NEWS
Trump Foundation Lacks Certification Needed to Solicit Money
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Donald Trump’s charity might be even shadier than his businesses and presidential campaign.
Published on October 1, 2016

Another day and another scandal involving Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, the arrogant and unapologetic man running a campaign fueled by ignorance, fear, and discontent. Last Monday, Trump reaffirmed his abrasive and clueless character with an embarrassing performance in his first debate against a confident Hillary Clinton. Since the debate, which has led to some top-notch Snapchat humor, Trump has been on an anti-media rampage, trying to save face after blowing a major opportunity to gain on his opponent.

Now it has come to light that the Republican candidate’s charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, might be as fraudulent as he is. According to the New York state attorney general’s office, the foundation never obtained the certification required by New York before charities are allowed to solicit money from the public. According to New York state law, any charity that solicits more than $25,000 a year from the public must obtain a special kind of registration before doing so. 

What this essentially means is that, if New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman finds that the Trump Foundation violated this law, he could demand the charity stops raising money. On top of that, Schneiderman can also force Trump to return all of the funds that were raised prior to this recent discovery.

Unfortunately for Trump, tax filings from the past 10 years show that the charity did indeed raise more than the $25,000 limit, and substantial evidence shows that many of these donations were solicited by the foundation and used for personal gifts. Though the state attorney’s office has declined to comment on whether or not they were investigating the matter, there’s pretty good reason to believe they will. Schneiderman recently launched an investigation into the foundation for using the charity’s money to give a political gift to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

According to tax records, the foundation has received more than $4.3 million from outside donors since 2008, none of which came from Trump himself. Now, why would Trump and his team decide to skip out on obtaining the proper certification? By not registering his charity under the correct “7A” certification level, the foundation was not required to submit to an annual audit by outside accountants, meaning that Trump could potentially be using his charity’s funds to benefit him or his busi­nesses without any record. 

This is quite damaging in regards to Trump's legitimacy as a candidate for United States President, seeing that the Trump Foundation set up a website earlier this year to collect donations that it promised to pass along to veterans. According to that website, they raised $1.67 million for that intiative. Considering that the Republican nominee proclaimed that he was “smart” for not having paid federal taxes during the recent presidential debate, we have an inkling that the Donald J. Trump Foundation might not be so charitable after all.  

 

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Tyler Koslow
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Tyler Koslow is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer with an intensive focus on technology, music, pop culture, and of course, cannabis and its impending legalization.
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