When Eric Trump raises money for kids' cancer charities at his annual Eric Trump Foundation golf invitational, he boasts that his events are super-efficient because he holds them at his dad's Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, New York, where "We get to use our assets 100% free of charge." He lied.
In actual fact, Eric Trump funneled $1.2 million of the raised money to his father's business, in the form of payments for use of the golf course, with "no documented recipients," which "defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament."
The Eric Trump Foundation also allowed the Donald Trump Foundation to suck at least $100,000 out of its coffers and treat them as Trump Organization revenues. Another $500,000 raised in Eric Trump's golf tournament was directed to other, non-kids' cancer charities, including "charities" that were just fronts for Donald Trump, at least four of which went on to pay that money to the Trump Organization in the form of payments for other "charity golf tournaments."
The frauds began when Donald Trump asserted control over the Eric Trump Foundation, packing its board with his cronies.
All of this seems to defy federal tax rules and state laws that ban self-dealing and misleading donors. It also raises larger questions about the Trump family dynamics and whether Eric and his brother, Don Jr., can be truly independent of their father.
Especially since the person who specifically commanded that the for-profit Trump Organization start billing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the nonprofit Eric Trump Foundation, according to two people directly involved, was none other than the current president of the United States, Donald Trump.
How Donald Trump Shifted Kids-Cancer Charity Money Into His Business
[Dan Alexander/Forbes]
(Image: Students for Trump
, CC-BY-SA)
(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
