Donald Trump, at long last, has revealed how much money has been donated to veterans’ charities after the Republican candidate’s January fundraiser. At a Tuesday press conference in Trump Tower, Trump stated that nearly $5.6 million in checks have been sent to at least 40 different charities. The donations ranged from $25,000 to $1,100,000 gifted to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, including $1 million from the New York businessman himself.
At the press conference, Trump listed off each individual charity and how much it had received from the January 28 event, which Trump held after declining to attend a Fox News debate in Iowa the same evening. The Trump Foundation and Trump himself had initially claimed to have raised more than $6 million, but a campaign spokesman recently told the Washington Post the number was smaller at $4.5 million. The spokesman, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, told the Post some of the donors had “backed out.”
Tuesday marked the first day Trump has offered concrete amounts for the money disbursed to veterans groups, a question THE WEEKLY STANDARD and other news outlets have been asking about for months. Trump criticized the amount of scrutiny he has received for this fundraising. “I will say that the press should be ashamed of themselves. On behalf of the vets the press should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump said at the press conference. “Instead of being, like, “Thank you very much Mr. Trump’ or ‘Trump did a good job’, everyone says, ‘Who got it, who got it, who got it?’ And you make me look very bad. I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job.”
In particular, Trump criticized those reporters who called the charities to ask questions about the donations. “There are a couple of people that were really disgusting, they call, and these vets group, they don’t get a lot of calls from the press, and maybe some of them would keep quiet or they didn’t know or they want to talk to the press or they didn’t feel comfortable, so if they didn’t say they got the money, which they all did, a hundred percent got the money, all certified checks, if anyone wants to see the certified checks. But rather than say, can I see your certified check, they said, well they didn’t say they got the money,” Trump said.
But calling up the vets’ groups is exactly what the Trump campaign requested reporters do. In February, TWS asked the Trump Foundation about how much money had been donated or would be donated to the veterans groups listed in a press release following the January fundraising event. Lewandowski, then as now with the Trump presidential campaign, replied and told TWS to call each of the 22 listed groups and “do your own homework and ask” the groups themselves. Similar to other news outlets reporting on the story, we found evidence the amount actually disbursed up to then was much lower than the amount raised.
Trump’s excuse for why it took so long to produce details about the fundraiser he promoted is that he was trying to avoid attention. “I didn’t want to do this when the press is all involved,” he said. “I didn’t want the credit for it, but it was very unfair that the press treated us so badly.” How badly did Trump not want the credit? He only celebrated the big haul in a campaign press release and in countless public appearances after the event.
As for Trump’s claim today that the $5.6 million has been paid out, TWS has asked the Republican’s campaign for copies of the certified checks Trump mentioned in his press conference. The campaign has not yet responded.
Update: According to the Associated Press, half of the charities receiving donations report checks dated May 24, the same day the Post published its story about the fundraiser bringing in less money than advertised:
.@AP: roughly a dozen vet checks from Trump – including his own $1 mil – dated same day as Wa Po story last week. pic.twitter.com/xymueeUMZl
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) May 31, 2016
