To help plan the inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump’s team tapped a man who was on the board of a charity accused by the Ohio attorney general of pocketing money it claimed to be collecting for victims of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

Patrick Lee, the deputy director public liaison for the inaugural committee, was a member of the board of the Ohio Clean Water Fund, an LLC formed in Ohio days after the train derailed in February 2023. Trump’s appearance in East Palestine after the disaster became a major talking point in his presidential campaign.

The Ohio Clean Water Fund claimed it was operating on behalf of the Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley, a group providing bottled water and other aid to those affected in East Palestine. The Ohio Clean Water Fund managed to raise over $141,000 in less than five weeks, according to a preliminary injunction and the terms of a June 2023 settlement with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

The partnership it touted, however, was not real, the attorney general’s office charged. After the food bank said publicly that there was no relationship between the two groups, the Ohio Clean Water Fund provided the Second Harvest Food Bank with a $10,000 check, keeping the remaining $131,000, according to the attorney general’s office. Yost later declared the Ohio Clean Water Fund to be a “phony charity” run by “scammers.”

A lawyer representing Lee said the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing by Lee or the charity. “Mr. Lee vigorously disputes the allegations,” attorney Michael Columbo wrote in a letter threatening legal action against The Intercept.

Lee was not named as a defendant and did not answer questions about his role........

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