Trump University

Trump’s Foundation Pays a Penalty for Illegal Donation to Florida AG

Written by SK Ashby

In case you forgot, Donald Trump's foundation allegedly bribed Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi with a $25,000 donation shortly before she dropped her investigation of Trump University.

We haven't heard anything about the case in a while, but today David Fahrenthold at the Washington Post reported that Trump's foundation has paid a penalty for the illegal donation that the foundation tried to hide.

In [2013] tax filings, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump's foundation listed a donation — also for $25,000 — to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi's political group. In fact, Trump's foundation had not given the Kansas group any money.

The prohibited gift was, in effect, replaced with an innocent-sounding but nonexistent donation.

Trump's foundation has paid the IRS a penalty of $2,500, which is pathetic, but at least we have what I will interpret as an admission of guilt.

Donald Trump never settles, you know, except when he does. The foundation says this was all an honest mistake, but if you buy that I have some doomsday insurance I'd like to sell you.

We don't have a smoking gun that proves Attorney General Pam Bondi dropped the case against Trump University because of the Trump Foundation's generous donation, but the alternative explanations aren't exactly much better.

The New York attorney general's office moved forward with their investigation of Trump University and, as we know, the details of the case against it are very damning. Trump University advisers urged students to inflate their own assets to access higher credit, among other things.

In either case, Pam Bondi either dropped the case against Trump University because she was bribed, or she dropped it because she's extremely bad at her job. These are not mutually exclusively explanations.