Justin Trudeau lied about having complete separation from his family’s Foundation since becoming Prime Minister, a report suggests.
Since the discovery that a Chinese Communist Party-backed donation was given to the Trudeau Foundation in 2016, the Prime Minister said he’s had “absolutely no intersection” with his family’s Foundation.
But on Friday, The French-Canadian outlet La Presse reported that The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) spoke directly to an executive director from the Trudeau Foundation one year after he was first elected Prime Minister.
Reports indicate that on November 24, 2016, Trudeau’s then-director of issues management, Zita Astravas, reached out by email to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation’s then-executive director, Elise Comtois.
The conversation between the PMO and the Trudeau Foundation specifically pertained to the “Chinese donation” that was made just months earlier by the CCP advisor, Zhang Bin, and fellow Chinese billionaire, Gensheng Niu.
“As requested, you will find below the key elements we provided to the media who contacted us regarding Zhang Bin and Gensheng Niu’s $200,000 donation,” Comtois wrote to the PMO.
The Trudeau Foundation further told the PMO in the email exchange about the terms of the donation. On top of the $200,000 to the Foundation, Zhang and Gensheng donated $500,000 to the University of Montreal where Pierre Trudeau used to teach.
Previous reports suggest the men also donated $50,000 towards a statue of Pierre Trudeau.
On Thursday, The Globe and Mail reported that following the donation, a Chinese state-backed group told the Trudeau Foundation to omit CCP donor Zhang Bin and billionaire Niu Gensheng from its books. The Foundation complied, which has since made returning the donation a problem.
Last month, the Foundation said it returned the dirty donation, but anonymous board members later said otherwise.
This followed Tuesday’s dumpster-fire departure that saw the Trudeau Foundation’s entire Board of Directors, President, and CEO resign.
Donations to the Trudeau Foundation increased tenfold between 2014 and 2016, the two years between Trudeau first getting elected Prime Minister.
