The Donald J. Trump Foundation’s 2015 tax return reveals that the organization gave most of its money to foundations devoted to cancer research and law enforcement. The filing also shows that Ukrainian billionaire businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk, through his London-based charity, gave $150,000 to the foundation.
Pinchuk was also a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and hired a well-connected lobbyist to arrange meetings at the State Department when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. On the campaign trail, Clinton was criticized for having ties to the Ukrainian oligarch, who is the son-in-law of former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma. Republicans decried the “overlapping interests” between Clinton Foundation donors and the Clinton-led State Department and Trump repeatedly vowed to have a special prosecutor probe donations to the foundation made when Clinton was serving the Obama administration.
The President-elect has himself raised concerns among members of his own party and Democrats through his questionable ties to powerful businessmen in Russia.
Of the foundation’s $896,380 in contributions, roughly $300,000 went to foundations assisting members of law enforcement and their families. Another $88,000 was donated to a wide array of cancer research groups.
The Trump Foundation also made donations to a few controversial media organizations—including James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, which recently made headlines for creating strategically edited and often misleading documentary-style videos to suggest the election was being rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton.
Among the other media organizations the foundation gave money to were the self-designated “media watchdog” Media Research Center and the conservative American Spectator Foundation (which accused Trump of using the Trump Foundation to pay off personal debts). The foundation also gave $5,000 to the James W. Foley Legacy Fund, which supports freedom of speech and the release of journalists captured in conflict zones.
Also, the two self-portraits of Trump which were bought with foundation money, as revealed earlier this year by the Washington Post‘s David Farenthold, were listed as assets by the foundation on the filing. The one purchased for $20,000 is listed as having a fair market value of $700 and the other one bought at auction for $10,000 is listed as having a fair market value of $500.
Here is the filing:
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