Trump's agreement to dissolve his charity is a win for New York's attorney general. But it's a loss for some charitable organizations who received millions from the Trump Foundation.
Okay, not exactly.
On Tuesday, the Trump Foundation agreed to "dissolve" and donate its "remaining assets" to approved charities amid an ongoing New York state lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in June and alleges Trump used the charity as his personal "checkbook" — allegations that surfaced in a massive Washington Post report two years ago.
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Many charities that Trump claimed to have donated millions of dollars to said they never received the money, the Post details. So what did the Trump Foundation spend money on? For one, a $12,000 autographed Tim Tebow helmet and jersey, the Post says. Trump bought the memorabilia for himself at a nonprofit event, but apparently sent a check from the Trump Foundation, which gets most of its money from rich donors and not Trump himself.
There are far smaller donations, like a $7 gift to the Boy Scouts in 1989. Donald Trump Jr. happened to be 11 at the time, and $7 was coincidentally the cost of a new scouting membership, per the Post. And then there's the biggest: $264,631 to fix a fountain outside the Trump-owned Plaza Hotel.
Scattered in between, there's the $100,000 Trump bid on a trip to Paris to benefit Madonna's charity, per BuzzFeed News' July 2016 report. There's also a $25,000 political donation from the Trump Foundation to Florida's Attorney General, which went unreported to the IRS, per the Post. And to top it off, the Trump Foundation apparently bought a $20,000 portrait of the future president in 2007. It's unclear what has happened to the portrait since then. Read more about these not-quite-charitable donations at The Washington Post.
