WaPo, March 22:
>> The donation to Bondi’s group by Trump’s foundation, a charity that the billionaire businessman created in the 1980s, was controversial because it came as Bondi was reviewing whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University, a real-estate-seminar business affiliated with the front-runner.
Bondi, a Republican who was preparing for her 2014 reelection campaign, never took action against Trump University.
When questions arose at the time, the group and Trump defended the donation.
The treasurer of the pro-Bondi And Justice for All, Nancy Watkins, told the Tampa Bay Times at the time that the group was “comfortable with the propriety of the contribution from the Trump Foundation.” Trump told the paper then that Bondi “is a fabulous representative of the people — Florida is lucky to have her.” <<
And yet --- once called on it by a watchdog group, the Rump campaign suddenly morphed from "comfortable with the donation" to "oh noes, it was a mistake, wrong charity, silly us"....
>> Weisselberg, the foundation’s treasurer, said the mistakes began with an accounts-payable clerk at the Trump Organization.
The clerk received a request for payment, Weisselberg said, in the name of Bondi’s group, And Justice for All. Then, the clerk had to decide whether the check would come from Trump’s charity or his personal funds.
The clerk had a standing order to consult a reference book, Weisselberg said. “In that book, it lists all the bona fide charities, so we went to that book and in that book, sure enough, is And Justice for All,” Weisselberg said.
That was a mistake, he said, but the clerk didn’t know it.
The listing she found for And Justice for All was actually for a nonprofit with the same name, located in Utah. So the clerk, Weisselberg said, wrote a check for that name, drawn from the charitable foundation’s funds.
If the clerk had known that the check was meant for a political group, Weisselberg said, “we would have taken it out of [Trump’s] own personal account.” <<
OH. So Rump would have paid her off
personally rather than from the charity.
Well, thanks for clearing that up.
