“We’ve recently learned that his Trump Foundation has been fined $2,500 for illegal activity when it made a political contribution to the attorney general of Florida at the time she was being asked by her constituents to investigate Trump University”, Clinton said aboard her campaign plane Tuesday.
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Trump University was being sued for fraud.
“Trump Association donated $25,000 to a super PAC tied to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as her office was considering a fraud investigation into Trump University”, reported Katy Tur on NBC Nightly News.
Trump didn’t write Bondi a check on the night of the fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, but the use of the space itself constitutes a significant donation.
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign – stung by criticism of Clinton’s relationships with donors to the Clinton Foundation – has seized on the Bondi donation. Now, Trump has adopted the same line as many career politicians: that political donations are not always meant to buy favors.
“You can see a timeline and the direct result of the money”, Brzezinski said, “which is what he says he does with money – he buys people off, he makes deals”. After receiving the donation, Bondi decided not to pursue the case.
Marc Reichelderfer, a veteran Republican political consultant who worked on Bondi’s reëlection campaign, told the A.P.’s reporting team that the conversation between Bondi and Trump took place “several weeks” in advance of Bondi’s announcement that her office was deciding whether to join a lawsuit against Trump University proposed by Schneiderman.
I never spoke to her, first of all.
DONALD TRUMP: I don’t think she has a presidential look.
O’DONNELL: That was a year ago.
Not at all. The fact that Trump’s charity made the unlawful donation instead of Trump himself was “just an honest mistake” according to Jeffrey McConney, senior vice-president of the Trump Organization.
HORSLEY: New York’s lawsuit against Trump University is still pending, along with a lawsuit filed by former students of the school.
Trump’s spokeswoman told NBC News the infraction was a “minor” oversight and corrected by officials at the Trump Organization after the IRS made them aware of it. The Trump Foundation’s tax return did not list the illegal contribution.
Questions also have been raised about Trump’s $35,000 to the campaign of then-Texas Attorney Greg Abbott after the state dropped its own Trump University probe. “Reichelfelder said that Bondi was unaware of dozens of consumer complaints received by her office about Trump’s real-estate seminars at the time she requested the donation”, the A.P. story went on.
That’s when Bondi announced she wasn’t going forward with a lawsuit against Trump and wouldn’t join Schneiderman’s lawsuit, citing insufficient evidence to prosecute the NY real estate mogul, according to the AP. Now, it turns out he did, and not only that, he gave a massive discount to Bondi for her fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort. When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. I never even spoke to her about it at all.
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“I’ve got to give to them, because when I want something, I get it”, he said. Also, one of Pam Bondi’s former aides declared in June that the attorney general solicited the donation directly, while her office has not responded to any inquires related to this case. Attorneys general from other states had said they couldn’t defend bans on adoption by same-sex couples or LGBT individuals, saying they were unconstitutional.
