watched with disgust, he said, as a fellow Trump University salesman persuaded the couple to purchase the class anyway.
“I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme,” Mr. Schnackenberg wrote in his testimony, “and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.”

For Mr. Trump, whose presidential campaign hinges on his reputation as a businessman, the newly unsealed documents offer an unflattering snapshot of his career since branching out, over the past decade, from building skyscrapers into endeavors that cashed in on his name to sell everything from water and steaks to ties and education.

The release of the documents on Tuesday, under court order, was the latest turn in a federal lawsuit, filed in California by dissatisfied former Trump University students, that has bedeviled the businessman since 2010 and could trail him into the White House if he is elected president.

Mr. Trump, who started the university in 2005, owned 93 percent of the now-defunct company. From the start, he acted as its chief promoter, rather than day-to-day manager, selling it as a tool of financial empowerment that would improve life for thousands of ordinary Americans. It would, he said, “teach you better than the best business school,” according to the transcript of a Web video.

Within the documents made public Tuesday were internal employee guides encouraging customers with little money to pay for the tuition with their credit cards. “We teach the technique of using OPM ... Other People’s Money,” explained the internal instructions for salespeople. The documents pushed employees to exploit the emotions of potential customers. “Let them know you’ve found an answer to their problems,” read confidential instructions to salespeople.

The most striking documents were written testimony from former employees of Trump University who said they had become disenchanted with the university’s tactics and culture. Corrine Sommer, an event manager, recounted how colleagues encouraged students to open up as many credit cards as possible to pay for classes that many of them could not afford.

Yes, indeed, he surrounds himself with "the best people."