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Donald Trump’s surprisingly shady charitable foundation, explained
Donald Trump runs a charitable foundation named after him that’s been good for his personal business and political aspirations and appears to have no particular philanthropic mission or focus.
At one point, the Trump Foundation operated like a fairly normal rich person’s poorly managed family foundation, receiving money from its founder and handing it out to this or that randomly selected cause. But in more recent years, as its founder has gotten less interested in real estate development and more interested in media celebrity and politics, it’s become rather unusual.
<snip>
At times the level of self-dealing becomes downright comical. It spent $20,000 on a portrait of Donald Trump, for example, and $12,000 on buying Trump an autographed Tim Tebow helmet.
Trump has also lied about the foundation repeatedly, claiming credit for charitable contributions that never happened. One illegal thing the Trump Foundation did appears to have been linked to efforts to shield Trump’s fake university from legal scrutiny.
Trump’s Foundation is considerably smaller in scale than the much-more-covered Clinton Foundation, but it also gives every appearance of being much less involved in actually helping people and much more clearly involved in rule-breaking. - Vox
At one point, the Trump Foundation operated like a fairly normal rich person’s poorly managed family foundation, receiving money from its founder and handing it out to this or that randomly selected cause. But in more recent years, as its founder has gotten less interested in real estate development and more interested in media celebrity and politics, it’s become rather unusual.
<snip>
At times the level of self-dealing becomes downright comical. It spent $20,000 on a portrait of Donald Trump, for example, and $12,000 on buying Trump an autographed Tim Tebow helmet.
Trump has also lied about the foundation repeatedly, claiming credit for charitable contributions that never happened. One illegal thing the Trump Foundation did appears to have been linked to efforts to shield Trump’s fake university from legal scrutiny.
Trump’s Foundation is considerably smaller in scale than the much-more-covered Clinton Foundation, but it also gives every appearance of being much less involved in actually helping people and much more clearly involved in rule-breaking. - Vox
Sounds like illegal pay-to-play is just normal business practice for the Trump family.
