The Money of Others
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who previously filed a pending lawsuit against Trump University in 2013, began "making inquiries" into the Trump Foundation, Trump's nonprofit "charity," this week.
The Foundation has been at the center of a long-brewing controversy surrounding a solicited $25,000 check it wrote to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi just after she began making inquiries about joining Schneiderman's suit against Trump U, which she eventually "nixed." The Foundation, as a nonprofit, is forbidden to make political donations, and paid a $2,500 penalty to the IRS for breaking tax law. However, a copy of the check released by Schneiderman to the Times appears to undercut allegations that Trump paid Bondi explicitly to not investigate Trump U, as it was signed by Trump four days before a report in the Orlando Sentinel revealed Bondi was considering looking into joining Schneiderman's suit, though she received it four days after the article was published.
It's questionable, though, whether the Foundation, which Trump claims is the conduit through which he's donated millions of dollars, even conducts charitable work. A Washington Post review of 250 charities and organizations Trump has publicly promised donations to found few of them ever received the money. Since 2008, all of the money that it has received has come from other people (mostly WWE chairman Vince McMahon, who has a fascinating history with Trump), allowing him to take credit for the few donations it has made without contributing any of his own money and was used to pay for a $12,000 football helmet signed by Tim Tebow and a $20,000 portrait of…Trump.
