While Donald Trump’s campaign claimed that the candidate personally donated millions to charity between 2008-2015, Washington Post investigation out Tuesday only managed to find one donation amounting to less than $10,000.
Only 11 out of 167 charities to which Trump had some link told the Post that they had received a personal donation from the real estate mogul. Another 77 said they never received such a gift, 39 declined to comment and 40 didn’t respond to the newspaper’s inquiries.
The most recent personal gift discovered by the Post was submitted to the Police Athletic League in 2009 and amounted to under $10,000. The donations to the league were counted in $5,000 blocks, making it impossible to determine the precise amount, but Trump’s contribution was between $5,000-$9,999.
The Post chose the 167 organizations because Trump either gave them money through his foundation, went to their charity events or publicly praised their work.
The Trump campaign, which has banned the Post from covering its events, did not respond to the newspaper’s multiple requests for comment. His staff said when he launched his campaign in June 2015 that he’d personally given $102 million between 2010-2015 alone.
A search through the records of donations submitted by the Trump Foundation revealed similar discrepancies, according to the Post.
The newspaper found that the tycoon’s pledges to donate earnings from “The Apprentice,” Trump Vodka, Trump University and several books would have amounted to some $8.5 million in charitable gifts over the past 15 years if they were actually paid out. But during that time, the foundation, which is set up to donate the businessman’s money, donated about $2.8 million. The last recorded donation from Trump to the foundation came in 2008, the Post reported.
The GOP candidate’s refusal to release his tax returns means that the millions in charitable cash gifts that Trump and his staff say have been paid out can’t be confirmed.
The businessman, who claims to be worth $10 billion, recently has come under fire for failing to follow through with promised donations. In May, four months after holding a fundraiser where he claimed to have raised $6 million for veterans, Trump donated $1 million to a veterans group after the Post pressed him for answers on where the money went.
At the time, Trump called reporter David Farenholdt, who also conducted the most recent investigation into Trump’s history of charitable giving, a “nasty guy” for following up.
“I gave out millions of dollars that I had no obligation to do,” Trump told him.
