Trump ‘used charity fund for legal deals’

REPUBLICAN presidential nominee Donald Trump used funds from his charitable foundation to pay settlements in legal cases involving his businesses, an apparent violation of laws governing non-profits, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The cases involved a combined $258,000 paid out by the Donald J Trump Foundation – a charity almost entirely funded with other people’s money, the newspaper said – and follow a review of legal documents and the foundation’s tax records.

The newspaper carried out a weekslong investigation into the charity’s finances, finding Trump himself has not contrib- uted a dollar since 2009. The group is funded by donations instead.

One of the group’s suspect payments was a $100,000 donation to a veterans’ charity in 2007 as part of a legal settlement with the city of Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump had sued the city after it fined him $120,000, or $1,250 per day, for erecting an 24-metre flagpole at his Mar-aLago Club that exceeded the maximum 42 feet permitted by local regulations.

TheTrump Foundation also made transactions that appeared to be exclusively for the benefit of the real estate mogul or his businesses, apparently in violation of regulations governing charities, the Washington Post said. In one case, the charity paid $20,000 in 2007 for a six-foot portrait of Trump, the newspaper reported. Trump’s campaign denied the report. “In typical Washington Post fashion, they’ve gotten their facts wrong. It is the Clinton Foundation that is set up to make sure the Clintons personally enrich themselves by selling access and trading political favors. The Trump Foundation has no paid board, no management fees, no rent or overhead, and no family members on its payroll,” said spokesman Jason Miller.