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Eric Trump funneled cancer charity money to his businesses, associates: report

Napoleon said:
I do know. I also know that you cannot draw an accurate equivalency between charitable fundraising and a political gala, i.e. party, for an outgoing US President that also raised funds for a political campaign in the course of said event.
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Just to bring the argument back to reality, lots of people are discussing how they don't see how 250K is being spent. I showed how 1.5million is being spent on a fundraiser.
 
Absentglare said:
That's a really dishonest deflection. What about Eric Trump insisting that the use of their facilities came at no cost; while charging a premium?
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Only in liberal world is a comparison deemed a deflection.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Only in liberal world is a comparison deemed a deflection.
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Did the other charity insist that all of the proceeds were going straight to the charity because the costs were fully funded by a Trump organization- and then turn around and reap huge profits off of exorbitant fees?

No?

Then there's no honest comparison to be made.
 
Absentglare said:
Did the other charity insist that all of the proceeds were going straight to the charity because the costs were fully funded by a Trump organization- and then turn around and reap huge profits off of exorbitant fees?

No?

Then there's no honest comparison to be made.
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There you go again. When the fees and expenses of one are 6 times that of the other, its hard to characterize the lower of the two as exorbitant.
 
Rogue Valley said:
Eric Trump funneled cancer charity money to his businesses, associates: report


Donald Trump bitched to his son Eric that he wasn't making any money on the annual charity golf outing for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital which were held at a Trump golf course in New York.

So Eric apparently started making a profit for the Trump Organization on the 'charity' golf outing by skimming from donations while maintaining that all donations went to St. Jude Children's Hospital.

If true, this is some pretty shady shenanigans.
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His father conned disabled Veterans thru Trump U

The NY apple does not fall from the tree
 
Defending the indefensible and 45 Inc. must be exhausting. Eh, reinoe?
 
OpportunityCost said:
Just to bring the argument back to reality, lots of people are discussing how they don't see how 250K is being spent. I showed how 1.5million is being spent on a fundraiser.
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The reality is that the event was organized shortly before a Democratic Convention as an outgoing party for then President Clinton and fundraising took place at that event. There is no legitimate reason why a fundraising event for a charity - particularly one as smalltime as Eric's - should cost nearly $250,000. Organizations much larger than his do it for far less all the time.
 
Napoleon said:
The reality is that the event was organized shortly before a Democratic Convention as an outgoing party for then President Clinton and fundraising took place at that event. There is no legitimate reason why a fundraising event for a charity - particularly one as smalltime as Eric's - should cost nearly $250,000. Organizations much larger than his do it for far less all the time.
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Well you go right ahead and back that up, I'll wait.
 
JasperL said:
A better article is the original from Forbes, here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danale...charity-money-into-his-business/#78fc93016b4a

And the problems are three, really, to start:

1) DJT and Eric have both asserted many, many times that the Trump Org donates the facilities for free - at no charge - so that 100% or nearly so of donations goes to St. Jude's. That's never been true and the bills in later years kept going up, far above what Trump charged other charities.
2) The bills in later years cannot be explained based on any reasonable assumptions. Food and drink donated, entertainment donated, prized donated, etc. And yet the bills kept going up and reached $300k plus. Assuming NONE was donated, still can't get to $300k.
3) At least one year, DJT did a bit of money laundering by taking 100k from outside donations to his foundation, which he gave to Eric's foundation, which then paid Trump Org 142k for "donated" services such as use of the Trump facilities.
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Then perhaps the IRS should do an audit.
 
_Sal said:
really?

because your defense certainly is, so perhaps it's projection on your part...
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My defense is defensive, not partisan. I hate partisanship. The reason it is partisan is that Eric Trump is not part of the government and not a part of the Trump administration. So bringing it up is designed to attack his father. If he did improper accounting, then the IRS should investigate. The OP should have taken it up with them rather than us since we aren't the IRS.
 
fmw said:
My defense is defensive, not partisan. I hate partisanship. The reason it is partisan is that Eric Trump is not part of the government and not a part of the Trump administration. So bringing it up is designed to attack his father. If he did improper accounting, then the IRS should investigate. The OP should have taken it up with them rather than us since we aren't the IRS.
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OK, but the arguably inflated fees paid by Eric's charity went to.... DJT, aka POTUS. And for all those years, DJT and Eric got the reputation benefit of claiming they donated the Trump facilities for free, while in fact in the later years charging the charity above market rates for use of the facilities. Typical Trump. Pretending to be charitable while actually using both Eric's foundation and his own to make money for himself.

I agree that Eric did a good thing for a lot of years with his foundation, and raised a LOT of money for St. Jude's, which is a great cause. The problem is not him, in this case, but our POTUS just couldn't help but skim part of those donations off the top for his own benefit. It reflects on Trump's character that a supposed $billionaire couldn't help himself on that. We all knew that was his character going in and so I guess this shouldn't be news to anyone.
 
JasperL said:
OK, but the arguably inflated fees paid by Eric's charity went to.... DJT, aka POTUS. And for all those years, DJT and Eric got the reputation benefit of claiming they donated the Trump facilities for free, while in fact in the later years charging the charity above market rates for use of the facilities. Typical Trump. Pretending to be charitable while actually using both Eric's foundation and his own to make money for himself.

I agree that Eric did a good thing for a lot of years with his foundation, and raised a LOT of money for St. Jude's, which is a great cause. The problem is not him, in this case, but our POTUS just couldn't help but skim part of those donations off the top for his own benefit. It reflects on Trump's character that a supposed $billionaire couldn't help himself on that. We all knew that was his character going in and so I guess this shouldn't be news to anyone.
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If it is true then it deserves an IRS audit because those funds would have escaped taxation. That is where this issue should be.
 
fmw said:
If it is true then it deserves an IRS audit because those funds would have escaped taxation. That is where this issue should be.
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My own view is whether or not the arrangement was illegal is only part of the issue. The other is a supposed $billionaire skimmed his cut off the top of donations to Eric's foundation, while claiming all the while he was donating the use of the facilities for free. I'm pretty sure it's OK to have an opinion on the latter, independent of any IRS audit or even whether the arrangement broke any rules.

In other words, legal does not mean ethical or admirable.
 
JasperL said:
My own view is whether or not the arrangement was illegal is only part of the issue. The other is a supposed $billionaire skimmed his cut off the top of donations to Eric's foundation, while claiming all the while he was donating the use of the facilities for free. I'm pretty sure it's OK to have an opinion on the latter, independent of any IRS audit or even whether the arrangement broke any rules.

In other words, legal does not mean ethical or admirable.
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No doubt about that. There can be a big gap between inappropriate and illegal. The difference between you and me is that you accept the information as true and I view it as possibly true because I don't know all the details. It is the IRS that would determine the truth.
 
fmw said:
No doubt about that. There can be a big gap between inappropriate and illegal. The difference between you and me is that you accept the information as true and I view it as possibly true because I don't know all the details. It is the IRS that would determine the truth.
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I don't see any reason on the front end to assume that Forbes has an incentive to make up data they gleaned from the Foundations' Form 990, which is public record. And the reporters tried to get comments from the Trump family but they didn't respond to questions seeking details. And there hasn't been any statement from Eric or POTUS that Forbes lied, or fabricated figures, etc. So, yeah, I accept the basic information as true.
 
Napoleon said:
I think that explanation strains credulity. I attended the annual Columbus HRC gala over the weekend. It was attended by billionaires, millionaires, our former Governor, City Countil President, and other prominent residents of our State. It was held in the ballroom of the Ohio State student union - which certainly did not cost anywhere near a quarter of a million dollars to book. I would normally consider spending such a gratuitous sum on a single fundraising event to be incompetence, but this is a cut and dry case of deliberately funneling donated money to the Trump organization.
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Well it wasnt held at a world class golf resort was it? Im not arguing they didnt waste money, but the idea that the quality of the event would be the same at a lesser location is debatable. Again, this is SOP for charity. Waste money on frivolity.
 
jonny5 said:
Well it wasnt held at a world class golf resort was it? Im not arguing they didnt waste money, but the idea that the quality of the event would be the same at a lesser location is debatable. Again, this is SOP for charity. Waste money on frivolity.
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The point is that it isn't SOP for charitable organizations. HRC is a national organization with $38 million in revenue. It spent a little over $5,000 to rent the ballroom venue for its fundraiser over the weekend. Eric Trump's "charity" reported revenue of only $1.5 million in 2015 and spent $322,000 to rent a (Trump) venue for a single fundraising event. That is an outrageous expenditure even for a large charity. Made worse by the fact that just renting the venue for a single event cost 21.4% of total donated funds - which Eric lied to donors about - in addition to the tens of thousands of dollars we know of that Eric has used for personal expenses. It's just another Trump scam.
 
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JasperL said:
I don't see any reason on the front end to assume that Forbes has an incentive to make up data they gleaned from the Foundations' Form 990, which is public record. And the reporters tried to get comments from the Trump family but they didn't respond to questions seeking details. And there hasn't been any statement from Eric or POTUS that Forbes lied, or fabricated figures, etc. So, yeah, I accept the basic information as true.
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Forbes doesn't know all the details either. Only Eric Trump does.
 
fmw said:
Forbes doesn't know all the details either. Only Eric Trump does.
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No one needs to get down into the weeds of these transactions to know that a guy who spends 21% of donated funds on a single event at a family owned business and lies to donors about it and about where the rest of the donated funds are going is not running a good charity.
 
Napoleon said:
No one needs to get down into the weeds of these transactions to know that a guy who spends 21% of donated funds on a single event at a family owned business and lies to donors about it and about where the rest of the donated funds are going is not running a good charity.
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It is an easy thing to say if you don't have the details. You may be right. I don't know. Something wrong with not knowing?
 
fmw said:
It is an easy thing to say if you don't have the details. You may be right. I don't know. Something wrong with not knowing?
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I'm not sure what you mean by not knowing. The Foundation's 990s are publicly available and the expenses it reported to the IRS directly contradict what Eric has been telling donors for years.
 
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