The Presidency Is A Moneymaking Venture For Trump
Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to divest from his business interests when he took office. As a result, he still owns and profits from the Trump Organization. And his most recent financial disclosure indicates that his $400,000 salary is peanuts compared to the money he has flowing in.
According to that disclosure, the hotel Trump owns just blocks from the White House brought in nearly $41 million in revenue in 2018, a $400,000 increase from the year before. And beyond income from Trumps numerous properties, the Trump Organization made more than $20 million in real estate sale revenues in 2018.
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Trump has also benefited from reimbursements from Secret Service expenditures at the properties he owns and profits from properties that he, and therefore the members of the Secret Service who protect him, regularly visit. Last month, the Washington Post reported on records showing nearly $500,000 in such payments and its likely there have been more expenditures where those came from, as the Secret Service has stonewalled efforts from Democratic members of Congress to get a full accounting.
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This isnt altruism, Shaub added. This is an investment in public relations as he profits off his high office.
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Investigation By New York State Attorney General’s Office
Initial investigations and notice of violation
On September 13, 2016, New York State attorney generalEric Schneiderman announced that his office was investigating the foundation “to make sure it’s complying with the laws governing charities in New York.” The office had previously filed chargesat that time awaiting trialagainst the Trump Organization’s Trump University. Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesman, responded to the announcement by labeling Schneiderman a “partisan hack”. Schneiderman has endorsed Hillary Clinton and was identified as a member of her “New York leadership council” in October 2015.
On September 30, 2016, the attorney general’s office issued a “Notice of Violation” to the Trump Foundation, ordering it to immediately stop all fundraising in New York and to file its registration and all required past audits within 15 days, or risk being “deemed to be a continuing fraud on the people of the State of New York”. Under the law, the foundation may eventually be required to return all donations it had solicited since inception. The notice said the foundation has not complied with New York law because it had failed to re-register in New York State as a “7A level charitable organization”, as required for charities that solicit $25,000 or more a year from outside donors. The Trump Foundation had been registered in New York under the state’s Estates, Powers and Trusts Law with a designation intended for self-funded private foundations.
Did Trump Follow His Pledge To Donate The Last 6 Months Of His Presidential Pay Its A Mystery
Donald Trump promised to give away his $400,000 presidential salary. And he kept that promise, publicly announcing each gift at least, for his first 3½ years in office.
Then, in the middle of last year, the announcements stopped.
Trumps White House never said where or even if he donated the last $220,000 of his salary, covering the final six months of 2020 and the first 20 days of 2021.
Now, six months after he left office, its not clear where Trump donated that remaining salary or if he donated it at all.
Trump gave all his previous donations to federal agencies, paying out $100,000 every quarter. But The Washington Post surveyed all major federal agencies, and none has reported receiving anything from Trump after a gift in July 2020.
The Post also asked for confirmation of the gifts from Trumps business and from the lawyer who helped arrange the donations. Neither responded. At Trumps post-presidential office, a spokeswoman promised to seek answers and then stopped responding to questions.
The dollar amount of these potential donations is small, in comparison to both the federal budget and to Trumps personal holdings.
But the lack of information about them raises questions about a promise that was key to Trumps self-image. He talked about these donations repeatedly as president at the White House and on the campaign trail often saying he did not get enough credit for the sacrifices he made.
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Our Rating: Partly False
We rate the claim that Barack Obama donated none of his presidential salary as FALSE while President Donald Trump donates all his salary and that Michelle Obama had a staff of 24 while Melania Trump has a staff of four as PARTLY FALSE because some of it was not supported by our research. Its true that the current president donates his salary, but Obama donated about $2.5 million to charities while in office. Michelle Obamas staff was about 25, but Melania Trumps is about 11.
Donations Under $8k To Trump Election Defense Instead Go To President Rnc
By Jarrett Renshaw, Joseph Tanfani
9 Min Read
– As President Donald Trump seeks to discredit last weeks election with baseless claims of voter fraud, his team has bombarded his supporters with requests for money to help pay for legal challenges to the results: The Left will try to STEAL this election! reads one text.
But any small-dollar donations from Trumps grassroots donors wont be going to legal expenses at all, according to a Reuters review of the legal language in the solicitations.
A donor would have to give more than $8,000 before any money goes to the recount account established to finance election challenges, including recounts and lawsuits over alleged improprieties, the fundraising disclosures show.
The emailed solicitations send supporters to an Official Election Defense Fund website that asks them to sign up for recurring donations to protect the results and keep fighting even after Election Day.
The fine print makes clear most of the money will go to other priorities.
A large portion of the money goes to Save America, a Trump leadership PAC, or political action committee, set up on Monday, and the Republican National Committee . Under Federal Election Commission rules, both groups have broad leeway in how they can use the funds.
The Trump campaign, the RNC and Trumps new Save America PAC did not respond to requests for comment.
Trumps solicitation website carries a banner headline that says OFFICIAL ELECTION DEFENSE FUND and CONTRIBUTE NOW.
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Grants To The National Museum Of Catholic Art And Library
In each of 1995 and 1999, the Trump Foundation granted $50,000 to the National Museum of Catholic Art and Library. A 2001 report by The Village Voice stated, after visiting the museum in East Harlem, that the facility had “next to no art” and no official connection to the Catholic church, despite a ten-year record of having solicited large-scale donations for its collection. The Voice and, later, The Washington Post, concluded that Trump may have directed the grants to the museum to curry favor with the museum’s then-chairman, Eddie Malloy, who was also head of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. The council had worked on behalf of one of the unions of workers who worked on Trump construction projects.
Federal Law Bars Donations To Most Federal Agencies
Federal regulations bar many government agencies from accepting donations unless approved by Congress. If Congress does not approve them, the money goes to the Treasury Department’s general fund.
While gifts to the United States do not require statutory authority, gifts to an individual federal agency stand on a different footing,” the law says. “The rule is that a government agency may not accept for its own use gifts of money or other property in the absence of specific statutory authority … As the Comptroller General said in that decision, hen the Congress has considered desirable the receipt of donations . . . it has generally made specific provision therefor . . . . Thus, acceptance of a gift of money or other property by an agency lacking statutory authority to do so is an improper augmentation. If an agency does not have statutory authority to accept donations of money, it must turn the money in to the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts.
Despite these regulations White House spokesman Judd Deere confirmed to USA TODAY that all of the federal agencies to which Trump has donated have received the money.
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What To Watch For
Trump is being investigated by New York Attorney General Letitia James for allegedly overvaluing his assets to his lenders and on his tax returns. A filing from that case alleges Trump demanded that his tax lawyer appraise one of his properties which he donated in 2015 for a $21.1 million tax break after failing to turn it into a golf course and inflate its value, the Times reported. Miller told the Times Trump was not involved in the appraisals.
Trump Still Earns Money
Trump still profits off property he owns, including the Trump International Hotel in Washington and Trump Tower in New York. He also earns money from the rights to a U.K. television spinoff of “The Apprentice” and various properties in the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Scotland and the Philippines. So imprecise claims that Trump works for no money are not totally accurate.
Democratic lawmakers are appealing a case against the president because they believe that this profiting, combined with the fact that his hotels have reportedly been frequented by foreign diplomats from around the world since his term began, as The Hill reported, violates the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses of the Constitution.
The foreign emoluments clause states that no government official can receive gifts from king, prince or foreign state. The domestic emoluments similarly says the president cannot receive any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.
For example, the New York Times reported the government of Kuwait spent tens of thousands of dollars on a gala at the Trump International Hotel in Washington from which Trump profited. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia owns a floor and pays thousands of dollars a year in common charges for building amenities at the Trump World Tower in New York, from which Trump also profits.
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Donald J Trump Pays Court
Trump Ordered to Pay Eight Separate Charities $250,000 Each
Remaining $1.8 Million in Trump Foundation Bank Account Disbursed Among Charities
NEW YORK New York Attorney General Letitia James today released the following statement after Donald J. Trump was forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Trump Foundation for political purposes:
Not only has the Trump Foundation shut down for its misconduct, but the president has been forced to pay $2 million for misusing charitable funds for his own political gain. Charities are not a means to an end, which is why these damages speak to the presidents abuse of power and represent a victory for not-for-profits that follow the law. Funds have finally gone where they deserve to eight credible charities. My office will continue to fight for accountability because no one is above the law not a businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the president of the United States.
False Stories Revive Claim About Trump Salary Donation
Q: Did President Trump donate his $400,000 salary to military cemeteries?
A: No. A year-old viral email makes that claim. But the president does indeed donate his salary to different government initiatives each quarter.
FULL QUESTION
Did the president donate his 400,000 salary to rebuild military cemeteries today or ever?
FULL ANSWER
Numerous readers have asked FactCheck.org in recent weeks whether President Donald Trump has donated his $400,000 salary toward repairing military cemeteries supposed news that some websites are accusing the press of ignoring.
But while the president does donate his salary to different government initiatives each quarter, no donation to date has been specifically made to repair military cemeteries. Nor has he donated $400,000 a whole years salary to one specific cause.
An Aug. 1 headline on the Gateway Pundit told readers otherwise. Trump Gives $400,000 to Repair Military Cemeteries Liberal Media Ignores the Story, it reads.
Thousands have shared and reacted to the Gateway Pundit story on Facebook. The storys only evidence was a widely shared tweet by New York-based radio host Mark Simone, who claimed that Trump has donated his annual salary for construction and repair needs at military cemeteries but that the media gave this no coverage.
We emailed Simone to ask which report he was citing, but we did not receive a response.
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