SOURCE:
AMERICAN THINKERURL:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/former_marine_demanding_trump_apologize_for_lying_about_donations_to_veterans_groups.htmlby:Rick Moran
___________________________________________________
A former Marine is organizing a protest to demand that Donald Trump apologize for vastly overstating the amount he raised for veterans at a fundraiser earlier this year.
According to published stories, Trump bragged that he had raised $6 million at the event. But recently, his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, admitted that the amount was $4.5 million.
An accounting of the money raised at the event by the Washington Post showed that only $3.1 million had been raised.
The Hill:
Lewandowski later told CNN the amount raised was less than $6 million, and said the $4.5 billion figure he had given the Post earlier was inaccurate.
The fundraiser brought in at least $3.1 million in donations to veterans groups, according to accounting by the Post.
McCoy, who served in the Marine Corps from January 2008 to December 2013 and is now a Columbia University student, said the protest was a spontaneous, grassroots response to the revelations reported by the Post and CNN.
"Donald has attempted to use the respect that American voters have for veterans to obscure the fact that he is completely unfit to be our commander in chief," McCoy, 27, told The Hill.
"As a veteran I think it’s unacceptable that he has made promises he is unwilling to keep," he said.
McCoy is a registered Democrat, but said he has no official connection to any campaign and that veterans of all ages, political affiliations, genders and services will be represented at the protest.
McCoy says he is expecting somewhere between 20 and 40 veterans, with more participating online using #VetsVsHate.
He said the hashtag was used previously to protest Trump's "Islamophobic attitudes."
McCoy's press release cites a litany of other grievances with Trump: "He has insulted prisoners of war and later refused to apologize. He has demeaned our service members, referring to the US military as a 'disaster.' And he has signaled his support for privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs, a move which is opposed by a majority of veterans.
"If elected President, Donald Trump's policies would make America less safe. Based on his broken promises, we cannot trust Trump to live up to our commitments to our nation's veterans," he said.
Trump has said he would order the military to waterboard terrorist suspects, despite the practice being against the Geneva Convention. He later backtracked from that stance, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"It worries me that he would make that kind of statement because it puts our troops and our allies at greater risk," said McCoy, who served in embassy security in the Marines, before leaving as a sergeant.
"It encourages and validates the actions of groups like [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria," he said.
McCoy can claim non-partisanship all he wants, but I suspect that even if he isn't connected to a Democratic campaign, his effort is geared toward injuring the Republican.
Nevertheless, exposing Trump as a serial exaggerator doesn't take a lot of work. Nor does demonstrating Trump's conflicted views on the military.
The fundraiser was a political stunt, nothing more. But it hasn't affected Trump's standing vis-à-vis Hillary Clinton. He holds a wide lead over Clinton among active-duty personnel.
