The donation was made to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s fundraising committee in September 2013, days after a news report that her office was considering joining a lawsuit against Trump University for fraud. The donation is back in the news after it was reported Trump paid a $2,500 IRS penalty for violating rules against using a foundation for political purposes. A Trump Organization senior vice president told The Post that the donation was “an honest mistake” and that the contribution wasn’t properly listed.
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“The following spring”, The Huffington Post adds, “Ivanka and her father donated another $125,000 to the Republican Party of Florida ― Bondi’s single biggest source of campaign funds”.
“[Trump’s] comments were in reference to any discussion about Trump University-not the donation”, spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Politico, admitting that the two may have spoken, but not about the major investigation that was then hanging over Trump’s head.
“I think there’s actually no comparison between a man who gives consistently to Republican candidates in their re-election … and a woman who, as secretary of state, had her official staff that we pay for bartering for position and bartering for state dinners – just making contributions that are inappropriate”, she said.
Bondi admitted Tuesday that she solicited the donation from Trump in 2013, but blamed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for the controversy. “Hillary Clinton will not bully me”.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Donald Trump has long insisted he’s uniquely qualified to fix a political system corrupted by campaign contributions because, as he said in a Fox News debate last summer, he knows that system inside and out.
“And of course, as we know, there was a phone conversation between them – they contradict each other”, Clinton said, adding that the “American people deserve to know” what was said in that call because “clearly” Bondi “did not proceed with the investigation”. “None of which is true”.
Documents received by the Cox Media Group Washington bureau through a state open records request detail the complaints against Donald Trump-related businesses sent by ordinary Americans to the Florida attorney general’s office.
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“In the case of Mr. Trump and Attorney General [Bondi], they both said that they [had] never discussed the Trump University lawsuit”, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said on ABC’s “Good Morning America”. The suit is still pending in state court in NY. He says Florida was merely reviewing the NY complaint to see if it had any relevance for the state. She took aim at Clinton, who mentioned the donation during an impromptu press conference aboard her new campaign plane earlier in the week.
