Since the first day of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has said that he gave more than $102 million to charity in the past five years.
To back up that claim, Trump’s campaign compiled a list of his contributions — 4,844 of them, filling 93 pages. But, in that massive list, one thing was missing.
Not a single one of those donations was actually a personal gift of Trump’s own money.
Many of the gifts on the list came from the charity that bears his name, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which didn’t receive a personal check from Trump from 2009 through 2014, according to the most recent public tax filings. Its work is largely funded by others, although Trump decides where the gifts go.
His giving appears narrowly tied to his business and, now, his political interests.
His foundation, for example, frequently gave money to groups that paid to use Trump’s facilities, and it donated to conservatives who could help promote Trump’s rise in the Republican Party.
The foundation’s second-biggest donation described on the campaign’s list went to the charity of a man who had settled a lawsuit with one of Trump’s golf courses after being denied a hole-in-one prize.
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