Did Trump Just Lie About Raising $6 Million for Vets – Because His Campaign Says It’s Less

So Where’s the Cash?

Remember back in January when Donald Trump refused to attend a Fox News debate, so at the last minute he threw together a “fundraiser” for veterans, using them as pawns for his presidential aspirations? Trump claimed then, and ever since, that he raised $6 million for the vets. 

“We just cracked $6 million, right? Six million,” Trump announced at the end of the night.

“One hour. Six million dollars,” Trump said at a campaign rally a few days later, The Washington Post reported. “These people that get these checks are amazing people, amazing people.”

“At that rally we raised, in one hour, $6 million. Is that good?,” Trump again said, days after the fundraiser.

The Post back in March reported, “More than a month later, about half of the money, roughly $3 million, has been donated to veterans’ charities, according to a summary released Thursday by the Trump campaign in response to inquiries from The Washington Post.”

Last week, The Washington Post reported Trump campaign manager “Corey Lewandowski said the fundraiser actually netted about $4.5 million, or 75 percent of the total that Trump announced.”

And while Trump initially made a big deal about giving away the money, that’s changed.

“In recent weeks, Trump and his campaign repeatedly declined to give new details about how much they have given away.” the Post now reports.

“Why should I give you records?” Trump told The Post earlier this month. “I don’t have to give you records.”

Tuesday night, Marine Corps vet Alexander McCoy spoke with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, blasting Trump (above).

Trump posted these tweets, Monday night, then a video on Instagram again late Tuesday morning (below, click on the image to play), claiming he raised “almost six million dollars” for vets.

Again, his campaign disputes that figure.

On Saturday, The Washington Post published an article titled, “Trump said he raised $6 million for veterans. Now his campaign says it was less.”

On Sunday, the right-wing news site Newsmax published an article titled, “Trump Campaign: We Didn’t Raise $6 Million for Veterans.”

And just today, CBS News reports it’s “still unclear how much was actually raised in total.”

In a press release last week, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org, Jon Soltz called Trump “a cheap fraud.”  

“In a classic fraud move, made himself look good to the public, by lying to the American people, and veterans, about how much he raised for veterans’ groups, when he hid behind them to get out of the GOP debate,” Soltz said. “He said he raised $6 million.  Now, when investigated by reporters, he finally admits that he overstated the amount by millions, and never raised what he told people he did.  In fact, there may still be groups who are waiting for their check.”

 

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr and a CC license