Trump campaign is nearly halfway through paying out $6 million to veterans charities just five weeks after last-minute fundraiser helped him escape Iowa debate

Donald Trump's campaign said Thursday just hours before a high-stakes primary debate that the Republican front-runner is about halfway to his goal of distributing $6 million in charitable donations to charities that cater to U.S. military veterans.

The billionaire put in the first $1 million dollars himself, he said during a January 28 rally he held in Des Moines, Iowa instead of participating in a debate hosted by the Fox News Channel.

Trump boasted that night – and during several subsequent campaign events – that $6 million was in play, between six- and seven-figure checks from his wealthy friends and more modest donations collected via a hastily developed website.

But as the clock ticked down to another Fox News debate in Detroit, questions lingered over what happened to the money that seemed to buy Trump a get-out-of-debate-free card five weeks ago.

DailyMail.com asked Trump campaign press secretary Hope Hicks for a list of disbursements, and she provided it quickly via email.

SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE LIST  

HE'S ACTUALLY DOING IT: Donald Trump's campaign provided a list of nearly $3 million in contributions he's generated to veterans charities, five weeks after he boasted of collecting $6 million in pledges during a January 28 Iowa event (pictured)

NOT QUITE: On Thursday a CNN report claimed Trump 'dispersed' [sic] only $800,000 but a list obtained by DailyMail.com shows nearly four times as much has gone out the door

It shows $2,935,000 awarded to 25 veterans groups, with organizations linked to Special Forces – the Navy SEAL Foundation and the Green Beret Foundation – receiving more than one-quarter of the total.

Donations processed through the Donald J. Trump Foundation total $1,235,000 of the listed amounts, accounting for more than the $1 million Trump pledged personally. 

Carl Icahn, an investment billionaire who endorsed Trump months ago, kicked in $500,000 from his personal foundation.

Pharmaceutical distribution titan Stewart Rahr used his own philanthropy to disburse his $1 million pledge to 10 different veterans charities.

New York City real estate investor Richard LeFrak's family foundation paid $100,000 to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. Two more smaller donors gave $50,000 each to the Navy SEALs Foudation.

Trump did not say at his January event that he had $6 million in checks overall – only that he had 'raised' that amount.

Hicks declined comment on whether millions had been pledged but not yet collected.

CNN aired a report Thursday morning that questioned whether the Trump fundraising exercise was on the up-and-up at all.

OOF: The CNN report claimed Trump's campaign was stonewalling on dollar amounts but it readily handed out the list hours later

STILL ON TOP: Trump has confounded political conventional wisdom as he romps through the GOP primary season on his way to a possible presidential nomination

'All we want to know is: Where's the money?' reporter Drew Griffin blasted Trump, suggesting the campaign was stonewalling.

'We get a lot of confusing answers but not a lot of hard facts and numbers of the accounting of this,' he said.

Griffin said CNN worked from a list of 22 charities the Trump campaign distributed a month ago, and them to say whether they had seen checks roll in – and 'nine organizations say they got a total of $800,000, just five hundred of which came from Trump.'

'We have no idea where this money went,' he said. 'We continue to ask and get no answers.'

But Hicks provided a detailed accounting on Thursday afternoon. 

'We have given to the 22 groups we originally announced and many others,' she said in an email. 

'Additionally, we are continuing to distribute the money raised as it comes in and we are expanding the list of groups receiving contributions.'

'If the media spent half as much time highlighting the work of these groups and how our Veterans have been so mistreated, rather than trying to disparage Mr. Trump’s generosity for a totally unsolicited gesture for which he had no obligation, we would all be better for it,' Hicks complained.

Trump, she said, 'has raised millions of dollars for the Vets, and rather than being thanked, he is attacked.'

She also quoted Trump saying that 'no good deed goes unpunished.'

DailyMail.com placed calls and sent emails to all 25 organizations on the Trump campaign's list on Thursday, and received confirmations in less than three hours from 11 of them saying the list was accurate.

The other 14 organizations have not yet confirmed the numbers. No organization on the list indicated that anything on it was incorrect.