For weeks Donald Trump’s campaign has been acting really cagey about the purported $6 million raised during an Iowa rally for veterans, back when the Iowa primary was a thing in the news. Early reports were only able to account for about $2 million of the monies making their way to the charities that the Trump campaign supplied to reporters. A couple of week ago, another investigation into the missing charity money was able to scrounge up another $300,000 of the missing money, bringing the grand total of missing charity money down to around $3.1 million, more than half of what had supposedly been raised. Today Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says that, guess what? They didn’t raise $6 million. In fact, they raised about 75% that original number—$4.5 million:
Lewandowski blamed the shortfall on Trump’s own wealthy acquaintances. He said some of them had promised big donations that Trump was counting on when he said he’d raised $6 million. But Lewandowski said these donors backed out and gave nothing.
“There were some individuals who he’d spoken to, who were going to write large checks, [who] for whatever reason . . . didn’t do it,” Lewandowski said in a telephone interview. “I can’t tell you who.”
I’m sure you can’t tell us who reneged on that charity money. If you imagine someone is going to donate money to you and then they don’t, is that “backing out”? Who’s to say. Maybe Donald’s friends are big liars, like he is. You know how that goes. He’s running for president of the United States so it’s good to see that this great businessman can’t even get a pittance of money out of his “super” wealthy connections for VETERANS.
Lewandowski also said he did not know if a $1 million pledge from Trump himself was counted as part of the $4.5 million total. He said Trump has given that amount, but he declined to identify any recipients.
[My mouth making a “eh, maybe” face.]
Since Donald Trump lied for four months about $1.5 million, I don’t feel particularly confident in anything his campaign manager is telling me about whether or not he even donated the $1 million he says he did. Shit, he said he raised $6 million and that isn’t even true. Also, for your information, the newly reported $4.5 million raised for veterans still does not account for the fact that only $3 million of that money seems to be able to be found to be given to the actual charities that were allegedly going to benefit from the great negotiator.
In the last few days, The Post has interviewed 22 veterans’ charities that received donations as a result of Trump’s fundraiser. None of them have reported receiving personal donations from Trump.
What’s most disturbing is that while people write up pieces about how Black Lives Matter activists were having a difficult time managing their charities, Donald Trump has a huge machine that is trying to prove to the United States (and ostensibly the world) that he can be a competent world leader. This veterans charity issue shows far too many dark truths about Donald Trump: he cannot handle even the easiest amount of accounting, he has no interest in even the simplest overtures of “transparency,” and he’s willing to lie about giving money to military veterans.