Clinton campaign rips the Trump Foundation over alleged ‘illegal campaign donations’
REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Donald Trump is pictured at a campaign event in Roanoke, Virginia, U.S., July 25, 2016.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is hurling a familiar accusation at Donald Trump.
Nearly two weeks after the GOP presidential candidate alleged Clinton was running a “pay-to-play” scheme during her time at the State Department, the Clinton campaign is now ripping Trump for the same thing.
The new development comes after The Washington Post reported that the Donald J. Trump Foundation paid a fine to the IRS over an illegal $25,000 contribution the charity made to a group tied to Florida attorney general and Trump supporter, Pam Bondi.
“Donald Trump has been falsely attacking the charity run by President Clinton when it is Trump’s own Foundation that has been caught in an actual pay-to-play scandal,” Clinton’s communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, said in a statement posted on the campaign’s website.
According to The Post’s report, the Trump Foundation’s contribution was made in 2013, just as Bondi was looking into allegations of fraud brought against Trump University — the real-estate mogul’s embattled entrepreneurship business — in Florida.
The publication noted that Bondi later decided not to pursue charges against that organization.
For its part, The Trump Foundation has denied any wrongdoing over its $25,000 donation.
“It was just an honest mistake,” Jeffrey McConney, a senior vice president at the Trump Organization, told The Post on Thursday. “It wasn’t done intentionally to hide a political donation, it was just an error.”
Clinton’s campaign seemed unconvinced, saying “Donald Trump has no standing whatsoever to question the Clinton Foundation, which works to make AIDS and malaria drugs more accessible, when it’s been proven he uses his own foundation to launder illegal campaign donations.”
Last month the Trump campaign accused the Clinton Foundation of granting its donors privileged access to Mrs. Clinton while she served as secretary of state.
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