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In late May 2016 a number of web sites published articles reporting that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had improperly received $150,000 in federal aid earmarked for small businesses affected by the September 11 attacks for a property he owned or maintained at 40 Wall Street in New York. Many social media shares misleadingly described the reports as just in or breaking, suggesting that rumors of Trump's purported fiscal impropriety with respect to 9/11 funds had only recently come to light, and their underlying articles mischaracterized the details of the controversy. The web site Bipartisan Report published an article inaccurately stating the funds in question were allocated expressly for buildings that had sustained physical damage in the 9/11 attacks and incorrectly implied that the funds were intended only for use in repairing structural damage to buildings: ReverbPress's reporting dated the controversy (not Trump's purported acceptance of funds) to a 2006 New York Daily News exposé, framing the distribution of funds to larger businesses as some sort of corporate shell game: Both articles linked to an 18 May 2016 Daily News article about the controversy, in which the Daily News cited their own January 2006 coverage of the allegations. Back then, the New York newspaper quoted lawmakers and community leaders who opined that money purportedly funneled to Trump could have assisted truly small businesses decimated by the collapse of the World Trade Center: The paper's 2016 rehash of the claims added little in the way of updated information, dubbing Trump a welfare king and briefly delving into the candidate's contemporaneous response to those allegations before listing off a number of other controversial arrangements with the City of New York unrelated to 9/11: The Daily News article didn't reference a specific Time magazine piece, but on 12 April 2016 that publication had reported on claims made by a Political Action Committee (PAC) against Trump that referenced the 2006 Daily News report. According to Time, the 9/11 allegations had resurfaced in ads geotargeted to New York City residents ahead of the state's primary elections: The ad in question was titled Stolen Recovery and included footage of Trump presumably recorded in 2001. In the clip Trump stated that he owned property in the vicinity of the World Trade Center, but that it had not been damaged in the attack: As the Daily News's 2016 article noted, Trump provided a statement to Time about the attack ad's claims, but the statement was vague, and Trump asserted any funds he received were compensation for his hospitality in the aftermath of 9/11. It wasn't clear whether Trump was admitting to receiving the small business aid funds in question, or whether he was maintaining he did receive funds but the money was intended for a purpose other than small business recovery. Trump said it was probably a reimbursement for his actions during the period of immediate post-9/11 recovery, but he appeared not to be aware of the specifics of the media's charge against him: Another version of the claim was published by the web site Addicting Info, holding that Trump's property at 40 Wall Street didn't meet federal criteria for what constituted a small business entitled to financial relief doled out to affected businesses. The outlet asserted Trump had swindled the Empire State Development Corporation out of funds to which he was not entitled. That web site also misrepresented the financial aid as funds designated solely for the repair of damaged buildings: However, back in 2006 the Daily News not only suggested Trump was technically entitled to federal aid under the established guidelines, but they also reported that many other subsidiaries of large businesses had similarly qualified for and received federal aid from the same program by meeting the Empire State Development Corp.'s definition of what constituted a small business: At the time of the controversy, Trump was not the sole business entity named by the paper. The Daily News explained in detail that the ESDC used number of employees as a qualifying benchmark with respect to the disbursed funds, not annual revenues or additional ownership of businesses. In the chaotic wake of 9/11, it was not uncommon for relief agencies and the government to adopt a simpler standard of categorization in order to allocate money with alacrity to victims in need, or to stave off damage to the economy in the weeks, months, and years to come. That original report named several large businesses entitled to relief funds under the standard applied by the ESDC, Trump among them. The paper noted that those entities often reported yearly profits far exceeding the relatively minor funds received under the 9/11 small business aid initiative and decried what was painted as a loophole under which a significant portion of the funds allocated were distributed to larger companies with relatively small presences in the downtown Manhattan area affected by the tragedy: The Daily News was neither the sole source of information on the grants provided to businesses after the attacks, nor the most neutral. A September 2005 report [PDF] on the economic recovery initiatives undertaken after the event clearly and concisely explained the scope business loans and grants available to affected businesses under the Business Recovery Grant Program, which was not specifically described as being for small businesses only (save for the 500-employee threshold). Moreover, the qualifying zone included any business operating on or below 14th Street, an area so large that the majority of eligible businesses would not have been damaged in the attack in a structural sense: The attack ad from which allegations resurfaced placed focus on Trump's 2001 statement that none of his properties were damaged in the event, suggesting that his access to grants was improper. That implication was misleading, as recovery programs focused on the broader effects of the attacks on businesses, since even businesses that didn't sustain physical damage did not escape financial damage due to the months-long excavation of the site, ongoing disruption of widely relied upon public transportation services, and other factors that gravely affected all businesses located in the surrounding area: The BRG's documentation [PDF] expressly contradicted the Daily News' assertion that the funds were somehow only intended for small businesses, and that large ones nonetheless managed to get their hands on chump change they neither needed nor were entitled to under the law. Another concise explanation of the recovery program explicitly stated that the funds were for small and large firms alike, with a clear goal of preventing their exodus from a then-recovering lower Manhattan:
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