Claim:
Former U.S. President Donald Trump once donated to Kamala Harris' campaign.
Rating:
True ( About this rating? )
Context:
Campaign finance records showed Trump donated $5,000 to Harris' reelection campaign for California attorney general in 2011. He also donated $1,000 to the same campaign in 2013. Separately, Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump donated $2,000 to Harris' reelection effort in California in 2014.
Shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the election, a rumor circulated alleging that former President Donald Trump had once donated to Harris' political pursuits.
According to various outlets ranging from The Wall Street Journal to celebrity social media accounts PopCrave and PopBase , Trump reportedly made a $5,000 donation to Harris' 2014 reelection campaign for California attorney general. (Voters initially elected her to that office in 2010, and she successfully ran for reelection in 2014.)
Some media outlets and social media users shared an image of the alleged check used for the donation. Among them was U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz , a Democrat from Florida.
It was true that, in 2011, Trump donated $5,000 to Harris' reelection campaign for California attorney general, campaign finance records showed. He also donated $1,000 to the same campaign in 2013. Separately, Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump donated $2,000 to Harris' reelection effort in California.
As far as the purported image of the $5,000 check, Snopes was unable to uncover evidence to independently corroborate its legitimacy. That said, there was no indication that it was a fabricated image (i.e., digitally created), and its information aligned with California campaign finance records. The image first appeared online in 2019, when media outlets reportedly obtained a copy of the check.
By federal and state election laws, political candidates must report all campaign donations, and those transactions are publicly viewable. In this case, we used the California Secretary of State's database of campaign finances, which provides data between 2001 and the present. We limited our search results to display only donations made to Harris and used the keyword "Trump" to search for the alleged contribution.
(California Secretary of State)
We found three donations, totaling $8,000, all of which were made to Harris' 2014 reelection campaign for California attorney general. The first donation was $5,000, made by Donald Trump in September 2011. The search also showed he made a second donation for $1,000 to the same campaign in February 2013. Finally, the remaining $2,000 came from Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump's elder daughter, in June 2014.
To investigate the legitimacy of the image supposedly showing a photocopied version of the $5,000 check, we compared it with the records available via the California Secretary of State's website. The alleged check was for $5,000, which matched Donald Trump's donation in 2011. The check was dated Sept. 13, 2011 , and stamped for Sept. 26, 2011 , which also matched the Secretary of State's data.
We ran the image through the reverse-image search engine TinEye . Those results showed the image first appeared online on July 31, 2019.
On that date, several outlets including Fox News and the Daily Mail published articles including the image of the alleged $5,000 check. According to the Fox News article, the outlet obtained a copy of the check alongside court records regarding a 2013 ethics complaint into then- New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderma n. The complaint stemmed from the attorney general's office 2013 investigation into Trump University. (Schneiderman resigned in 2018 after four women accused him of assault .)
Both Donald and Ivanka Trump reportedly provided sworn affidavits that acknowledged the $5,000 donation to Harris, alleging it was suggested and arranged with help from a Schneiderman aide.
According to 2019 reporting from The Sacramento Bee , which spoke with Harris' campaign spokesperson, her reelection campaign donated the $6,000 from Donald Trump to "a non-profit that advocates for civil and human rights for Central Americans." According to that reporting, Harris made that donation in 2015, a year after she won reelection as California's attorney general and as she was beginning her campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate. (The Sacramento Bee did not say how the campaign spent the $2,000 from Ivanka Trump.)
Sources:
Advanced Search-Power Search-California Secretary of State . http://powersearch.sos.ca.gov/advanced.php. Accessed 22 July 2024. Cadei, Emily. "Big-Dollar Donors, Including Donald Trump, Fueled Kamala Harris' Political Rise in California Read More at: Https://Www.Sacbee.Com/News/Politics-Government/Capitol-Alert/Article226975319.Html#storylink=cpy."
The Sacramento Bee , 4 Mar. 2019, https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article226975319.html. Kenton, Luke. "Trump and Ivanka Once Donated $8,000 to Kamala Harris' Campaign."
Mail Online , 1 Aug. 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7308321/Donald-Trump-Ivanka-donated-8-000-political-campaign-California.html. Singman, Brooke. "Court Files Shed Light on Kamala's Awkward Donation from Donald Trump."
Fox News , 31 July 2019, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/court-files-shed-light-on-kamalas-awkward-donation-from-donald-trump.
TinEye Reverse Image Search . https://tineye.com/search/33aabfe98bf88140242db4969618d34c6bb7cd9c?sort=score&order=desc&page=2. Accessed 22 July 2024. "Trump Previously Donated Thousands to Kamala Harris."
The Telegraph , 22 July 2024, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/07/22/donald-trump-donate-kamala-harris-presidental-election/. Yurow, Jeremy. "Donald Trump Once Donated to Kamala Harris Campaign in California."
USA TODAY , https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/21/donald-trump-donation-kamala-harris-campaign-california/74493046007/. Accessed 22 July 2024.
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