Donald Trump used more than a quarter of a million dollars in other people's donations to his charity to settle his own legal battles — $258,000 to be exact.
That's from reporting at The Washington Post. David Fahrenthold reviewed legal documents that show checks from the Trump Foundation — which is a charity "funded almost entirely by other people's money."
In New York, a Trump golf course settled a lawsuit by making a donation from the Trump Foundation to the plaintiff's charity of choice.
Something similar happened in Florida, where Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club settled a lawsuit by making a $100,000 donation to a specific charity, not from Trump's pocket, but from the charity funded by other people.
Trump also used $5,000 in charity funds to advertise his hotel chain. And in 2014, he bought a portrait of himself at a charity fundraiser for $10,000. Not to be confused for a different 6-foot-tall portrait of himself he bought for $20,000 with charity money a few years earlier.
Obviously, there are some ethical questions this raises, but Trump might have broken U.S. tax law as well.
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