"In theory, Owens said, nonprofit groups like the Trump Foundation are “absolutely prohibited” from participating or intervening in a political campaign. But, he said, if the IRS did investigate, it wouldn’t likely start until the Trump Foundation filed its paperwork for 2016. Which wouldn’t be until late 2017. Then an agent would open a case. There went 2018. Finally, Owens said, the IRS might take action: It might even take away the Trump Foundation’s tax-exempt status.
In 2019. Or maybe not ever...
In the news clippings, you could see that Trump had repeatedly made public promises to donate to charity. In the 1980s, for instance, Trump had promised to give away $4 million from sales of his book “The Art of the Deal.” In more recent years, he said he would give away $2.5 million he made off “The Apprentice.” And donated the profits from Trump University. All told, the pledges in those news clips made it seem that Trump had given away more than $12 million.
In more recent clippings, in fact, Trump’s presidential campaign staff said his actual giving had been far higher than that: “tens of millions ” over his lifetime.
The state’s records showed something else.
They showed that the Trump Foundation — which Trump had set up to give away his own money — had received only a total of $5.5 million from Trump since 1987...
I had called this charity — which I knew had received $20,000 from the Trump Foundation — to ask if it had ever received anything else, from Trump’s own pocket. It had not. But Ladika told me something I didn’t expect: the reason for that $20,000 gift from Trump’s charity.
Trump had used it to buy a portrait of himself.
The portrait had been painted by a “speed painter,” who was the entertainment at a charity gala at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. Melania Trump bought it for $20,000. But then, later, Trump paid for it with a check from the Trump Foundation...
All of that — from my first request for help to Acevedo’s discovery — had taken less than 14 hours. Together, we had discovered Trump doing exactly what the law said he couldn’t do: using his charity’s money to decorate his resort.
A Trump spokesman later offered the explanation that the resort was actually doing the foundation a favor, by storing its art free of charge. Tax experts were not impressed by this reasoning."
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