The Donald J. Trump Foundation, Donald Trump’s charitable organization, was ordered to stop taking donations in New York state starting on Monday, in a letter from the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
The letter says that the Trump Foundation is not properly registered as a charity in New York, and therefore may not solicit donations there. Trump’s charity broke the law this year by taking contributions without registering as a charity, the state attorney general said.
Read the entire letter, below, or by visiting this link.
“The notice states that the Trump Foundation ‘is in violation of section 172 of Article 7-A New York’s Executive Law, which requires charitable organizations that solicit contributions in New York State to register with the Charities Bureau and to provide annual financial reports and annual audited financial statements,'” the attorney general said, in a written statement. “Despite failing to register pursuant to Article 7-A, the Trump Foundation solicited contributions in New York State earlier this year, in violation of New York law.”
The letter, called a “notice of violation,” is signed by James Sheehan, who is in charge of overseeing charities for the New York Attorney General. The ban comes just four days after a Washington Post report revealing that the Trump Foundation never bothered to register as a New York charity, even though it took in huge sums of cash from donors in the state.
Trump himself has not made a donation to his own charitable foundation since 2008, the Post reported, relying entirely on contributions from others. This year, the Trump Foundation embarked on its biggest fundraising push so far, setting up a web site to take donations that the foundation said would go to veteran’s groups.
Scheiderman gave Trump and his foundation 15 days to submit the required paperwork to make his charity legal in New York, where both the foundation and Trump himself are headquartered.
Charities receiving more that $25,000 per year in donations are required to meet special registration requirements in New York. In one example of donations exceeding the limit, The Post found, the foundation has taken $2.3 million from individuals and companies who owed money to Trump, but were told to donate to the foundation instead.
The letter banning the Trump Foundation from taking money in New York also comes just two days after an explosive New York Times story revealing that Trump ma not have paid federal or state income tax for an 18-year-period, due to a staggering claim that he lost almost $916 million in 1995.