Did Eric Trump’s Donations to Jewish Charity Violate Rules?

Eric Trump delivers a speech on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Image by Getty Images
The Eric Trump Foundation appears to be implicated in a number of irregularities, dealing with conflicts of interest in its payments and patronizing the pet causes of its board members.
According to a report report in the Associated Press, the foundation contracted for services with numerous subsidiaries of the Trump organization, for example hosting benefit events at a Trump golf course. It also had a board stocked with Trump family friends, who the AP said appeared to steer money to their pet causes.
Both of these allegations, if true, would be a violation of Internal Revenue Service rules on charity, which prohibit those who operate charities from making a profit off them. Those regulations also discourage board members and those associated with a charity from steering monies to organizations close or related to them, out of concern over self-dealing.
The Eric Trump Foundation has an annual budget of over $7 million, and donates most of its proceeds to the St. Jude’s Hospital, a charity for kids with cancer. Apparently, several Jewish organizations have benefited from Eric Trump Foundation monies, though. One of the charities was Chai Lifeline, a group that helps sick children and whose chairman, Larry Spiewak, attended Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s wedding. It is not clear what role that connection had in the donation.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Think every Palestinian in Gaza is Hamas? This week’s protests prove you’re wrong
-
Opinion A Palestinian Oscar-winner’s arrest shocked the world. For these Jewish activists, it was terrifyingly normal
-
Opinion In the Trump administration and Israel, a grotesque display of virility coupled with a loss of humanity
-
Fast Forward Cornell’s new Jewish president says he is ‘very comfortable with where Cornell is currently’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.