NYT, Finally if Briefly, Discusses Bondi Story: More to Come?

There’s this in a story today, but I expect we will see much more in the days ahead:

Addressing an issue that has dogged the campaign, Mr. Clinton defended the Clinton Foundation. And he criticized Mr. Trump over his own foundation, referring to a Washington Post report that found that his charitable organization paid the Internal Revenue Service a $2,500 penalty this year after improperly giving a political contribution to a campaign group with ties to the attorney general of Florida, Pam Bondi.

Mr. Trump discussed the issue in his talk with reporters aboard his plane. He denied any impropriety on either his part or Ms. Bondi’s concerning the $25,000 donation.

At the time of the donation in 2013, Ms. Bondi was considering whether to investigate Trump University for fraud. In the end, she did not do so.

“I never spoke to her, first of all, she’s a fine person beyond reproach,” he said when asked about the controversy. “I never even spoke to her about it at all. She’s a fine person. Never spoken to her about it. Never.”

Many attorneys general besides Ms. Bondi, he said, decided against pursuing any action regarding Trump University. “I’ll win that case in court,” he said. “Many turned that down.”

“I never spoke to her,” he added, again referring to Ms. Bondi.

When asked what he expected to get out of the donation, he would only say: “I’ve just known Pam Bondi for years. I have a lot of respect for her. Never spoke to her about that at all. I just have a lot of respect for her, and she’s very popular.”

As Josh Marshall points out, there’s a question whether Trump lied about speaking to Bondi.

Over the weekend, I wrote this tweet about the NYT’s coverage which is my most RT’s tweet ever: “The failure to cover Trump-Bondi is probably the biggest omission in NYT presidential coverage. And its a BFD ” But I do think the extent to which this issue has caught fire among those criticizing the NYT’s coverage of the race overall reflects more on the besieged mentality of the Clinton supporters than the NY Times coverage, which on Trump has been better than most (on things like housing discrimination, vote rigging charges, Trump University fraud etc). The reason I think the Bondi story (and the story is maybe just as strong involving Greg Abbott in Texas) is that it shows Trump engaging in pay to play. Sure he’s said in the past that he got influence for his money, but people discount everything he says on the issue. It is one thing for Trump to say it; it is another thing for the Times, still the paper of record, to demonstrate it. And it would provide quite a contrast with all the Clinton Foundation stories, which seem to pale in comparison to the idea of giving money to state AGs as one is under investigation, and then watching the investigations going away.

And on this, one more from Josh Marshall, quoting a reader:

On the other hand, the date of that article (9/23/2013) and the date of the Trump’s conversation with Bondi are very significant. Bondi solicited the donation from Trump about a week or two before he sent check (I don’t know the exact date). And, almost immediately, Trump made his $25,000 donation to Bondi on Sep 17, 2013.

In other words, almost immediately after he publicly accused Schneiderman of a donation shake down, he’s approached by Bondi for a donation. Trump already knows a investigation is in progress in Florida. So what does he do. Does he reject the solicitation and accuse Bondi of a shake down. Nope. Instead he makes a sizable donation. And Bondi kills the investigation almost immediately.

When Bondi solicits Trump for a donation, how could someone like Trump not be thinking that Bondi has heard about the NY case and is shaking him down.

The only difference between the NY scenario and the FL scenario is that Trump got exactly what he wanted from FL (and kept his mouth shut about it).

BUT, in NY scenario, the shake down is either figment of Trump’s imagination, or Trump thinks it was real and is upset that he didn’t get his money’s worth.

Josh adds:

More than a month later Trump was still claiming that Schneiderman or representatives of Schneiderman were asking for campaign contributions as evidence of Schneiderman’s corruption.

I expect theres a lot more here for the Times to cover.

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