Why Donald Trump donated to Clinton Foundation?

According to The Clinton Foundation, Donald Trump is listed as contributing somewhere between $100,000-$250,000, making it difficult to believe (if one correlates values to refusing money from people they oppose ideologically) the verbal sparring match between Clinton and Trump.

In terms of honesty from a new perspective in American politics, POLITICO published a piece titled “Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Follow the Money” and quotes Vermont’s Senator as boldly stating, “I don’t want money from the billionaires.” Sanders wants to break up the banks, enact a modern-day Glass Steagall, thinks that we’ve entered an era that could lead to oligarchy, and believes the “Billionaire Class” has too great a control of our political system.

Sanders speaks his mind, and his actions back up both his value system and political philosophy. If it’s too big to fail (even after the horrendous 2008 financial crisis), then it’s too big to exist. For this reason, Bernie Sanders raises money primarily from his website and not investment banks like other candidates.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, will not propose a new Glass-Steagall, her foundation is linked to ethical scandal, and Mother Jones estimates that Clinton has earned $5 million from speaking engagements to “corporate heavyweights.” In terms of Donald Trump’s latest xenophobic comments, it’s admirable that Clinton has condemned the Donald’s racist remarks, but donations from the billionaire raise questions as to the sincerity of their recent sparring match. According to a Daily Caller article titled Donald Trump Donated At Least $100K to Clinton Foundation, the same people claiming to vehemently disagree with one another seemed to have agreed in the past on campaign donations:

– The 2016 Republican presidential candidate and businessman Donald Trump has donated at least $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation, despite his criticism of the foundation’s dealings.

What Trump neglected to mention was his own donations to the foundation. Trump is listed on the Clinton Foundation’s donor page as having given somewhere between $100,001 and $250,000.

Perhaps the donation shouldn’t be so shocking considering Trump also donated to Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate campaign, before selling himself as conservative firebrand.

The Washington Post states that not only did Trump donate to Clinton, but “The biggest recipient of all has been the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee of New York.”

Trump defended his donations to New York Democrats in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that April, proclaiming that in the state, “everyone is Democratic” and implying that to donate otherwise would be waste of his money.

Who was Hilary’s campaign was funded from?

On the Democratic side, front-runner Hillary Clinton has focused her fundraising efforts on her official campaign. She’s raised $45 million, compared with about $24 million gathered by allied outside groups. Bernie Sanders has discouraged super-PACs from backing his campaign and has raised about $15 million through traditional means.

 

Former hedge-fund manager George Soros, the media mogul Haim Saban, and the DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg are among those mentioned in media reports as having written large checks to groups backing Clinton. The Florida car dealer Norman Braman, the pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren, and the hedge-fund executive Robert Mercer are among those said to be already backing various Republicans.

 

The only Republican candidate unlikely to be dependent on outside money is Trump, the real-estate mogul and television personality who pegs his own net worth at almost $9 billion. “I’m not using donors,” he said when he declared as a candidate last month. “I don’t care. I’m really rich.”