Share

Trump Foundation fined $2500 by IRS

For some time now, the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold has been looking into the neglected subject of Donald Trump’s charitable giving.

Advertisement

“Donald Trump has been falsely attacking the charity run by [former] President [Bill] Clinton when it is Trump’s own foundation that has been caught in an actual pay-to-play scandal”, Hillary Clinton’s communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, said in a statement Friday.

What’s more, the contribution to Bondi came right when she was one of several attorneys general who were looking into possible Trump University fraud investigations. The Trump Foundation recorded that it had given the $25,000 to a non-existent Kansas charity, instead of the campaign organization linked to Bondi.

McConney also said Trump personally reimbursed the foundation to cover the $25,000 gift and filed IRS paperwork to disclose the gift after being notified of the improper gift. Furthermore, there appears to have been a concerted effort to hide the payment.

In light of the Trump foundation’s illegal donations to Bondi, investigating where the other money went is a no-brainer.

But the fact that Trump’s foundation gave to the Bondi-backing group was obscured in this year’s tax filings.

Trump Foundation controller Jeffrey McConney described the donation as “an honest mistake” in an interview with the Washington Post.

Advertisement

Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, has countered that donors to the Clinton Foundation did not get special treatment from her as secretary of state and would not influence her as president.

Gerald Herbert