{"id":43354,"date":"2017-09-02T05:36:48","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T05:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=43354"},"modified":"2017-09-02T05:55:33","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T05:55:33","slug":"white-house-walks-back-promise-about-trump-donating-his-personal-money-to-harvey-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/white-house-walks-back-promise-about-trump-donating-his-personal-money-to-harvey-victims.html","title":{"rendered":"White House walks back promise about Trump donating his personal money to Harvey victims"},"content":{"rendered":"

White House walks back promise about Trump donating his personal money to Harvey victims<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that President Trump would donate $1 million of his \u201cpersonal money\u201d to Hurricane Harvey victims. But on Friday, she wasn\u2019t so sure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked by a reporter if she knew whether Trump\u2019s donation would be \u201ccoming from his own money or from the Trump Foundation,\u201d Sanders dodged.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t had a chance to do that,\u201d she said, suggesting she hadn\u2019t yet had a chance to ask the president where the money would be coming from.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the campaign, reporting by the Washington Post\u2019s David Fahrenthold and others demonstrated that Trump treated his foundation \u2014 which he hadn\u2019t personally donated to since 2008 \u2014 like a personal expense account. Trump was also shown to have repeatedly exaggerated his giving.<\/span><\/p>\n

As ThinkProgress detailed in<\/strong> September:<\/span><\/p>\n

Though tax laws say 501(c)(3) charitable foundations may not be used to make political donations or for \u201cself-dealing,\u201d the Trump foundation reportedly did both. The foundation paid a $2,500 penalty for an improper $25,000 gift in 2013 to a committee supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R), who was considering an investigation of his Trump University at the time and later opted not to open one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, Fahrenthold found that Trump used more than $250,000 of the money raised by the his foundation to settle legal problems for his myriad business interests. Additionally, he used $10,000 of foundation money to buy a portrait of himself at a charity fundraiser, $20,000 from the Trump Foundation to buy a different portrait of himself, and $12,000 from the tax-exempt foundation to buy an autographed Tim Tebow football helmet. A $5,000 foundation donation to the D.C. Preservation League Tax was used to obtain ad space for Trump hotels. Experts told the Post that these payments would appear to be \u201cclassic self-dealing,\u201d in violation of tax law and philanthropic conventions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Smoking Gun dubbed Trump \u201cThe .00013% Man\u201d for his \u201cpaltry\u201d charitable giving. During Trump\u2019s Apprentice days, donations he claimed would be coming out of his own pocket were in fact made by his foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Trump does indeed donate his \u201cpersonal money\u201d to Harvey victims, it\u2019d represent a break from the pattern he established since the time of his last donation to the Trump Foundation in 2008. As Fahrenthold reported just days before the election, Trump\u2019s \u201cpersonal giving has almost disappeared entirely in recent years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 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,\u201d Fahrenthold added. \u201cThat was a gift to the Police Athletic League of New York City, in 2009. It was worth less than $10,000.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And even if Trump does donate $1 million of personal wealth, his contribution represents a pittance in relation to the drastic cuts he\u2019s proposing in environmental and disaster relief programs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those cuts, which will be considered this month as Congress tries to set a budget, include an $876 million cut in the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s disaster relief account, a $200 million cut to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration programs that help coastal states brace for future storms, and a $2.6 billion cut to the Environmental Protection Agency, among others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/white-house-walks-back-trumps-promise-to-give-1-million-of-his-personal-money-to-harvey-victims-4691cf5e6dd6\/<\/span><\/p>\n

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