The Washington Post’s latest investigation into the inner workings of the Donald J. Trump Foundation revealed how the real estate tycoon sometimes used his nonprofit as a personal piggy bank.
Trump frequently solicited donations to his foundation from other charities and allies, including World Wrestling Entertainment executives Vince and Linda McMahon. He then gave that money away to charitable causes under his foundation’s name, according to the report published Sunday.
In one remarkable example from the Post’s story, Trump solicited $150,000 from the nonprofit Charles Evans Foundation between 2009-2010 while raising money for the Palm Beach Police Foundation. Trump’s foundation made donations to that group in the same period that were equal to the sum it received from the Charles Evans Foundation, adding no money of its own. Trump won a Palm Tree Award for charity from the police foundation at a 2010 ceremony held at his Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago Club, which he charged the group to rent.
Tax records obtained by the Post show that Trump, who claims to be worth $10 billion, has not gifted any of his own money to his charitable foundation since 2008.
Other practices detailed in the Post story include Trump spending thousands of the foundation’s dollars on gifts for himself, including a six-foot-tall painting of the real estate mogul and a helmet autographed by former NFL player Tim Tebow. Some charities to which the Trump Foundation claimed to have donated told the Post that they never received the money.
The GOP nominee’s charitable giving has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks. He was required to pay a fine to the IRS for having his foundation donate to a political committee backing the re-election of the Florida attorney general while her office was deciding whether to join a lawsuit against Trump University.
Hillary Clinton has also been criticized for allowing her family’s charity, the Clinton Foundation, to accept foreign donations while she was secretary of state.
Read the Washington Post’s full report here.
GOP: Billionaires(supposedly) re-gifting to each other at tax-payers expense is great for the economy and it creates jobs.
A relevant nugget from the WaPo story:
"It’s unclear how much was paid in 2010, but the police foundation reported in its tax filings that it rented Mar-a-Lago in 2014 for $276,463."
This is beyond the election, this is criminal activity, along with all of Donnie’s other scandals.
Somewhere there has to be an honest attorney general at the State level to get things rolling?.
I like that “both-sides-do-it” last paragraph of the article. Trump is being criticized for using his foundation to get good things for himself (whether objects, publicity, or immunity from prosecution) at others’ expense; Clinton is being criticized for using her foundation to help people, but with the money coming from the “wrong” people.
Though it would explain that [Wrestlemania][1] appearance that didn’t do anyone (including Vince’s scalp) any favors, I wonder if anyone from the Post called either Vince or [Stephanie][2] about this matter…
one more time…
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WrestleMania_23
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_McMahon