The Clinton Foundation is an actual charity that funds worthy causes. It's been scrutinized by the press, quite fairly, because it's also been used as a way to court favor with the Clintons.



The Trump Foundation hasn't received the same kind of attention - until now. Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold took a deep dive into the way Trump uses his foundation and found it's not really a charity at all.



Like Trump University, it's a money-making, self-promotional scam. Trump's family foundation doesn't give away nearly as much money as the Clintons', but if they were doing even a fraction of this flimflam, it would be a national scandal.

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The first thing to understand is that Trump's foundation gives away other people's money and passes it off as his own so that he can claim all the credit. This way, he can be a rich guy who looks generous for free.

Trump claims to have given away millions, but refuses to produce any records of this. Remember when he bragged he'd raised $6 million for veterans in January, at a fundraiser he held so he could skip a GOP debate?



The final total fell short of that, and only after the press asked him to explain where all the money went was he finally shamed into sending out more checks from his foundation and making his own promised $1 million contribution.



Besides that donation, all we have are the records of his foundation, which he hasn't given a dime of his own money to since 2008, the Post reported.



He convinces other people to give, and what he does with their charity is shameless.



He's used it for illegal political gifts, like donating to the campaign of a Florida Attorney General who was about to investigate Trump University for fraud - then suddenly decided not to.



He's used it to stay in the good graces of other charities that pay big to rent his event spaces, and buy himself gifts at their auctions, like a $20,000, six-foot tall painting of himself. Or a $12,000 Tim Tebow football helmet.



He's used it to pay for his bombastic on-air promises to donate money "out of my wallet," on TV shows like "The Celebrity Apprentice" - while NBCUniversal, which broadcasts the show, donates enough to his foundation to more than cover the tab.



Sometimes, Trump even made money off his "charity." He gave away $150,000 of another foundation's money to a police group that paid more than $200,000 to hold its gala on Trump's property, so Trump ended up richer.



The police also gave him an award for his philanthropy, because they had no idea the donation wasn't Trump's own money. And the New Jersey foundation that actually donated - named for a deceased friend of his - didn't realize until later that it didn't need Trump as a middleman.



The Trump foundation repeatedly broke IRS rules by reporting it gave gifts to charities that never actually received the money. You might chalk this up to rampant mismanagement, if not for Trump's bragging that he's given away millions and his refusal to turn over any proof.



Perhaps he is trying to hide the fact that his "philanthropy" is pure deception. It's striking is how little real interest Trump seems to have in helping others. His version of charity, it seems, is making himself look good.

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