Donald Trump’s surprisingly shady charitable foundation, explained

Donald Trump runs a charitable foundation named after him that’s been good for his personal business and political aspirations and appears to have no particular philanthropic mission or focus.

At one point, the Trump Foundation operated like a fairly normal rich person’s poorly managed family foundation, receiving money from its founder and handing it out to this or that randomly selected cause. But in more recent years, as its founder has gotten less interested in real estate development and more interested in media celebrity and politics, it’s become rather unusual.

The Trump Foundation isn’t funded by Trump’s own money. Instead, contributions mostly seem to come from a range of Trump’s business partners, allowing him to parlay celebrity into securing credit for charity work.

But much of the foundation’s spending doesn’t really fit the traditional conception of philanthropy at all. Some of the money seems to flow back into Trump’s pockets through his businesses, while other funds are used to punish his political enemies or try to gain new friends in the conservative movement.

At times the level of self-dealing becomes downright comical. It spent $20,000 on a portrait of Donald Trump, for example, and $12,000 on buying Trump an autographed Tim Tebow helmet.

Trump has also lied about the foundation repeatedly, claiming credit for charitable contributions that never happened. One illegal thing the Trump Foundation did appears to have been linked to efforts to shield Trump’s fake university from legal scrutiny.

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