Let’s hear it for Ebeneezer Scrooge. Yes, he’s believes that the poor are shiftless and undeserving, but he isn’t afraid to say so. And that Grinch! Sure, he thinks the Whos are a bunch of noisy slackers, but he’s upfront about it.
At least neither one of them is pretending to run a charitable organization and lying about how much they are donating.
“I give millions for charity each year,” [Donald Trump] told Playboy.
At the time, his empire was collapsing: The diminished mogul was fighting for his financial survival. And despite his grandiose promises, Trump gave just $135,000 to his namesake foundation that year.
And that was a good year for Trump’s charity.
The dynamic has been a pattern over the years. In the media, Trump makes lofty claims that he will give the proceeds of a project to charity, only to give far less to his personal foundation.
Trump’s recent head-fake—saying that he was going to donate millions to veterans’ groups only to sit on the cash—isn’t a new thing. It’s part of a pattern that includes breaking a promise to donate $2 million to help fight AIDS, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis.
The money, Trump wrote, was to be put into his foundation.
According to foundation records, though, no donation was made.
Trump’s promises to turn something he’s working on into a big donation, only to have that donation never materialize, are a pattern that keeps repeating.
In 2002, Trump did a commercial for McDonald’s co-starring Grimace because, as he said to Chicago Sun Times, the company was “a bit of Americana.” The Sun Times cited “sources familiar with the terms of Trump’s contract” to say he would get a million dollars for the commercial that would be donated entirely to charity. That year, Trump donated $287,000 to his foundation, so if he did receive that fee and donate the amount to charity, it did not entirely happen through his foundation.
Those who think that Hillary Clinton’s speaking fees were exorbitant never got the tab from Trump.
In one instance, Trump boasted to Larry King that he would earn more than $1 million for every speech he gave at the Learning Annex, an adult education school in New York. Another time, this number was $1.5 million, which a press release dubbed the highest speaking fee ever (“$25,000 a minute”). And, of course, a large portion of that money was going to charity.
It seems a sure thing that Trump was exaggerating on some, if not all, of these numbers, just as he’s very likely to be exaggerating his own wealth.
In any case, Trump’s promise-big, pay-little approach to charity is likely a large part of why he’s terrified of releasing his tax returns to the public. And it’s not just that people would get to see that Trump is a hypocrite who likes to stiff the poor. Trump supporters already have that factored in. Trump supporters are down with greed.
No, what’s more interesting is if whether the donations shown on Trump’s returns will be closer to the checks he’s written with his mouth—or the ones actually coming from his pen. Trump doesn’t want anyone to see the numbers. He especially doesn’t want anyone with the resources to do a thorough investigation to check the numbers.
… The Smoking Gun accessed the Trump Foundation’s 990s, financial records non-profits file annually to the IRS. The New York Post declared Trump “the cheapest billionaire,” noting his foundation gave less money than similar foundations, like those of Gates, Ted Turner, David Geffen, Barry Diller, and non-billionaire (and former Goldman Sachs boss) Jon Corzine. Even Leona Helmsley — the so-called “Queen of Mean” who had served nearly two years in prison for tax evasion — gave more than Trump.