Donald Trump May Have Donated a Lot Less Money to Charity Than He Says, Report Finds
Apparently, Donald J. Trump is a charitable cause in the eyes of Donald J. Trump: The presumptive Republican nominee appears to have pocketed money he publicly dog-eared for charitable donation, according to a Washington Post investigation.
The paper, with which the candidate has a high-profile beef, delved into Trump's finances dating back to the 1980s. Over the past 15 years, he has promised over $8.5 million to charities, by the Post's calculation. He appears to have donated only $2.8 million of that, but through the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
The last time Trump donated to his foundation was in 2008, according to the Post. Looking at 167 charities linked to Trump between then and May 2016, the Post found only one personal gift: a donation of $5,000 to $9,999 given to the Police Athletic League of New York City in 2009.
That's all excluding the $1 million he gave to veterans after the media demanded he furnish receipts from a purportedly philanthropic event. A total of $3.8 million donated pales in comparison to the charitable endeavors of many billionaires, though.
"What has set Trump apart from other wealthy philanthropists is not how much he gives," the Post's David A. Fahrenthold wrote, "it is how often he promises that he is going to give." And then, apparently by most accounts, doesn't.
His books (the most recent of which published in 2015), his board game, his reality TV show, his university — if any proceeds from his personal ventures ended up with charities as promised, it was at a fraction of the pledged amount, the Post reported.
Maybe it would be explained by those tax returns he refuses to release, but still, the financial gulf seems wide. Especially when one recalls that $102 million he's allegedly donated within the past five years — which largely turned out to be rounds of golf his courses gave out, according to a previous Post analyzation — it doesn't compute. It does, however, serve as another piece of evidence supporting the theory that Trump is, in reality, far less wealthy than he says he is, and the theory that he's a liar.
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