Trump Also Hosted Fundraiser for Pam Bondi at Mar-a-Lago After She Dropped Trump U Investigation

Trump and Daughter Gave Florida GOP $125,000 Following Spring

Donald Trump gave Pam Bondi a $25,000 campaign donation as the Florida Republican Attorney General was deliberating on whether or not to bring a suit against the Manhattan billionaire for fraud at his Trump University. Bondi, after receiving the donation, declined to prosecute. 

Months later, Trump held a fundraiser for Bondi, opening up his 126-room, 110,000-square-foot Mar-a-Lago mansion. Minimum donation: $3000. Trump charged the Florida Republican Party a mere $4,855.65 for the shindig, which a Bondi campaign staffer told The Huffington Post was a “small event on the lawn … featuring snacks and refreshments, attended by about 50 people.”

By comparison, the Huffington Post reports, “Trump has charged his own presidential campaign roughly $140,000 per event for use of the mansion.”

The Huffington Post story includes several examples of Trump University students contacting Bondi’s office to report fraud, and getting no response. When they contacted Attorneys General in other states, they not only got responses they got their money back. 

“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.”

Wednesday morning MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski went off on Trump and the scam, and what looks like Trump’s apparent bribery of Bondi.

“You can see a timeline and the direct result of the money,” Brzezinski said, “which is what he says he does with money – he buys people off, he makes deals. And he got a deal to not be investigated in an area that’s a real weak spot, and that’s Trump University.”

“I’ve never seen a campaign, and a family, get more defensive, than when you bring up Trump University,” she continued. “Because they have a weak spot there. Because there are people with stories of being scammed, and being taken for a ride. People who are weak and suffering, and want to build their lives getting scammed, giving money, thinking that they will grow and return and they don’t.”

Florida’s Pam Bondi isn’t the only attorney general who received large campaign donations which apparently ended investigations or lawsuits against Trump University. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, now Texas Governor Greg Abbott, received $35,000 from Trump. A Texas consumer protection official last week said he was ordered in 2010 to drop his investigation into Trump University. His boss? Greg Abbott.