Florida’s AG Pam Bondi under attack for dropping Trump University investigation after donation

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is denying that a $25,000 donation from Donald Trump is in any way connected to her office’s decision not to pursue action against Trump University. The donation arrived from a Trump charity just six days after Bondi’s spokesperson told reporters they were currently reviewing the allegations” against Trump University.

The Orlando Sentinel released details from more than 8,000 pages of documents center on the Trump University class action lawsuit in New York and the failure of Bondi to persist with an investigation.

Photo/Florida Office of the Attorney General

In fact, Florida never pursued any investigation or action against Trump or his university.

Attorney J. Whitfield Larrabee filed the ethics complaints against Bondi this week with the Florida Elections Commission and the Florida Commission on Ethics, in addition to the bar.

“The AP’s report that Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a donation from Trump as her constituents filed complaints against Trump University is disturbing and underscores the need for an independent investigation into the matter,” said Florida House Democratic Leader Mark Pafford of West Palm Beach. “Bondi’s refusal to provide a transparent, detailed explanation, coupled with the news that her staff apparently failed to take the complaints seriously, is beneath the dignity of her office.”

Bondi said in a new statement that her office has “made public every document on this issue, which shows no one in my office ever opened an investigation on Trump University nor was there a basis for doing so. Any news story that suggests otherwise is completely false.”

“While there was never an investigation, staff, doing due diligence, reviewed the complaints and the New York litigation and made the proper determination that the New York litigation would provide relief to aggrieved consumers nationwide,” Bondi spokesman Whitney Ray told CNN.

Bondi endorsed Trump in March, received the donation in 2013 via a political action committee raising money for her re-election.

Nancy Watkins, an accountant with And Justice for All, Bondi’s political committee that received the donation, said she tried sending the donation back to the Trump Foundation in March, but the charity refused, the Associated Press reports.

Since 2008, more than 20 customers have filed complaints against an affiliate of Trump University. Three more were filed against Trump University since then in 2011, 2013 and 2014, according to the records.

photo/ donkeyhotey

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