Questions about Donald Trump’s charitable foundation put the Republican presidential hopeful on the defensive during his final one-on-one debate against Hillary Clinton.
After refusing to respond for months about his foundation’s dealings and its potential crossover into politics, Trump was challenged by his Democratic opponent and Fox News’ Chris Wallace, who moderated Wednesday night’s debate, to deliver answers.
“I would be happy to compare what we do with the Trump Foundation, which took money from other people and bought a six-foot portrait of Donald. I mean, who does that? It just was astonishing,” Clinton said, drawing faint laughter from the crowd.
The GOP nominee’s running mate and top campaign surrogates have dodged questions about his charitable foundation and its shady dealings since several reports by the Washington Post began emerging this summer, insisting that the Post’s reporting has been dramatized and rife with factual errors.
“I just wish there was as much interest in the activities of the Clinton Foundation,” the Indiana governor told Wallace last month.
But Trump and members of his campaign have declined to name specific flaws in the reporting on his foundation, choosing instead to encourage surrogates to block requests for specifics by shifting the focus to issues surrounding Clinton’s foundation.
Trump abandoned that strategy during Wednesday’s debate, touting the activities of his foundation and rejecting accusations from Wallace and Clinton.
“Wasn’t some of the money used to settle your lawsuits, sir?” Wallace asked Trump, referring to an instance in which may have flouted laws against self-dealing by using his foundation to settle separate lawsuits against his Mar-A-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Fla., and a golf course of his in New York.
“The money that you’re talking about went to Fisher House where they build houses for veterans and disabled families,” he shot back.
Clinton interjected to note that “nothing [Trump] says about his foundation” can be proven because he has refused to release his tax returns, a familiar talking point among the billionaire’s Democratic critics, who accused him of trying to avoid paying personal income taxes after the Post discovered multiple instances where Trump directed companies that owed him money to pay his tax-exempt foundation instead.
The debate over Trump’s charitable foundation was short-lived Wednesday night, despite the ongoing questions surrounding its possible engagement in political activities.
For example, Trump came under fire earlier this summer over a $25,000 payment his foundation made to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi just days before she declined to join a civil suit against Trump University launched by Eric Schneiderman, the Democratic attorney general of New York.
Not only did Bondi face questions about the timing of the payment and her decision not to launch a probe into Trump’s now-defunct online college, the candidate himself was forced to pay a $2,500 fine for violating laws that prohibit nonprofits from engaging in political activity.
Legal documents and tax records obtained by the Post have also shown that on more than one occasion, the Trump Foundation wrote checks to certain charities at the request of individuals and entities with whom he was having legal troubles. In 2007, tax records showed that Trump’s foundation made a $100,000 donation to a charity for veterans to avoid fines imposed on his Palm Beach resort by local officials. The unpaid fines stemmed from a complaint about the size of a flagpole at his sprawling beachside club.
“We put up the American Flag,” Trump told Wallace, denying any wrongdoing.
Trump was also accused of using funds from his foundation to purchase a football helmet and jersey signed by Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow at a charity auction in 20112, and he has battled controversies over how little of his own fortune he’s given to his foundation despite billing himself as an “ardent philanthropist.”
Over the course of nearly two decades, from 1990 to 2009, the Post reported that Trump personally donated just $3.7 million to his charitable foundation. The foundation only contributed $6.7 million to charity over that same period.
“Clearly the Trump Foundation is as much a charitable organization as Trump University is an institute of higher education,” Clinton’s deputy communications director, Christina Reynolds, said last month.
The Trump foundation is currently being investigated by officials in New York to ensure the GOP nominee is “complying with the laws governing charities” in the Empire State.
