Trump claims he gave generously to help his City in the dark days after the deadly terrorist attacks. But new records show a pledged promise to donate $10,000 to a major 9/11 charity must have somehow slipped his mind.
New York City Controller Scott Stringer conducted a review of hundreds of pages of previously sealed records of the two main 9/11 charities at the request of the Daily News, and found that Trump and his charity hadn't donated a dime in the months after 9/11. "For the periods covered by the audits, we did not find any record of a donation from Trump himself or a Trump entity to either the Twin Towers Fund or the New York City Public/Private Initiatives Inc.," Stringer's office said in a statement to the Daily News in response to a Freedom of Information Law request.
The controller's office pointed out that because the reviewed period only covered the year after the attacks for the Twin Towers Fund, they "are unable to conclude definitively that Trump never gave to either of these two funds."
But it's clear that he didn't make the donation anytime soon after the attack, when help was needed the most. And previous reporting indicates that Trump's Foundation didn't make any major contributions after that period, either.
In the weeks after the brutal attacks, Trump pledged $10,000 to the Twin Towers Fund as part of an effort Howard Stern was pushing. A report said Trump promised the donation in late September 2001, and the Daily News obtained audio of Stern's Oct. 10, 2001, interview with Trump where both he and co-host Robin Quivers thanked him for that donation. "He gave us $10,000," Quivers said. "Yes he did, to our fund," Stern responded.
Trump didn't dispute that he'd made that pledge. Stern was directing people to make out checks to the NYC Public Private Initiative at the time, using the "Howard Stern Relief Fund" as a marketing hook, as the website for the charity efforts shows.
The Daily News also reviewed every Form 990, which provides financial information for nonprofit companies or charities, for the Donald J. Trump Foundation from 2001 through 2014. There are no donations to the Twin Towers Fund or the NYC Public-Private Initiative listed.
The only Sept. 11th donation in those documents was a $1,000 donation in 2006 to the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund, a group founded by Tom Cruise that used scientifically questionable methods approved by Scientology to help rescue workers.
The only recorded major donation to 9/11 causes that Trump has made was $100,000 from his Foundation, which has been bankrolled by others without any money from Trump for years, to the 9/11 Museum in April 2016, as he sought to generate headlines after Ted Cruz attacked him for his "New York values" during the Primary election.
After earlier reports suggested that the Trump Foundation hadn't given anything to any Sept. 11th charity, his Campaign implied he'd made donations to the American Red Cross after the attacks. There is no evidence that the Trump Foundation did so, and the only way for Trump to prove he did so would be to release his tax returns, something he's stubbornly refused to do throughout his Presidential run.
Though it appears Trump didn't donate directly to the Twin Towers Fund, his ex-wife Ivana held a fund-raiser for the cause at the end of October 2001, according to a report, which said she picked up the check for the 52 guests in attendance.
Trump's apparent lie about donating to the Twin Towers Fund is the latest example of his misleading comments about his charitable giving and his role in helping after the 9/11 attacks.
As the Daily News previously reported, Trump lied that $150,000 his Company received from a Government fund created to help small businesses recover after 9/11 was for reimbursement for his helping 9/11 victims by taking them in at his nearby building at 40 Wall St. It's also unclear whether Trump actually did help people at 40 Wall St., as he's said. Trump's Campaign refused to respond to multiple requests for more information about his vague claims that he "allowed people, for many months, to stay in the building 40 Wall St., or use the building and store things in the building," as he told Time Magazine in April.
Others who were intimately involved in 9/11 recovery efforts, as well as those who worked at the building at the time, have no recollection of Trump doing what he claimed he did. "I don't remember," Nancy Lara, the building's Property Manager at the time, told the Daily News in a recent phone call, after saying she wasn't "inclined to talk about it." Her memory grew fuzzy when the Daily News pressed her on whether she remembered facilitating any charitable efforts in letting people move in or store things there. "I honestly don't remember. It's a long time ago," she said. Trump used the money to complete repairs on the building that was being done before the attack.
New York Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan), who at the time managed the Ground Zero Task Force run out of Rep. Jerry Nadler's (D-Manhattan) office, also said she couldn't remember Trump helping out after 9/11. "I don't recall him being involved at all," she said. "I don't recall his name ever being in the mix."
The Twin Towers fund was set up by then Mayor Rudy Giuliani, now a Trump surrogate who made a point of telling the Republican National Convention in July that Trump made unspecified "anonymous" donations after the Sept. 11th attacks. "Every time New York City suffered a tragedy Donald Trump was there to help," Giuliani said. "He's not going to like my telling you this but he did it anonymously.”
A spokesman for the Controller's office told the Daily News that the office did not find any anonymous donations in its review of the earlier audit.
The Twin Towers fund was supposed to go toward the families of first responders, including firefighters, cops and EMTs, who died that day.
Tax records show the Trump Foundation claimed to have distributed $316,000 in 2001 and $383,000 in 2002, but the Daily Beast and the Smoking Gun have previously reported that Foundation records show none of that went to Sept. 11th charities.
Stringer's audit for the first time clears that up, revealing that through mid-2002 no Trump-related donation went to either of the biggest Sept. 11th charities. The finding is based on the work papers contained in a City Controller audit of the two charities made back in 2003. Stringer's team looked to see if a Trump check showed up in those papers following Freedom of Information Law requests from the Daily News and other news outlets. Stringer, who had endorsed Trump's rival, Hillary Clinton, had his staff review all the records of the two charities for the first filing period after the attacks. He found no Trump donations to the Twin Towers Fund from the day after the attack through Aug. 31, 2002, and nothing to the Public/Private Initiatives Inc. through June 30, 2002.
Those who worked hard to help the City recover after the attacks were furious with the latest revelations. "This is another indication that Trump doesn't have New York — or American — values of helping those in need," said Catherine McVay Hughes, a lower Manhattan Community Organizer who helped rebuild the neighborhood and currently Chairs Community Board 1. "Many Americans and people throughout the world with much fewer resources came and responded, and were generous with their resources, their time, even their own health."
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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