# Trump Foundation The **Donald J. Trump Foundation** (1988–2018) was [[Donald Trump]]'s private grant-making charity — no staff, no office, no endowment, a board of Trump, his three eldest children and [[Allen Weisselberg]] that the New York Attorney General found had not met in years — and the first Trump entity to be adjudicated, on the merits, as a vehicle for self-dealing. Dissolved under court supervision in December 2018, it ended with Trump's admission that he had misused its funds and a **$2 million** judgment against him personally. The full event record is at [[Trump Foundation Dissolution]]; this page is the organization. ## What it was Founded in 1988 to give away royalties from *The Art of the Deal*, the Foundation was funded by Trump himself only until about 2008 — roughly $5 million over its life — and afterward almost entirely by other people's money (the wrestling promoters Vince and Linda McMahon, the NBC-Universal parent of *The Apprentice*, the businessman Richard Ebers), which Trump then distributed while taking personal credit. [[David Fahrenthold]]'s 2016 *Washington Post* investigation, which won the Pulitzer, established that pattern and the specific abuses that followed. ## The abuses the AG documented - **Self-dealing.** Foundation money settled legal disputes of Trump's for-profit businesses (Mar-a-Lago, the Westchester golf club), bought a $10,000 portrait of Trump that hung at his Doral resort and a $20,000 one at auction, and paid for auction items Trump bid on personally; the settlement required him to reimburse $11,525 for those. - **Politics.** A $25,000 gift in 2013 to a political committee supporting Florida Attorney General [[Pam Bondi]], whose office was then weighing whether to join a suit against Trump University; the Foundation misreported it and paid an IRS penalty. And the **January 28, 2016** Iowa veterans fundraiser, held in Des Moines while Trump boycotted a [[Fox News]] debate, about $2.8 million of which passed through the Foundation and was disbursed at campaign rallies by campaign staff — Justice Saliann Scarpulla found the funds were "used for Mr. Trump's political campaign." - **No governance.** The board did not meet; Weisselberg testified he did not know he was on it. ## The end New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood sued on **June 14, 2018**, citing "a shocking pattern of illegality." The Foundation agreed to dissolve under judicial supervision on **December 18, 2018**. On **November 7, 2019** Scarpulla ordered Trump to pay $2 million for breaching his fiduciary duty; the $1.8 million left in the Foundation and the judgment went to eight vetted charities, and [[Donald Trump Jr.]], [[Ivanka Trump]] and [[Eric Trump]] were required to complete training on the duties of nonprofit directors. Trump called the findings "small technical violations." [[Letitia James]], who completed the case, used its record as the opening of the New York civil-fraud case against the [[Trump Organization]] — see [[NY AG Civil Fraud Judgment]]. ## Why it matters The Foundation is the smallest and earliest of the [[Trump Family]] structures the vault tracks and the template for the larger ones: a nonprofit form used as a personal and political account, other people's money presented as one's own generosity, a board of relatives that does not function, and a defense that treats the adjudicated facts as a technicality. Compare the [[USDA Secretary's Priorities Fund]] for the same structure run from inside government. ## See Also - [[Trump Foundation Dissolution]] · [[NY AG Civil Fraud Judgment]] · [[Trump Organization]] · [[Trump Family]] - [[Donald Trump]] · [[Donald Trump Jr.]] · [[Ivanka Trump]] · [[Eric Trump]] · [[Allen Weisselberg]] - [[Pam Bondi]] · [[Letitia James]] · [[David Fahrenthold]] · [[Washington Post]]