Donald Trump Ordered to Pay $2 Million for Charity Fraud

It’s the final settlement in a case the president vowed never to settle.

Gerald Herbert/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

A New York judge ordered President Donald Trump to pay $2 million to settle claims that he used his personal foundation as a piggybank to advance his personal and political interests. The settlement stems from a lawsuit filed last year by New York’s attorney general, which accused the president of a pattern of “persistently illegal conduct” involving the Donald J. Trump Foundation. Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka were also named in the case. 

After the lawsuit was filed, Trump defiantly insisted he would never settle the case:

But settle he did. Last December, Trump agreed to shut down the foundation and give away its remaining money to a list of approved charities, including the United Way, the United Negro College Fund, and the Holocaust Museum. The settlement left the decision on how much Trump should pay in restitution for misusing his charity to the judge in the case, New York Supreme Court Judge Saliann Scarpulla. Scarpulla ruled on Thursday that $2 millionā€”which will be distributed among the same group of approved charitiesā€”would be sufficient.

The lawsuit alleged that the Trumps rarely, if ever, held board meetings or discussed foundation business and that much of the money the foundation disbursed was used to help Donald Trumpā€”not serve some broader charitable purpose. The largest donation the foundation made was a $264,000 payment to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989, a contribution that went toward the rehabilitation of a fountain outside of a Trump property in New York City. The foundation was also used to purchase a football helmet signed by Tim Tebow for $12,000 and to buy at least one portrait of Trump, which was later hung in one of the president’s resorts.

In her ruling approving the final $2 million payment and settlement, Scarpulla repeatedly pointed to Trump’s misuse of the foundation during the 2016 presidential campaign. In January 2016, Trump, fueding with Fox News, skipped the cable news channel’s Iowa debate and instead counter-programmed a charity fundraiser, ostensibly to benefit veterans, in Des Moines. The event raised more than $2 million, but documents filed in the lawsuit show that Trump’s foundation ceded total control of how the money would be disbursed to Trump’s campaign.

“Is there any way we can make some disbursements this week while in Iowa?” thenā€“Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski wrote in an email to a Trump Organization executive at the time. The following week, Trump handed out $500,000 in donations from the foundation during a political event. He went on to make doling out checks to local charities part of his campaign-rally routine.

In a statement, New York Attorney General Letitia James said the ruling was a victory for the rule of law.

“The courtā€™s decision, together with the settlements we negotiated, are a major victory in our efforts to protect charitable assets and hold accountable those who would abuse charities for personal gain,” she said. “My office will continue to fight for accountability because no one is above the lawā€”not a businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the President of the United States.”

In addition to the $2 million payment, Trump was also ordered to reimburse the foundation $11,525 to cover the cost of paying for charity auction items and champagne. James’ office described the auction items as “sports paraphernalia,” an apparent reference to the Tebow helmet. 

Under a previously agreed part of the settlement, Trump admitted he misused funds, paid back the cost of purchasing the portrait, and agreed to restrictions on any new charity he might start in the state of New York. Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, were ordered to attend mandatory training sessions on nonprofit management.  

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate