David Farentholdt of the Washington Post has been digging into Donald Trump’s supposed charitable contributions in a series of articles in the paper, in the process becoming more than an annoyance, and quite conceivable a bit of a nightmare, for the presumptive Republican nominee.
Today’s piece, which inspired this posting, is titled Donald Trump used money donated for charity to buy himself a Tim Tebow-signed football helmet.
Remember, Trump presents himself as a brilliant investor, who is also right about everything including the Iraq War (except he wasn’t) Hillary Clinton’s corruption (except he said positive things about her), how to make money in real estate and casinos (except his companies have multiple bankruptcies and his track record of stiffing suppliers, partners, and costing investors large losses is now indisputable).
So why is he possibly stupid?
Four years ago, at a charity fundraiser in Palm Beach, Donald Trump got into a bidding war at the evening's live auction. The items up for sale: A Denver Broncos helmet, autographed by then-star quarterback Tim Tebow, and a Tebow jersey.
He paid $12,000 for the items. And as we read at the end of Farentholdt’s article,
That very night, Tebow's Broncos were demolished by the New England Patriots in the NFL playoffs. The Broncos traded Tebow, and he only played one more full season.
The same kind of autographed helmet and jersey that Trump bought for $12,000 are now available for about $415, total, online.
Oops. That means his investment in the item has now lost more than 96% of its value. Stupidity?
Then what about corruption?
But Trump didn't actually pay with his own money.
Instead, the Susan G. Komen organization -- the breast-cancer nonprofit that hosted the party -- got a $12,000 payment from another nonprofit , the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
Trump himself sent no money (In fact, a Komen spokesperson said, Trump has never given a personal gift of cash to the Komen organization). He paid the bill with money from a charity he founded in 1987, but which is largely stocked with other people's money. Trump is the foundation's president. But, at the time of the auction, Trump had given none of his own money to the foundation for three years running.
Now, if Trump had taken the items he won at auction and donated them to another charity for them to auction off, no problem. Except then there are these facts:
1. Trump used to display the items in his personal office.
2. There is as yet no record of those items being donated to any charity.
And then there are these factors, again quoting from the article:
… three experts on tax law questioned whether Trump had violated IRS rules against "self-dealing" -- which are designed to keep nonprofit officials from using their charities to help themselves.
Those rules ban the "furnishing of goods" by private foundations -- like Trump's -- to their own officers. If the rule is broken, the person who breaks it must notify the IRS, and may have to pay a tax penalty. There could also be penalties for signing a tax return that failed to mention the violation. In 2012, the tax return for Trump's foundation checked the boxes for "no," it did not break the self-dealing rule.
Absent knowing what has happened to the items, we cannot ascertain for certain whether this was a corrupt action, something clearly illegal, on the part of Donald Trump. So we cannot really answer the second question in my title — yet.
But given what has happened to the value of the items, as well as given the questions about judgment, propriety, and legality about the entire transaction, perhaps the answer to the first part is clear — it is stupidity of the highest order.
Guess the Donald is not such a brilliant businessman after all, eh?