Trump's Michigan Vets Charity, Telemarketer Sued Multiple Times

SOUTHFIELD, MI – Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday said a months-long delay in disclosing veterans charities receiving a share of $5.6 million he raised in Iowa in January is the result of an extensive but necessary vetting process.

“You have to go through a process. When you send checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars to people and to companies and to groups that you’ve never heard of, charitable organizations, you have to vet it,” Trump said at Tuesday’s sometimes combative news conference. “You send people out. You do a lot of work."

Partners in one of the organizations Trump tapped to receive a share of the money, American Veterans Foundation and its affiliated fundraising company, American Community Services, both based in Southfield, have already been vetted — extensively, in the courts, and on multiple occasions.

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Michigan’s Republican attorney general, Bill Schuette has been trying for years to close down ACS, one of the nation’s largest charity telemarketing firms. The company is notorious for doling out only a paltry 10 percent of the money it collects to the people it claims to support, and it is under investigation in about a dozen U.S. states for deceptive practices.

An investigation by the Tampa Bay (Florida) Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting showed that one donors give to one cause, they’re bombarded with calls from ASC’s other charity clients.

In 2013, Schuette’s office filed a cease-and-desist order that accused the telemarketer of violating the state’s charitable trust laws in calls it was making for Foundation for American Veterans and three other charities: Vietnam Veterans of Michigan, Breast Cancer Society and Cancer Fund of America.

And last week, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson sued Foundation for American Veterans and ACS for sending out fraudulent “pledge reminders” and making other deceptive claims in an effort to solicit donations.

Earlier this month, Schuette claimed ACS employed “misleading” and “deceptive” practices in a campaign to raise $4.2 million in donations for Wyandotte-based Firefighters Support Services, which Schuette said never made promised grants of any substance to “families that have been burned out of their homes.”

Schuette planned to file a cease-and-desist order that would effectively shut down the charity, and prohibit ACS from raising money on its behalf.

SEE ALSO

• Think Donation Helped Cancer Patients? It Didn’t: Settlement
• Firefighter Charity Raised $4.2M; Fave $5.6K: State
• Charity Receiving Trump Veterans Donation Being Sued
• Donald Trump Throws Tantrum After Press Calls Him Out On Vet Donations

A Trump spokeswoman has not yet responded to questions concerning the donation to Foundation for American Veterans, the lawsuit filed against them in Minnesota and American Community Services, and the vetting process that was undertaken before the donations were made.

Calls to the foundation seeking comment have not yet been returned.

— Additional reporting by Colin Miner

Image credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr / Creative Commons