For Years, Trump's Charity Gave Veterans Little More Than Peanuts
Now he wants to use them as political props.
10:11 PM, Jan 27, 2016 | By John McCormack
Gage Skidmore
Donald Trump says he's skipping the final debate before the Iowa caucuses on Thursday night because he's upset with Fox News and debate moderator Megyn Kelly. Trump will instead hold a "special event to benefit veterans organizations" in Iowa, according to a campaign press release. But the event could come off as a cheap political stunt exploiting veterans, especially because the Donald J Trump Foundation has been far from generous to veterans organizations over the years.
As Emily Canal of Forbes reported in October: "The Donald J. Trump Foundation has donated $5.5 million to 298 charities between 2009 and 2013 (the most recent year available), according to the non-profit's 990 tax forms from those years. Of that, only $57,000 has been donated to seven organizations that directly benefit military veterans or their families, Forbes found. Wounded Warriors was not among the organizations Trump's foundation gave to in that time period."
Some veterans say that the billionaire has been AWOL when it comes to helping veterans. "Donald Trump is not a leader in veterans' philanthropy, unless he's donated a lot of money that nobody knows about," Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told the New York Times in July. "We were founded in New York. We are headquartered in New York. I've been here 10 years, and I don't think I've ever even seen Donald Trump."
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Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday: "If offered, @IAVA will decline donations from Trump's event. We need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts."
In an email to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Trump's spokeswoman Hope Hicks said that "Mr. Trump has made significant financial and in kind contributions to many Veterans organizations, personally and not through the Donald J. Trump foundation." Trump's spokeswoman did not reply to an email asking if she could share an estimate of Trump's personal donations to veterans organizations.
The Trump Foundation's $57,000 in donations to veterans groups from 2009 to 2013 amounted to far less than Trump's donations to the Clinton Foundation. "Trump is listed on the Clinton Foundation's donor page as having given somewhere between $100,001 and $250,000," the Daily Caller reported last year.
The Trump foundation's 2014 donations to politically connected organizations easily outmatched donations to veterans groups: That year, the foundation gave $26,500 to the Anti-Defamation League, $25,000 to the American Spectator Foundation, and $100,000 to the Citizens United Foundation.
The Donald J. Trump Foundation also gave about $57,000 to the Susan G. Komen foundation in 2012, the same year that the breast cancer charity courted controversy over its subtantial donations to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country. The foundation even provided a small donation the the ACLU, a left-wing civil liberties organization opposed to religious liberty.
The Smoking Gun has documented Trump's overall miserly giving for years. In 1999, the website called Trump "The .00013% Man," referring to the percentage of his wealth that the foundation had donated. As a percentage of Trump's overall net worth, the Donald J Trump Foundation's contributions haven't increased much in recent years.
In his stump speeches lately, Trump has described himself as greedy and tried to turn his vice into a selling point for voters. "I'm very greedy. I'm a greedy person. I shouldn't tell you that, I'm a greedy – I've always been greedy. I love money, right?" Trump said on January 9. "But, you know what? I want to be greedy for our country."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/for-years-trumps-charity-gave-veterans-little-more-than-peanuts/article/2000776
