In the fall of 1996, a charity called the Association to Benefit Children held a ribbon-cutting in Manhattan for a new nursery school serving children with AIDS. The bold-faced names took seats up front.
There was then-Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) and former mayor David Dinkins (D). TV stars Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford, who were major donors. And there was a seat saved for Steven Fisher, a developer who had given generously to build the nursery.
Then, all of a sudden, there was Donald Trump.
“Nobody knew he was coming,” said Abigail Disney, another donor sitting on the dais. “There’s this kind of ruckus at the door, and I don’t know what was going on, and in comes Donald Trump. [He] just gets up on the podium and sits down.”
Trump was not a major donor. He was not a donor, period. He’d never given a dollar to the nursery or the Association to Benefit Children, according to Gretchen Buchenholz, the charity’s executive director then and now.
But now he was sitting in Fisher’s seat, next to Giuliani.
“Frank Gifford turned to me and said, ‘Why is he here?’?” Buchenholz recalled recently. By then, the ceremony had begun. There was nothing to do.
“Just sing past it,” she recalled Gifford telling her.
So they warbled into the first song on the program, “This Little Light of Mine,” alongside Trump and a chorus of children — with a photographer snapping photos, and Trump looking for all the world like an honored donor to the cause.
Afterward, Disney and Buchenholz recalled, Trump left without offering an explanation. Or a donation. Fisher was stuck in the audience. The charity spent months trying to repair its relationship with him.
“I mean, what’s wrong with you, man?” Disney recalled thinking of Trump, when it was over.
For as long as he has been rich and famous, Donald Trump has also wanted people to believe he is generous. He spent years constructing an image as a philanthropist by appearing at charity events and by making very public — even nationally televised — promises to give his own money away. It was, in large part, a facade. A months-long investigation by The Washington Post has not been able to verify many of Trump’s boasts about his philanthropy. Instead, throughout his life in the spotlight, whether as a businessman, television star or presidential candidate, The Post found that Trump had sought credit for charity he had not given — or had claimed other people’s giving as his own.
It is impossible to know for certain what Trump has given to charity, because he has declined to release his tax returns. In all, The Post was able to identify $7.8 million in charitable giving from Trump’s own pocket since the early 1980s.
In public appearances, Trump often made it appear that he gave far more.
Trump promised to give away the proceeds of Trump University. He promised to donate the salary he earned from “The Apprentice.” He promised to give personal donations to the charities chosen by contestants on “Celebrity Apprentice.” He promised to donate $250,000 to a charity helping Israeli soldiers and veterans.
Together, those pledges would have increased Trump’s lifetime giving by millions of dollars. But The Post has been unable to verify that he followed through on any of them.
Instead, The Post found that his personal giving has almost disappeared entirely in recent years. After calling 420-plus charities with some connection to Trump, The Post found only one personal gift from Trump between 2008 and the spring of this year. That was a gift to the Police Athletic League of New York City, in 2009. It was worth less than $10,000.
The Washington Post has contacted more than 420 charities with some ties to the GOP nominee in an effort to find proof of the millions he has said he donated. We've been mostly unsuccessful. VIEW GRAPHIC
The charity that Trump has given the most money to over his lifetime appears to be his own: the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
But that charity, too, was not what it seemed.
The Trump Foundation appeared outwardly to be a typical, if small, philanthropic foundation — set up by a rich man to give his riches away.
In reality, it has been funded largely by other people. Tax records show the Trump Foundation has received $5.5 million from Trump over its life, and nothing since 2008. It received $9.3 million from other people.
Another unusual feature: One of the foundation’s most consistent causes was Trump himself.
New findings, for instance, show that the Trump Foundation’s largest-ever gift — $264,631 — was used to renovate a fountain outside the windows of Trump’s Plaza Hotel.
Its smallest-ever gift, for $7, was paid to the Boy Scouts in 1989, at a time when it cost $7 to register a new Scout. Trump’s oldest son was 11 at the time. Trump did not respond to a question about whether the money was paid to register him.
The Washington Post's David A. Fahrenthold explains what we've learned about Donald Trump's character from the way he treats his charitable giving, and the way he talks about charity. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
At other times, Trump used his foundation’s funds to settle legal disputes involving Trump’s for-profit companies and to buy two large portraits of himself, including one that wound up hanging on the wall of the sports bar at a Trump-owned golf resort. Those purchases raised questions about whether Trump had violated laws against “self-dealing” by charity leaders.
In advance of this article, The Post sent more than 70 questions to the Trump campaign.
Those questions covered the individual anecdotes and statistics contained in this article, including the tale about Trump crashing the ribbon-cutting in 1996, as well as broader questions about Trump’s life as a philanthropist.
Exactly when, before this spring, did Trump last give his own money to charity?
What did Trump consider his greatest act of charity in recent years?
Trump’s campaign did not respond until Saturday afternoon, after this article was published online; it sent a written statement saying that Trump “has personally donated tens of millions of dollars .?.?. to charitable causes.”
Trump officials did not respond when asked to provide evidence of the tens of millions of dollars in gifts.
The result of The Post’s examination of Trump’s charity is a portrait of the GOP nominee, revealed in the negative space between what he was willing to promise — and what he was willing to give.
“All of this is completely consistent with who Trump is. He’s a man who operates inside a tiny bubble that never extends beyond what he believes is his self-interest,” said Tony Schwartz, Trump’s co-author on his 1987 book “The Art of the Deal.” Schwartz has become a fierce criticof Trump in this election.
“If your worldview is only you — if all you’re seeing is a mirror — then there’s nobody to give money to,” Schwartz said. “Except yourself.” |
