The case involving the flagpole at Trump's oceanfront Mar-a-Lago Club began in 2006, when the club put up a giant American flag on the 80-foot pole. While Trump has refused to release his personal tax returns, the foundation's filings are required to be public. The four new cases of possible self-dealing were discovered in the Trump Foundation's tax filings. Trump's campaign has not responded to questions about what became of the helmet or the portrait. In those cases, tax experts said, Trump was not allowed to simply keep these items and display them in a home or business. Later, Trump paid for the painting with $20,000 from the foundation. In 2012, for instance, Trump spent $12,000 of the foundation's money to buy a football helmet signed by NFL quarterback Tim Tebow.Īnd in 2007, Trump's wife, Melania, bid $20,000 for the six-foot-tall portrait of Trump, done by a "speed painter" during a charity gala at Mar-a-Lago. In other instances, it appeared Trump may have violated rules against self-dealing. After The Post reported on the gift to Bondi's group this spring, Trump paid a $2,500 penalty tax and reimbursed the Trump Foundation for the $25,000 donation. Trump staffers blamed the gift on a clerical error. Tax laws say nonprofits such as the Trump Foundation may not make political gifts.
That gift was made around the same time Bondi's office was considering whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. In 2013, for instance, the foundation gave $25,000 to a political group supporting Florida Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi. The Post has previously detailed other cases in which Trump used the charity's money in a way that appeared to violate the law. Trump remains the foundation's president, and he told the IRS in his latest public filings he works half an hour per week on the charity. Its money has come from other donors, most notably pro-wrestling executives Vince and Linda McMahon, who gave a total of $5 million from 2007 to 2009, tax records show. The foundation's tax records show no donations from Trump since 2009. Trump gave relatively small donations in 20, and afterward: nothing. Then, he transformed the Trump Foundation into something rarely seen in the world of philanthropy: a name-branded foundation, whose namesake provides none of its money. But in 2006, Trump gave away almost all of the money he had donated to the foundation, leaving it with just $4,238 at year's end, according to tax records. Trump founded his charity in 1987 and, for years, was its only donor. The New York attorney general's office declined to comment when asked whether its inquiry would cover these new cases of possible self-dealing. The Post sent the Trump campaign a detailed list of questions about the four cases, but received no response. "If he's using other people's money - run through his foundation - to satisfy his personal obligations, then that's about as blatant an example of self-dealing I've seen in a while," Tenenbaum said. After The Post described the details of these Trump Foundation gifts, Tenenbaum described them as "really shocking." "I represent 700 nonprofits a year, and I've never encountered anything so brazen," said Jeffrey Tenenbaum, who advises charities at the Venable law firm in Washington. tax law and gone against the moral conventions of philanthropy.
More broadly, these cases also provide new evidence Trump ran his charity in a way that may have violated U.S. Trump is also facing scrutiny from the office of the New York attorney general, which is examining whether the foundation broke state charity laws. If the Internal Revenue Service were to find Trump violated self-dealing rules, the agency could require him to pay penalty taxes or to reimburse the foundation for all the money it spent on his behalf.
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