“We’ve inquired into it”, Schneiderman told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead“.
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A formal investigation was never opened, and Trump and Bondi have both said there was no wrongdoing and said the donation was not tied to any favors.
Eric Scheiderman has launched a probe of the Donald J. Trump Foundation to ensure its compliance with state regulations governing charities.
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.
Nonetheless, Democrats have leveled the accusation that Trump has paid off government officials for preferential treatment and made the Bondi donation a pivotal part of that line of attack.
“A number of criminal statutes would appear to be implicated by this course of conduct”, the Democrats wrote, suggesting bribery and tax laws governing nonprofit organizations.
Schneiderman, a Democrat, has sued Trump in the past.
Schneiderman has spoken out against Trump and his various businesses in the past, previously telling ABC’s “Good Morning America” that Trump University’s real estate seminars were “really a fraud from beginning to end” and “just a scam”. For years, the foundation has primarily given away other people’s money, the Post reported this week.
“No, I don’t know anything about that”, Trump Jr. responded. “When I call, they kiss my ass”.
NY attorney general Eric Schneiderman said he has opened an inquiry into the Donald J Trump Foundation to ensure the Republican presidential nominee’s charity was complying with state laws governing non-profits.
Trump foundation is under investigation, according to an announcement made by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
Trump’s campaign blasted the announcement, calling Schneiderman “a partisan hack” and the inquiry “nothing more than another left-wing hit job”.
In a June 28 response, Trump Foundation treasurer Allen Weisselberg said the donation was an innocent mistake.
The AG also is looking into money from the foundation being used to buy a life-sized portrait of Trump and a football helmet signed by Tim Tebow.
The announcement comes after recent media reports raised questions about the foundation’s financial dealings. After his campaign released a list of groups receiving about $5.6 million, about half of the 30 reached by AP said they’d received checks around the time of Trump’s May 24 Post interview.
Democrats have cited an Associated Press report that Bondi solicited the donation personally, around the time her office was debating whether to join NY state’s investigation into Trump’s real estate training school in Florida.
The Associated Press reported that Bondi sought the donation personally about when the state was deciding whether to join the Trump University lawsuit. “So, we’ll continue to try to bribe her for justice as opposed to bribing her for personal gain, which is what Donald Trump has done”.
The donation violated tax law.
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But days after the check was cut, Bondi, now a prominent Trump surrogate, dropped the investigation.
