You don’t have to have a degree from Trump University to figure out this stinks.
A watchdog group asked the IRS on Wednesday to investigate Donald Trump’s illegal charity donation to the Florida attorney general’s reelection that came just before she decided not to look into his sham “university.”
Washington-based Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics asked the IRS to probe whether the Republican presidential candidate is “personally liable” for the illegal cash for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Trump’s charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, gave $25,000 to Bondi’s campaign in 2013.
Soon afterward, Bondi announced Florida would not investigate fraud claims against the troubled Trump University — now the subject of federal lawsuits in New York and California.
The donation received minor attention at the time. It resurfaced last week after The Washington Post reported that Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty for violating tax laws with the contribution.
As a registered nonprofit, the Trump Foundation is barred from making any political donations.
The Huffington Post reported Tuesday that Trump had held a $3,000-per-person fund-raiser for Bondi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach in 2014, months after she’d won another term.
The Trump campaign dismissed the donation as “a minor issue” that had been settled.
Trump has repeatedly boasted of getting favors from politicians for his money. “I give to everybody,” he said at a debate in August 2015. “When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.”
Asked about the donation Monday in Ohio, Trump said about Bondi: “She’s a fine person. Never spoken to her about it. Never!”
But the Wednesday complaint asked the IRS to revoke the charity’s nonprofit status and refer the case to the Department of Justice if it finds any wrongdoing by Trump himself.
Bondi has denied dropping the probe when her office was contemplating whether to join a New York investigation, led by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (below), of Trump University. Schneiderman’s probe began in August 2013.
“I never, nor was my office, investigating him. Never. I would never lie. I would never take money. I’ve been obviously devastated over this,” she told The Tampa Bay Times this past June.
A month after Schneiderman announced his lawsuit, a Bondi spokeswoman confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel that her office was reviewing the situation.
Bondi’s political fund-raising group, And Justice for All, has confirmed receiving a check for $25,000 from the Trump Foundation on Sept. 17, 2013.
Hillary Clinton — accused by some Republicans of “pay to play” with donors to the Clinton Foundation while she served as secretary of state — blasted Trump for his recent troubles.
“There’s so many things that are questionable about that — and the IRS certainly thought so,” she told reporters Monday.
