Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is refusing to reveal which groups will receive donations from an event Thursday evening where the Republican presidential front-runner says he’ll raise money for veterans.
The campaign’s silence comes just hours before the event is set to take place and after it has already boasted a quarter-milion dollar haul on an online donation page set up Thursday to collect the funds. And just one of 10 veterans’ organizations CNN called for comment said they had been contacted by Trump representatives to potentially receive funds.
At the kickoff of Trump’s rally Thursday, the billionaire businessman said he had raised nearly $6 million, including $500,000 through its website in one day.
The website claims that “100% of your donations will go directly to Veterans needs,” but donations are funneled through the Donald J. Trump Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Trump Organization.
The page does not list the names of any veterans’ organizations poised to receive the funds and the Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests asking which veterans organizations would participate in the event or receive fundraising proceeds.
After a first version of this article published, Donald Trump, Jr. tweeted that the “list will be announced during @realDonaldTrump’s speech tonight.”
Trump announced Tuesday he would hold an event Thursday in Iowa to benefit veterans groups, “wounded warriors” in particular, after pulling out of the Republican debate set to take place at the same time.
Asked by CNN’s Jim Sciutto about which veterans’ charities will receive funds, Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson simply said the donations “will be spread all across the country to veterans organizations.”
“The money that’s going to be raised will be in bulk and the disbursements will be spread all across the country to veterans organizations. And those who don’t want to receive the money, we’ll make sure not to send them a check,” Pierson told Sciutto Thursday on CNN.
All six major veterans’ organizations CNN said they had not been contacted by Trump representatives offering a piece of the proceeds raised — those groups include: American Legion, the Wounded Warrior Project, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars, AmVets and Fisher House.
CNN also reached five of the nine veterans’ organizations the Trump Foundation has donated to between 2010 and 2014, Fisher House, the Green Beret Foundation, Special Operations Warrior Foundation, Heroes to Heroes and K9s for Warriors.
Only the latter, a group that provides service dogs to veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress, said it was contacted by Trump associates regarding the fundraising.
Executive Director Rory Diamond said a veteran with the Trump campaign’s Iowa operation reached out to the organization to ask whether it would be open to receiving funds. The campaign has yet to confirm whether K9s for Vets will receive a share of the fundraising.
But Diamond said his group hoped to receive some of the funds.
“While we’re a non-partisan organization, we are busy trying to stop the crisis of 22 veterans committing suicide every day and we are thrilled to take funds from Mr. Trump — no problem. We are going to save lives with that money,” he said.
Trump has frequently touted his commitment to helping veterans, claiming in his stump speech that veterans are treated “worse” than undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
But a CNN analysis of the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s charitable contributions between 2010 and 2014 — the five most recent years publicly available — reveals that the foundation funneled only a small slice of its charitable donations to veterans’ groups.
Of the Foundation’s $5 million in charitable contributions, it donated just $77,000 to nine veterans’ organizations, or 1.5% of its total contributions.
Trump estimates — and frequently touts — his net worth at more than $10 billion.
