Questions about Trump’s foundation have intensified after it was revealed it had sent a $25,000 donation in September 2013 to the Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s re-election campaign, after her office said it was considering legal action against Trump University.
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Trump spokesman Jason Miller called the inquiry a “left-wing hit job”, CNN reported, while pro-Trump pundit Jeffrey Lord called Schneiderman a “sleaze” on CNN’s OutFront.
A letter to the Trump Foundation by the NY attorney general’s office indicates the investigation is at least partially focused on the $25,000 donation to And Justice For All, a Bondi-aligned political action committee.
“We have been concerned that the Trump Foundation has engaged in impropriety from that point of view”, he said. That second organization – Justice For All – says they never received a donation from the Trump organization.
He said the timing of the NY probe “has to be considered as suspicious as it comes on top of possibly the worst week that Hillary Clinton has had as a presidential candidate due to her health issues and her denigration of Trump supporters”, he said.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are now calling on United States attorney general Loretta Lynch to investigate the Trump Foundation’s donation to Bondi.
Schneiderman, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, has insisted no political motivations were behind the Trump University inquiry and had not hesitated to discuss the case publicly.
The Trump Foundation additionally listed “no” when asked on a tax form if it had made any poliltical contributions in 2013.
In a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, all the Democratic lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee requested that she investigate the Bondi donation.
Trump’s campaign called Schneiderman “a partisan hack”, according to Politico.
“There has been considerable chatter for several weeks about irregularities at the Trump Foundation”, he noted.
While Schneiderman did not specify the focus of his investigation, his announcement comes as Washington Post reports suggested donations to Trump’s foundation were passed off as contributions from himself, CNN noted.
Trump University was “really a fraud from beginning to end” and “just a scam”, Schneiderman told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in June.
The Trump campaign has repeatedly declined to provide evidence to show that Trump has donated as much to charity as he claims.
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Trump has not given any of his own money to the charity since 2008, the Post reported, citing tax filings.
