In January, neo-fascist real estate golem Donald Trump skipped a Fox News debate to hold a fundraiser for veterans’ causes, which he later said had raised $6 million. Since then, the completely unreasonable media has asked Trump—a man with an extremely loose conception of charitable giving—to account for where those many millions went.
The exact number raised in January has been fluctuating for awhile now. Corey Lewandowski told the Washington Post that Trump had actually raised $4.5 million; Trump said that he’d donated $1 million of his own money, and no one seemed to know whether that $1 million factored into the $4.5 million or the $6 million or what.
Then, it was confirmed as of last month that $3.1 million had indeed been delivered to charity, but in a consistently peculiar manner. Via the Post: “In early February, the Wall Street Journal reported that many groups began to get their checks only after the Journal asked the Trump campaign why they had not.” And the money was given out in peculiarly titrated amounts:
“Where’s the rest of the money going?” said Keith David at the Task Force Dagger Foundation, which offers support to Special Operations personnel and their families.
David’s group typifies the confusion over Trump’s money. It was listed by Trump as a group that would benefit from his fundraising. And soon after the Iowa fundraising event, the group got a check for $50,000. It came from Rahr’s foundation, with a note that mentioned Trump.
But was that it? The group’s board — noting the huge amount of money that Trump raised and the lesser amount of money Trump seemed to have given out — decided it could not be.
“There’s a large chunk missing. I’m just kind of curious as to where that money went,” David said. “I’d like to see some of it come to us, because we are on the list.”
As for the rest of that $4.5/$5.5/$6 million, reporters kept asking. And finally, on Monday, Trump promised to deliver his own $1 million donation to a charity that he said he’d been vetting—despite, as the Washington Post reports, having previously donated enough to that charity to have received their “Commandant’s Leadership Award” last year.
On Tuesday, Trump laid out the full accounting for the money he’d raised about five months ago, in a press conference held deep within his own butthole. Via the Associated Press:
He repeatedly criticized the press for making the money an issue, saying reporters “should be ashamed of themselves” for asking where the money had gone.
Throughout the event, Trump slammed the media as “unbelievably dishonest” for its treatment of the issue and dismissed an ABC reporter as “a sleaze.” He said many times that he didn’t want credit for the fundraising but seemed peeved that he wasn’t thanked for it.
“Instead of being like, ‘Thank you very much, Mr. Trump,’ or ‘Trump did a good job,’ everyone’s saying, ‘Who got it? Who got it? Who got it?’ And you make me look very bad,” Trump complained, taking on reporters in the room. “I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job.”
He listed 41 organizations, which the AP followed up on, finding that Trump—stunningly—had donated to half of them over the last week.
Phone calls to all 41 of the groups by The Associated Press brought more than two-dozen responses Tuesday. About half reported checks from Trump within the past week, typically dated May 24, the day The Washington Post published a story questioning whether he had distributed all of the money.
So maybe, this whole time that he was stalling and refusing to answer media requests and saying shame on everyone for asking questions of such a very nice and very rich man, Trump was just carefully vetting all the charities—rather than demanding to receive credit for donating millions of dollars that he did not actually donate, which he would only actually donate after being relentlessly investigated by a press that he hates. Reuters noted:
Trump said the coverage of his veterans group donations had been close to libelous. Asked whether he would keep his adversarial stance with reporters if elected president, Trump said: “Yeah, it’s going to be like this.”
But do you really believe anyone in the Trump camp vetted any of these charities? One of them, the Foundation for American Veterans, which received $75,000, has an F from the Better Business Bureau. It spends the majority of its money on professional fundraising companies.
I’m nearly dead with surprise.
Image via AP