Off-kilter Foundation

With unseemly haste President-elect Donald Trump says he’ll close down the Trump Foundation, the tax-exempt fund that he swears has done nothing but steer millions of dollars to charity but must now be destroyed lest “good work . . . be associated with a possible conflict of interest.”

Trump’s sudden conversion to ethics-in-government gospel might be credible if the Trump Foundation were not under investigation by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who ordered a halt to fundraising in October after confirming it had never registered to solicit money in New York.

Whoops. Schneiderman says the foundation “cannot legally dissolve until that investigation is complete.”

The Trump Foundation offers ample fodder. While Trump donated $5.3 million in its first decades, it has since depended solely on other people’s contributions, totaling $9.3 million — including donations from Trump business associates.

The IRS has already brought warranted scrutiny to the charity’s spending, which included a $25,000 contribution to a group backing Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as she weighed whether to join legal action against Trump University on behalf of wronged students. Trump paid a $2,500 penalty for spending philanthropic funds on politics.

And who brought the Trump U case? None other than Schneiderman, who helped score a $25 million settlement and should not now for a moment relent in his duty to uphold the law.