LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Three years ago the Attorney General of New York filed a fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump for operating Trump University, the university that was not a real university. And in New York state, it is illegal to call anything that's isn't actually a university, a university.



As we've reported on this program many times, the New York Attorney General found that many of the ways of doing business within Trump University, besides the name, constituted fraud. It was such a compelling case that the Florida Attorney General's spokesperson said she was considering joining the New York Attorney General's fraud case.



Four days after Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi made that announcement through her spokesperson, she got a campaign contribution of $25,000 from Donald Trump. The Associated Press has reported that Attorney General said she personally solicited Donald Trump for that campaign contribution.



Within weeks of receiving that $25,000, Attorney General Bondi decided not to join any case against Trump University.



[...]



O'DONNELL: That was last year. Yesterday Donald Trump tried to make you believe that the one person he never got anything from in exchange for a campaign contribution was Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.



[...]



O'DONNELL: The story looks bad enough for Donald Trump if it stops there. But it doesn't. The campaign contribution was illegal because it came from the Trump Foundation, a charity which is not allowed to make political contributions. The Trump Foundation's tax return did not list the illegal contribution.



When the IRS discovered it, the IRS fined the Trump Foundation $2,500. The Trump campaign said today, it was just a series of clerical errors that led to the illegal contribution by the foundation, and the coincidental failure to include that contribution in the foundation's tax returns.



[...]



O'DONNELL: The Florida Attorney General now caught in the ugliest possible timing of a campaign contribution is just outraged that anyone could have the slightest suspicion that she and Donald Trump might have been up to something.

Previously:



Fox Hosts Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi To Do Damage Control Over Reports Of Trump’s Illegal Contribution To A Bondi Campaign Group

Wash. Post's David Fahrenthold Explains The Potential Legal Problems With Trump's Pam Bondi Donation



Broadcast News Outlets Essentially Ignored Trump Pay For Play Until This Weekend