Donald Trump’s New York values were nowhere to be found in the aftermath of 9/11, according to the New York Daily News. The paper alleges Trump didn’t donate to 9/11 charities like he said he did. Records of the Trump Foundation—recently found to be violating the law—dating up to 2014 showed Trump hadn’t made a donation.
Trump had promised to donate $10,000 to a 9/11 charity shortly after the attacks. City Controller Scott Stringer, at the request of the New York Daily News, reviewed sealed records of two main 9/11 charities: Twin Towers Fund and the New York City Public/Private Initiatives Inc. Records covering up to mid-2002 didn’t show Trump made any donations to either charity either personally or through the Trump foundation.
“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.," the Controller's office said in a statement to the New York Daily News. Because the audit only covered the year after the attacks for the Twin Towers Fund the Controller’s office said "[we] are unable to conclude definitively that Trump never gave to either of these two funds."
Trump reportedly pledged the $10,000 in late September. The New York Daily News got audio of a Trump interview with Howard Stern in which Stern and co-host Robin Quivers thanked Trump for a donation. "He gave us $10,000," Quivers said. "Yes he did, to our fund," Stern responded referring to the “Howard Stern Relief Fund” which asked checks to be made out to the NYC Public Private Initiative.
The New York Daily News checked every Form 990, which “provides financial information for nonprofit companies or charities,” the Trump Foundation had from 2001 until 2014 and found no donations were made to the Twin Tower Fund or the Public Private Initiative. Trump’s campaign has said Trump donated to the Red Cross after previous reports suggested he hadn’t donated to 9/11 charities, but the New York Daily News said it can’t prove whether or not that was true because the candidate won’t release his tax returns. At the Republican National Convention, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani said Trump made “anonymous” donations after 9/11, but the Controller’s office said no anonymous donations were found in the audit.
Earlier this year Trump, through his foundation, donated $100,000 to the 9/11 Museum, but as with every donation from his Foundation in recent years, that was money from others, not directly from Trump's pocket. According to a report last month, Trump used $258,000 from the Trump Foundation to settle costs for legal issues his businesses faced.
