April 7, 2008
By Grant Williams
Barack Obama, (click here) the Democratic presidential candidate, and his wife, Michelle Obama, have released their tax return for last year showing that they donated 5.7 percent of their income to charitable causes.
The tax return shows that the Illinois senator and Mrs. Obama, who reported $4.2-million in income, gave $240,370 to 33 churches and charities in 2007.
Senator and Mrs. Obama made their largest gift, of $50,000, to the United Negro College Fund. They gave $35,000 to CARE, the international relief organization, and $26,270 to Trinity United Church of Christ (whose pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has made headlines for controversial sermons)....
Trump does not have the corner on generosity by elected presidents. These donations by Former President Obama and Mrs. Obama occurred before he was elected to office. Why the bragging? Trump doesn't put this income tax return out to the public. Evidently, President Obama never was embarrassed by it and it was where the American people learned about the couple's generosity.
22 May 2020
By Melissa Davey
Efforts to highlight Donald Trump’s largesse (click here) during his time in office have backfired after his press secretary appeared to display the US president’s personal bank details to the world.
At a press conference on Friday, Kayleigh McEnany announced that Trump would donate his quarterly pay cheque to the Department of Health and Human Services to “support the efforts being undertaken to confront, contain and combat the coronavirus”. So far, so laudable.
However, when she held up the $100,000 cheque for White House reporters to see, it came complete with all Trump’s banking details.
An administration official told the New York Times mock cheques were never used in the briefing, with a White House statement saying, “Today his salary went to help advance new therapies to treat this virus, but leave it to the media to find a shameful reason not to simply report the facts, focusing instead on whether the check is real or not.”...
