Comment on this storyComment
Newly obtained emails indicate that several individual donors were willing to fund the official portraits of Trump and former first lady Melania Trump for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, but that the Smithsonian ultimately agreed to instead accept a $650,000 contribution from Trump’s Save America PAC.
The donation marked the first time in recent memory that a political organization has financed a former president’s portrait for the museum, as they are typically paid for by individual donors solicited by the Smithsonian. News of the unusual gift, first reported in August by Business Insider, also sparked a public backlash against the museum and questions about the identity of a second donor who gave a separate $100,000 gift to help fund the portraits, according to emails obtained by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and reviewed Monday by The Washington Post.
Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas…
This article was written by Amy B Wang and originally published on www.washingtonpost.com