How much money has Donald Trump donated to the veterans? That seemingly simple question has anything but a simple answer. When Trump held his January 28 fundraiser for the vets after backing out of the Republican debate in Iowa, his campaign wasn’t shy about sharing the good news: Trump had helped raise more than $6 million, including $1 million of his own money, for an undeclared number of veterans’ organizations over the course of one hour.
But weeks later, following Trump’s second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and his victory in the New Hampshire primary, and just days before he’s set to win in South Carolina, it sure is difficult to figure out how much of that $6 million has been disbursed to groups, and to whom. Some veterans’ organizations are just starting to receive their checks, others are still waiting, and nobody involved seems to know what to expect next.
On Thursday, I contacted the Donald J. Trump Foundation by email with a few questions about how the $6 million had been or was being disbursed. Five minutes later, I received a phone call from Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s presidential campaign manager. Lewandowski said a list of the recipients had been made public and that more recipients were being added all the time. How much had those recipients received? Lewandowski couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say. As a non-profit organization, he said, the Trump Foundation would release all the required details of its disbursements at the end of the fiscal year. To find out before then, he said, I’d have to contact the recipients themselves.
“The list is publicly available,” he said. “You can do your homework and ask the veterans’ organizations.”
Why wouldn’t the Trump Foundation want to publicize how much it had donated? (Especially given the fact that in recent years, Trump’s charity organization had given more money to the Clinton Foundation than to veterans.) And why, when asking about the Foundation’s disbursements, had a representative of the campaign called? With no other options, however, I took Lewandowki’s advice.
The Trump Foundation had published a list (promoted in a press release on the Trump campaign website) shortly after the January 28 event that listed 22 veterans groups benefitting from the fundraiser. I’ve contacted all of them and have so far heard back from nine. Those who spoke with me said their appearance on that list was the first word they had heard they would be receiving a donation. And for some, that was the last they’ve heard, too.
“We found out like everybody else did, when the Trump Foundation put the list up on the website,” said Kerri Childress of the Fisher House Foundation, one of the groups on the Trump Foundation’s list. “And frankly we haven’t heard anything since.”
Childress says the Fisher House Foundation has yet to receive a donation, though she was quick to add that it’s not uncommon for pledged donations to take weeks or months to actually be disbursed. Neither has the Task Force Dagger Foundation received a check, says managing director Keith David. “We did receive a check from the Stewart J. Rahr Foundation, and they share the same floor with the Trump Foundation,” David adds. Rahr, a pharmaceutical executive-turned-Manhattan-
Another vets group, Operation Homefront, posted on its Facebook page that it received a $50,000 donation Monday from the Rahr Foundation, which the group says they “understand is made in connection with Donald Trump.” Beyond that, says Operation Homefront spokesman Aaron Taylor, they don’t know much about it.
A spokeswoman for one group on the Foundation’s list, the Navy SEAL Foundation, refused to comment on whether or not it had actually received a donation. “I don’t have any information,” said Sarah Berry when asked repeatedly for comment. “Any donation made to us, we cannot disclose unless we get permission from that donor.”
But others say they have received a check from the Trump Foundation itself, all within the last week. Troy Givens of American Hero Adventures says for “legal reasons,” his organization won’t be disclosing the amount. But four other groups say they have received checks, all for the same amount: $100,000.
Cindy Brodie of the Iowa-based Partners for Patriots—which connects wounded veterans with companion dogs—said she received a check via FedEx on February 12, nearly two weeks after Trump presented her with a large ceremonial check at a campaign rally in Council Bluffs.
“We had no clue how much it was, none. They didn’t tell us anything,” Brodie told me. “I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t get greedy, whatever you get blessed with is more than you had before.’ ”
When she found out in Council Bluffs her group would receive $100,000, she says she “just about passed out.”
“The whole thing was unbelievable,” Brodie said.
Mike Evock says his charity, Racing for Heroes, recalls getting a phone call from someone within the Trump organization just a day or two before the January 28 fundraiser. Evock, like most of the group representatives I spoke with, says he was asked some general details about his organization, and a later phone call came to verify the group’s tax forms. A few days ago, he says, Racing for Heroes got a $100,000 check in the mail.
In some cases, it’s not clear Trump knows to whom he was giving money. On the Foundation’s list of recipients is the “Mulberry Street Veterans Shelter” in Des Moines, Iowa. There’s no place by that name, although a homeless shelter corporation called Central Iowa Shelter and Services is located on Mulberry Street and did, in fact, receive a check from the Trump Foundation. The company’s spokesman Jordan Johnson says they operate some Veterans Administration-funded apartments for homeless veterans and that around 20 percent of their 150-bed emergency shelter is occupied by veterans.
Johnson says the shelter got a call the day of Trump’s fundraising event from the Foundation with a request to have some of the homeless veterans there join the rally. The Foundation even offered to provide transportation to and from the rally, and suggested there might be a possibility the shelter could receive a donation. Johnson says that while some of the veterans were interested in attending, the Trump offer to provide transportation “fell through” and none of the vets made it to the rally. The Foundation did confirm later that day, before the rally, that the shelter would be receiving a donation. The last conversation the shelter had with the Trump Foundation was via text message between a Trump representative and the shelter’s CEO. A $100,000 check arrived last Thursday.
Many of those I spoke with were aware that their fellow recipients had received $100,000 donations and wondered how the numbers would add up. It’s a good question.
Which arm of Trump’s massive organization is actually directing the disbursement of donations? Again, the story is fuzzy. Dan Clare of DAV Charitable Service Trust, a charity for disabled veterans that also received a $100,000 check last week, says his organization’s first contact about a donation came from Lisa Maciejowski in Trump’s New Hampshire campaign office. Others say it was representatives from Trump’s Foundation or his company who made the initial calls.
Besides their advocacy for veterans, there’s little that the 22 recipients have in common. Some, like Partners for Patriots, are small, local outfits, while others are multi-state operations. Six of the charities are based in or have major presence in the two early primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire.
Most of the groups I spoke with say they’ve had no prior relationship with either the Trump Foundation or Trump himself. Kerri Childress says Trump has donated to the Fisher House Foundation in the past and that his son Eric once hosted a golf tournament on the charity’s behalf. Troy Givens of American Hero Adventures became connected through Trump’s son Donald Jr., whom Givens says he knows through “the hunting industry.”
If there is a common thread among the recipients, it’s that all say they are very grateful for the donations. While some veterans groups have said they will refuse donations from Trump’s fundraising effort because of the political implications, Childress sees it differently.
“I see this money as money that was given by hundreds and many thousands of Americans with the intention of helping veterans,” she said. “We are very appreciative any time people donate money to us.”
