Donald Trump’s Charitable Foundation Sure Is a Dubious Affair

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The Clinton Foundation has raised billions of dollars for worthy causes, and after a year of tenacious investigation it appears that it never influenced anything at the State Department while Hillary Clinton was there. Doug Band asked for a few favors here and there, but apparently he never got anything more than a better seat at a luncheon—and it’s not clear he even got that.

So let’s talk instead about the Trump Foundation. It’s a paltry operation that has spent only a few million dollars since the turn of the century. Donald Trump himself has contributed nothing to it over the past eight years. However, he has used Foundation money to buy himself items at charity auctions—including a six-foot painting of himself. And on the seamy side, Trump sure seems to have used Foundation money to try to bribe the attorney general of Florida.

So what is the Trump Foundation? That’s hard to say, but it appears to be nothing except a way for Trump to appear philanthropic by giving away other people’s money under his own name. As a way of hiding the fact that he’s astonishingly miserly about his personal donations to charity, it seems to be a great idea. But why does anyone else play along with this? David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post asked:

[Trump’s] biggest donors have not wanted to say why they gave their own money, when Trump was giving none of his.

“I don’t have time for this. Thank you,” said Richard Ebers, a ticket broker in New York City who has given the Trump Foundation $1.9 million since 2011.

“No. No. No. I’m not going to comment on anything. I’m not answering any of your questions,” said John Stark, the chief executive of a carpet 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” — then paid for out of the Trump Foundation.

….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’s incorrect,” said Donna Clancy, the firm’s founder, when The Post called. “I’m not answering any questions.”

Jeez. What kind of hold does Trump have over these folks? They give him money but act like kids with their hands in the cookie jar when anyone asks them about it. Even the ones who didn’t give him money act that way. What does it all mean? People are usually proud of donating money to a charitable foundation, aren’t they?

And how is it that a billionaire can be so hellbent on never giving a cent of his own money to charity? Trump’s behavior is so pathological that this year, even after promising a $1 million donation to vets on live TV, he did his best to quietly renege on it. He finally ponied up, but only after Fahrenthold basically badgered him into it by methodically proving that he hadn’t given anyone a dime.

Of course, Trump could prove that all of us are just partisan shills by simply releasing his tax returns and demonstrating that he has too donated to charity. He doesn’t even have to release the whole thing. All we need is Schedule A for the past few years.

But we’ll never see it. I wonder why?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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