Trump golf course charitable donations fell short of $5M claim: report

The Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles fell far short of the roughly $5 million in charitable donations it claimed to have given on its website, according to a new report.

National Public Radio’s “Embedded” podcast identified about $800,000 in charitable givings from President Trump’s West Coast golf course to various groups. But more than a dozen other groups said they hadn’t received any donations at all or had no record of such donations.

Among the groups listed on the golf course’s website that did not receive donations from the club were organizations like the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation, which provides support for children who suffer severe burns, and the California Department of Veterans Affairs, according to NPR. 

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The donations that were verified were almost entirely in-kind donations, meaning the golf club provided goods and services as opposed to money, NPR’s Tom Dreisbach reported.

The organizations that the golf club claimed it had donated to were listed on its website as recently as June 30, though they were removed sometime between then and Oct. 2, according to a snapshots of the page captured by the Internet Archive.

As of June 30, about 170 groups were listed on Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles’s philanthropy page. The claim that the club has “provided approximately $5 million” to the listed charities has since been removed from the page, though a description of the page on the website’s navigation menu still makes the claim.

NPR said that the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment during its reporting.

Trump has received scrutiny over his claims about charitable givings or donations pledges in the past.

In the early days of the 2016 presidential primaries, Trump vowed to donate $1 million of his personal fortune to veterans’ charities, as well as an additional $5 million he had raised at a fundraiser ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

The real estate mogul fulfilled the $1 million pledge months later after facing pressure from the media.

More recently, however, the president has made good on charitable pledges, including his vow to donate his presidential salary. He gave his first-quarter pay to the National Parks Service and his second-quarter pay to the Department of Education.

And after Hurricane Irma ravaged parts of Texas and Louisiana, Trump pledged $1 million of his personal fortune to 12 charitable groups helping with storm relief efforts. Those pledges have since been fulfilled.