A 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran has launched a crowdfunding campaign that he says will donate $6 million to veterans organizations if Donald Trump releases his tax returns.
The campaign, which was launched Friday on the crowdfunding website CrowdPac, was created by Peter Kiernan in response to frustration at the Republican presidential nominee’s lack of transparency. Kiernan, a veteran who fought in the war in Afghanistan, selected 10 veterans groups for donations. “Trump claims to love veterans, and so we’re asking him to put his money where his mouth is,” Kiernan wrote on the campaign’s Web page. Trump has claimed that he has donated $6 million to veterans groups in the past.
Kiernan’s campaign got a huge boost Monday when Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and CrowdPac investor, pledged to donate $5 million if the campaign is able to raise $1 million in donations. In a letter Hoffman penned on Medium, the investor wrote that Trump has skirted his obligation to the American people by refusing to release his taxes. “The ingenuity of Kiernan’s proposal is how it gives Trump a strong incentive to act but doesn’t reward him directly for something he should have already done,” he added.
Hoffman chose $5 million as the donation in reference to a similar proposal that Trump made in 2012 in which he promised to donate the same amount to charity if President Obama released his college and passport applications and records.
Kiernan’s campaign has already raised $134,467 from 1,680 separate pledges as of Wednesday morning. No donation will actually be charged on endorsee’s credit cards unless Trump goes through with the transparency request.
The Washington Post reached out to both Kiernan and the Trump campaign via email and has not heard back but will update if a response is received.
For Kiernan, the request is personal. “Any service member who has ever held a security clearance has been subjected to a rigorous background check, to include personal finances, affiliations, and drug activity, all for good reason,” Kiernan wrote on the campaign’s web page. “I believe that to be the Commander-in-Chief of this group, you should be held to the same standards.”
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