Stora tråden om Donald Trump [mod]

Out of 391K unaffiliated voters who have cast any type of absentee ballot so far, 50 percent of them cast ballots in the March 2016 primary election: of those 55 percent cast ballots in the Republican primary, while 45 percent cast in the Democratic primary.

New findings, for instance, show that the Trump Foundation’s largest-ever gift — $264,631 — was used to renovate a fountain outside the windows of Trump’s Plaza Hotel.

Its smallest-ever gift, for $7, was paid to the Boy Scouts in 1989, at a time when it cost $7 to register a new Scout. Trump’s oldest son was 11 at the time. Trump did not respond to a question about whether the money paid to register him.

In January, Trump skipped a GOP primary debate in a feud with Fox News and held a televised fundraiser for veterans. In that broadcast, Trump said he’d personally donated to the cause: “Donald Trump gave $1 million,” he said.

Months later, The Post could find no evidence Trump had done so. Then, Corey Lewandowski — Trump’s campaign manager at the time — called to say the money had been given out. In private. No details. “He’s not going to share that information,” Lewandowski said.

In reality, at that point, Trump had given nothing.

At times, Trump seemed to make light of others’ expectations about his generosity.

In 1997, for instance, he was “principal for a day” at a public school in an impoverished area of the Bronx. The chess team was holding a bake sale, Hot & Crusty danishes and croissants. They were $5,000 short of what they needed to travel to a tournament.

Trump had brought something to wow them.
“He handed them a fake million-dollar bill,” said David MacEnulty, a teacher and the chess team’s coach.

The team’s parent volunteers were thrilled.
Then disappointment.
Trump then gave them $200 in real money and drove away in a limousine.

Why just $200?

“I have no idea,” MacEnulty said. “He was about the most clueless person I’ve ever seen in that regard.”
The happy ending, he said, was that a woman read about Trump’s gift in the New York Times, called the school and donated the $5,000. “I am ashamed to be the same species as this man,” MacEnulty recalled her saying.

Searching for evidence of Trump’s personal giving
The Washington Post has contacted more than 400 charities with some ties to the GOP nominee in an effort to find proof of the millions he has said he donated to them. We’ve mostly been unsuccessful.

For months, The Washington Post has been looking for evidence to back up a key claim Donald Trump makes about himself: that, in recent years, he has given millions of dollars to charity out of his own pocket. There is no evidence of that in the files of Trump's nonprofit, the Donald J. Trump Foundation. And Trump has not released his tax returns, which would detail his recent charitable giving.

In an effort to find proof of Trump's personal giving, The Post has contacted more than 400 charities with some ties to the GOP nominee. Some got money from the Trump Foundation. In other cases, Trump had a personal connection to the charity or its leaders . Some were charities that DonorSearch database records indicated he might have given to. A variety of other reasons included media mentions, gala attendance, or involvement with Trump's TV show "Celebrity Apprentice."

So far, The Post's search has turned up little. Between 2008 and this May — when Trump made good on a pledge to give $1 million to a veterans' group — its search has identified just one personal gift from Trump's own pocket.

‘You’re a Nasty Guy’: Trump Lashes Out at Reporter Pressing Him on Donations to Vets

Donald Trump‘s fundraiser for vets has been the subject of a lot of questions due to a lot of that supposed $6 million being unaccounted for. The Trump campaign finally acknowledged this week that they raised only about $4.5 million, attributing the discrepancy to big donors pulling out at the last minute.

Trump Foundation Investigations Now Multiplying

Until a few weeks ago, the Clinton Foundation was a magnet for controversy, while the tiny Donald J. Trump Foundation remained in the shadows. Suddenly, a damaging expose in the Washington Post and the disclosure of an illegal campaign contribution paid by the Trump Foundation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who subsequently decided not to pursue an investigation of scandal-plagued Trump University, has unleashed a storm of criticism and rendered the once obscure charity a major drag on the Trump campaign.