Did Donald Trump Put It In His Own Money Into The Trump Foundation

Donald Trump was in a tuxedo, standing next to his award: a statue of a palm tree, every bit alpine as a toddler. It was 2010, and Trump was being honored by a charity — the Palm Embankment Police force Foundation — for his "selfless support" of its crusade.

His support did not include whatever of his own money.

Instead, Trump had plant a way to give away somebody else's money and claim the credit for himself.

Trump had earlier gone to a clemency in New Bailiwick of jersey — the Charles Evans Foundation, named for a deceased man of affairs — and asked for a donation. Trump said he was raising money for the Palm Embankment Police Foundation.

The Evans Foundation said yep. In 2009 and 2010, it gave a total of $150,000 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a pocket-size charity that the Republican presidential nominee founded in 1987.

Then, Trump'south foundation turned around and fabricated donations to the constabulary group in S Florida. In those years, the Trump Foundation's gifts totaled $150,000.

Trump had effectively turned the Evans Foundation'due south gifts into his ain gifts, without calculation whatsoever money of his own.

On the nighttime that he won the Palm Tree Award for his philanthropy, Trump may have really made money. The gala was held at his Mar-a-Lago Social club in Palm Beach, and the police force foundation paid to rent the room. It'southward unclear how much was paid in 2010, simply the law foundation reported in its tax filings that it rented Mar-a-Lago in 2014 for $276,463.

Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold is investigating how much Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has given to charity over the past vii years. Hither's what he plant. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

The Donald J. Trump Foundation is not like other charities. An investigation of the foundation — including examinations of 17 years of tax filings and interviews with more 200 individuals or groups listed as donors or beneficiaries — found that information technology collects and spends coin in a very unusual manner.

For one thing, near all of its money comes from people other than Trump. In taxation records, the last souvenir from Trump was in 2008. Since then, all of the donations have been other people's coin — an arrangement that experts say is well-nigh unheard of for a family foundation.

Trump and so takes that coin and generally does with it equally he pleases. In many cases, he passes it on to other charities, which oftentimes are under the impression that it is Trump's own coin.

In two cases, he has used coin from his charity to purchase himself a gift. In one of those cases — not previously reported — Trump spent $20,000 of money earmarked for charitable purposes to buy a six-foot-tall painting of himself.

Coin from the Trump Foundation has also been used for political purposes, which is confronting the police. The Washington Post reported this calendar month that Trump paid a penalty this twelvemonth to the Internal Revenue Service for a 2013 donation in which the foundation gave $25,000 to a campaign grouping affiliated with Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi (R).

The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold breaks down the controversy over Donald Trump's improper $25,000 donation to a political group connected to Florida Chaser General Pam Bondi, who was at the time because whether to open a fraud investigation against Trump University. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Trump'due south foundation appears to have repeatedly broken IRS rules, which require nonprofit groups to file accurate paperwork. In v cases, the Trump Foundation told the IRS that information technology had given a gift to a charity whose leaders told The Post that they had never received information technology. In 2 other cases, companies listed as donors to the Trump Foundation told The Post that those listings were incorrect.

[Trump pays IRS a penalisation for his foundation violating rules with gift to aid Florida attorney general]

Last week, The Postal service submitted a detailed list of questions about the Trump Foundation to Trump'south campaign. Officials with the entrada declined to comment.

Trump and his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, have both been criticized during their campaigns for activities related to their foundations.

Critics take charged that the giant Nib, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which employs more than than 2,000 people and spends nigh a quarter of a billion dollars a year, has served equally a way for businesses and powerful figures across the world to curry favor with one of America's most powerful families. The Clinton Foundation has too been credited by supporters and critics alike for its charitable efforts.

[Foundation controversy forces Clinton campaign to play defense]

Trump has claimed that he gives generously to charity from his own pocket: "I don't accept to requite you records," he told The Mail service before this year, "merely I've given millions abroad." Efforts to verify those gifts have not succeeded, and Trump has refused to release his taxation returns, which would show his charitable giving.

That leaves the Trump Foundation as the best window into the GOP nominee's philanthropy.

In the by several days, questions about Trump's foundation take focused on the souvenir to Bondi's group in 2013. At the time the money arrived, Bondi's office was because whether to launch an investigation into allegations of fraud by Trump University — accusations that Trump denies.

The investigation never started. Aides to Bondi and Trump say the gift and the example were unrelated. But Democrats take seized on what they see every bit a clear case of political influence improperly funded by Trump'southward charity.

"The foundation was existence used basically to promote a moneymaking fraudulent venture of Donald Trump'southward. That's not what charities are supposed to practise," Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Clinton's running mate, said Friday. "I hope at that place's a significant effort to get to the bottom of information technology and detect out whether this is the end."

A threadbare operation

Trump started his foundation in 1987 with a narrow purpose: to requite away some of the gain from his book "The Fine art of the Bargain."

Near three decades later, the Trump Foundation is still a threadbare, skeletal performance.

The most money it has always reported having was $3.2 million at the end of 2009. At last count, that full had shrunk to $1.3 1000000. By comparison, Oprah Winfrey — who is worth $ane.v billion less than Trump, according to a Forbes magazine judge — has a foundation with $242 million in the depository financial institution. At the finish of 2014, the Clinton Foundation had $440 million in assets.

In a few cases, Trump seemed to solicit donations only to immediately give them away. But his foundation has too received a scattering of bigger donations — including $5 meg from professional-wrestling executives Vince and Linda McMahon — that Trump handed out a little at a time.

The foundation has no paid staffers. It has an unpaid board consisting of 4 Trumps — Donald, Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. — and one Trump Organization employee.

In 2014, at last written report, each said they worked a one-half-hour a week.

The Trump Foundation still gives out modest, scattered gifts — which seem driven by the demands of Trump'due south businesses and social life, rather than by a desire to support charitable causes.

The foundation makes a few dozen donations a year, usually in amounts from $i,000 to $l,000. Information technology gives to charities that rent Trump's ballrooms. Information technology gives to charities whose leaders buttonholed Trump on the golf course (and and so endeavor, in vain, to get him to offering a echo donation the adjacent year).

It even gives in situations in which Trump publicly put himself on the claw for a donation — as when he promised a souvenir "out of my wallet" on NBC's "The Glory Apprentice." The Trump Foundation paid off nearly of those on-air promises. A Television set product company paid others. The Mail could find no instance in which a celebrity'due south clemency got a gift from Trump'southward own wallet.

Some other time, Trump went on Tv set's "Extra" for a contest chosen "Trump pays your bills!"

A professional spray-tanner won. The Trump Foundation paid her bills.

A rarity among charities

Most ten years agone, the Trump Foundation underwent a major change — although it was invisible to those who received its gifts.

The checks withal had Trump'south proper name on them.

Behind the scenes, he was transforming the foundation from a standard-event rich person'south philanthropy into a charity that allowed a rich man to be philanthropic for free.

Experts on charity said they had rarely seen anything similar it.

"Our common understanding of charity is you requite something of yourself to help somebody else. It's not something that you raise money from one side to spend it on the other," said Leslie Lenkowsky, the sometime head of the Corporation for National and Customs Service, and a professor studying philanthropy at Indiana University.

Past that definition, was Trump engaging in charity?

No, Lenkowsky said.

"It'south a deal," he said, an arrangement worked out for maximum benefit at minimum cede.

In the Trump Foundation's early on days, between 1987 and 2006, Trump actually was its primary donor. Over that bridge, Trump gave his own foundation a full of $five.four 1000000. But he was giving it away equally fast equally he put it in, and by the start of 2007, the foundation's assets had dropped to $4,238.

Then, Trump made a change.

First, he stopped giving his ain money.

His contribution shrank to $35,000 in 2007.

Then to $30,000 in 2008.

Then to $0.

At the aforementioned time, Trump'due south foundation began to make full with money from other people.

Simply in many other cases, his biggest donors have not wanted to say why they gave their own coin, when Trump was giving none of his.

"I don't take time for this. Thank you," said Richard Ebers, a ticket banker in New York Urban center who has given the Trump Foundation $1.9 million since 2011.

"No. No. No. I'grand not going to comment on anything. I'm non answering any of your questions," said John Stark, the master executive of a carpeting company that has donated $64,000 over the years.

Vince and Linda McMahon declined to comment.

So did NBCUniversal, which donated $500,000 in 2012. Its gift more than covered the "personal" donations that Trump offered at dramatic moments on "The Celebrity Apprentice" — and then paid for out of the Trump Foundation.

Trump's donations to the Palm Beach Police Foundation offered a stark example of Trump turning somebody else's souvenir into his own charity.

Tax experts said they had rarely heard of anything like what Trump had washed, converting another donor'due south gift into his ain.

"I question whether it's upstanding. It's certainly misleading. But I remember it'due south legal, because you would think that the other foundation that's . . . being taken advantage of would look out for their own interests," said Rosemary E. Fei, an chaser in San Francisco who has brash hundreds of small foundations. "That'southward their determination to let him do that."

After three years, the Charles Evans Foundation stopped using Trump as a middleman.

"Nosotros realized we don't demand to practise it through a pass-through," said Bonnie Pfeifer Evans, the widow of Charles Evans and a trustee of the at present-defunct foundation.

In 2012, the Charles Evans Foundation stopped giving coin to the Trump Foundation.

In 2013, according to tax records, the Trump Foundation stopped giving to the Palm Beach Police Foundation.

The police group, which gave Trump the award, did not know that Trump's money had come from somebody else'south pocket. It could not explain why he gave in some years just not others — or why he gave in the amounts he did.

"He'southward the unpredictable guy, right?" said John F. Scarpa, the Palm Beach Police Foundation'southward president, before The Post informed him about how Trump got the money. He said Trump's giving wasn't the only reason he got the award. He as well could be counted on to draw a crowd to the group's annual event. The amount paid to Trump's club was starting time reported past BuzzFeed.

The police force grouping still holds its galas at Mar-a-Lago.

Acts of 'self-dealing'

At the same time that information technology began to rely on other people's money, the Trump Foundation sometimes appeared to flout IRS rules by purchasing things that seemed to do good just Trump.

In 2007, for example, Trump and his wife, Melania, attended a do good for a children's charity held at Mar-a-Lago. The night'south amusement was Michael State of israel, who bills himself every bit "the original speed painter." His frenetic act involved painting giant portraits in v to seven minutes — then auctioning off the art he'd just created.

He painted Trump.

Melania Trump bid $10,000.

Nobody tried to outbid her.

"The auctioneer was merely pretty bold, so he said, 'You lot know what just happened: When you started bidding, nobody'due south going to bid against you lot, and I recall it's merely fair that you double the bid,' " Israel said in an interview last week.

Melania Trump increased her bid to $twenty,000.

"I understand it went to one of his golf courses," Israel said of the painting.

The Trump Foundation paid the $xx,000, according to the charity that held the benefit.

Something similar happened in 2012, when Trump himself won an sale for a football helmet autographed by football player Tim Tebow, then a quarterback with the Denver Broncos.

The winning bid was $12,000. As The Mail reported in July, the Trump Foundation paid.

IRS rules more often than not prohibit acts of "self-dealing," in which a clemency's leaders use the nonprofit group'south money to purchase things for themselves.

In both years, IRS forms asked whether the foundation had cleaved those rules: Had it "furnish[ed] goods, services or facilities" to Trump or another of its officers?

In both years, the Trump Foundation checked "no."

Tax experts said Trump could take avoided violating the cocky-dealing rules if he gave the helmet and the painting to other charities instead of keeping them. Trump's staffers have not said where the ii items are now.

The IRS penalties for acts of "cocky-dealing" can include penalty taxes, both on charities and on their leaders as individuals.

In other cases, the Trump Foundation's taxation filings appeared to include listings that were wrong.

The Washington Post has contacted more 420 charities with some ties to the GOP nominee in an try to find proof of the millions he has said he donated. Nosotros've been mostly unsuccessful.

The well-nigh prominent example is the improper political donation to the group affiliated with Bondi, the Florida chaser general, in 2013. In that case, Trump'southward staffers said a series of errors resulted in the payment beingness made — so hidden from the IRS.

Kickoff, Trump officials said, when the request came down to cutting a check to the Bondi group, a Trump Organization clerk followed internal protocol and consulted a book with the names of known charities.

The name of the pro-Bondi group is "And Justice for All." Trump's staffer saw that name in the book, and — mistakenly — cut the check from the Trump Foundation. The group in the book was an entirely different charity in Utah, unrelated to Bondi'southward grouping in Florida.

Somehow, the money got to Florida anyway.

And then, Trump's staffers said, the foundation'southward bookkeeping firm made another mistake: It told the IRS that the $25,000 had gone to a 3rd charity, based in Kansas, chosen Justice for All. In reality, the Kansas group got no money.

"That was simply a complete mess-upwardly on names. Anything that could go wrong did get wrong," Jeffrey McConney, the Trump Organization's controller, told The Mail service concluding week. After The Mail service pointed out these errors in the spring, Trump paid a $ii,500 penalty tax.

Donations non received

In four other cases, The Mail service found charities that said they never received donations that the Trump Foundation said information technology gave them.

The amounts were pocket-size: $ten,000 in 2008, $5,000 in 2010, $x,000 in 2012. Most of the charities had no idea that Trump had said he had given them money.

One did.

This January, the phone rang at a tiny charity in White River Junction, Vt., called Friends of Veterans. This was just later on Trump had held a televised fundraiser for veterans in Iowa, raising more than than $5 million.

The man on the phone was a Trump staffer who was selecting charities that would receive the newly raised money. He said the Vermont group was already on Trump's list, considering the Trump Foundation had given it $1,000 in 2013.

"I don't remember a donation from the Trump Foundation," said Larry Daigle, the group's president, who was a helicopter gunner with the Army during the Vietnam War. "The guy seemed pretty surprised well-nigh this."

The man went away from the phone. He came back.

Was Daigle sure? He was.

The man thanked him. He hung upward. Daigle waited — hopes raised — for the Trump people to telephone call back.

"Oh, my God, do yous know how many homeless veterans I could help?" Daigle told The Post this leap, while he was waiting.

Trump gave away the remainder of the veterans money in late May.

Daigle'southward group got none of it.

[Media scrutiny over charitable donations to veterans riles upwardly Trump]

In two other cases, the Trump Foundation reported to the IRS that it had received donations from ii companies that accept denied making such gifts. In 2013, for example, the Trump Foundation said it had received a $100,000 donation from the Clancy Law Firm, whose offices are in a Trump-owned building on Wall Street.

"That'south incorrect," said Donna Clancy, the firm'due south founder, when The Mail chosen. "I'm not answering any questions."

She hung up and did not reply to requests for annotate afterward.

"All of these things show that the [Trump] foundation is run in a less-than-ideal manner. But that'due south not at all unusual for small, private foundations, especially those run past a family," said Brett Kappel, a Washington attorney who advises tax-exempt organizations. "Usually, you have an accounting firm that has access to the depository financial institution statements, and they're the ones who find these errors and correct them."

The Trump Foundation'south accountants are at WeiserMazars, a New York-based business firm. The Post sent them a detailed list of questions, request them to explain these possible errors.

The firm declined to comment.

Rosalind Due south. Helderman contributed
to this report.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-donald-trump-retooled-his-charity-to-spend-other-peoples-money/2016/09/10/da8cce64-75df-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html

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