Donald Trump made the donation to a political organization that was supporting Mrs. Bondi, right after her office revealed that it was looking into the for-profit education business.
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The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are defending themselves after the Republication candidate was fined for a donation to the Florida attorney general.
A liberal watchdog group plans to file an IRS complaint against Donald Trump’s charitable foundation on Wednesday, asking the tax agency to investigate a $25,000 campaign donation that the charity made to help Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Confronted with a contradictory statement, however, by a Bondi aide who previously said that the attorney general had personally solicited Trump for the contribution, the Trump campaign spun to reconcile the two accounts.
More controversially, however, Bondi’s office was at the time mulling whether to join a NY state probe into allegations that customers who paid thousands of dollars to Trump University, Trump’s for-profit education company, for a real estate investment course were ripped off.
She ultimately did not, the Huffington Post notes.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assessed Trump a $2,500 penalty for the illegal and improper donation.
The Sept. 7 complaint implores the IRS to “investigate the Trump Foundation and, should it find that the foundation violated its tax-exempt status or other provisions of the tax code and federal law, take appropriate action”.
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.
“Of course I asked Donald Trump for a contribution, that’s not what this is about”, Bondi said Tuesday. Abbott never was involved in the investigation, according to David Morales, the deputy attorney general at the time who oversaw the probe. Campaigning in Iowa last winter, he said of his donations to politicians, “When I call, they kiss my ass”.
Three years ago the Attorney General of NY filed a fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump for operating Trump University, the university that was not a real university. “I never spoke to her, first of all, she’s a fine person beyond reproach”, he told the Associated Press on Monday. “And do you know what?”
Yahoo reports that The Trump Foundation gave $100,000 to the Citizens United Foundation in 2014.
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Schneiderman’s office said they were not aware of Trump’s donation at the time, but after Yahoo showed his staff a tax return that included the donation, spokesman Eric Soufer told Yahoo in an email that it was characteristic of Trump’s “vendetta against this office”. The timing of the lawsuit was based on Schneiderman’s efforts at the time to gain access to the donor information.
