PolitiFact: Clinton charge against Trump not clear-cut

Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump is no stranger to "pay-to-play" politics.

The basis of a new ad is a three-year-old donation of $25,000 from Trump's foundation to help re-elect Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Republican.

"He sent Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi thousands from his foundation, just as she was considering an investigation into his sham university," says the digital ad, released Sept. 14. "She cashed the check, blocked the case and he tried to cover up the donation."

Since the story has re-emerged, Democrats on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee requested the Justice Department to look into whether Trump paid off Bondi. So have the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald editorial boards, plus other political groups.

The Donald J. Trump Foundation, classified as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, is prohibited from making donations to political candidates — like all other nonprofits in that category. The news was interesting to Clinton, considering Trump's criticism of the Clinton Foundation's actions while she was secretary of state.

Bondi, attorney general since 2011, told reporters Sept. 19 that she doesn't regret the contribution, saying it had nothing to do with her office deciding not to investigate Trump over consumer complaints about his business seminars.

With some of the facts of the case unknown, Clinton's ad makes claims that cannot be proven. For that reason, we decided to not put this statement on our Truth-O-Meter. Still, with all the news stories recirculating about the donation, we wanted to take a closer look and separate fact from speculation.

At issue is the timing of a $25,000 donation the Donald J. Trump Foundation gave in 2013 to And Justice for All, an organization that was helping fund Bondi's re-election campaign.

While most news reports refer to the group as a pro-Bondi PAC or a political committee, And Justice For All is listed as an electioneering communications organization. ECOs are unique among political groups, because there is no limit to how much you can give to them.

But ECOs are limited in what they can do for a candidate. The Florida Department of State says these groups are limited to making purchases for "electioneering communications or accepting contributions for the purpose of making electioneering communications."

These communications can be by television, radio, newspaper, magazine or mailers, and must clearly show a candidate for office without explicitly advocating the "election or defeat of a candidate but that is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than an appeal to vote for or against."

The strict definition is hard to comprehend, but Mark Herron, a lawyer in Tallahassee who specializes in ethics and elections, said many ECOs are created to back a particular candidate.

Four days later, a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel called Bondi Communications Director Jennifer Meale to ask about the New York lawsuit and Trump seminars in Florida, according to a New York Times article. It reported that Meale said 23 complaints had been filed against Trump education seminars before Bondi took office in 2011. At the time, there was one complaint while Bondi was in office.

Meale said the attorney general's office was reviewing the New York complaint, but there was no formal investigation in Florida, according to the New York Times article.

On Sept. 9, 2013, Trump signed a Trump Foundation check for $25,000 to And Justice For All. The group received the check on Sept. 17, 2013, which was reported at the time by the Orlando Sentinel.

The timing makes it appear Trump sent the check to stop Bondi from investigating Trump Institute, the Florida affiliate. But the Associated Press reported in a Sept. 6, 2016, article that Bondi had "personally solicited" Trump's contribution several weeks before her office was made aware of the lawsuit. This account means Bondi wouldn't have known about the Trump investigation.

Bondi's office decided not to pursue the case.

Both the Trump campaign and Bondi's office deny she had anything to do with deciding not to pursue the investigation.

Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, cited a New York Times article that said the investigation was never brought directly to Bondi's office but instead was considered by lower-level staff members, who opted not to pursue the case.

Bondi spokesman Gerald Whitney Ray reiterated this point to the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact Florida, saying Bondi was not personally aware of the Trump lawsuit when the donation was made to the re-election campaign.

But there are still problems with the donation. Because Trump's foundation is prohibited from making donations to political candidates, the foundation paid $2,500 this year to the Internal Revenue Service over the donation. We don't know exactly when, because the tax paperwork has not yet been filed.

The $2,500 is often called a penalty, but University of Florida law professor Steven J. Willis said it was a 10 percent excise tax on political expenditures (as called for in Section 4955 of Internal Revenue Code).

Why did it take three years for the foundation to pay the tax? Trump's campaign said the donation was wrongly listed on the foundation's 2013 990 IRS return to another group, "Justice for All," in Wichita, Kan., not "And Justice for All."

Cheung said the Donald J. Trump Foundation self-reported this issue and "paid a small fine of $2,500, and Mr. Trump reimbursed his foundation for the entire amount."

To further complicate the situation, some media reports on the contribution mention another organization with the same name in Utah.

The Trump campaign said the confusion is because Bondi asked Trump for money, not And Justice For All. The campaign said the request was sent to the clerk of the Trump Foundation. The clerk looked up the name in the IRS handbook of charitable foundations. The name the clerk actually found was that of a Utah charity, And Justice For All, which is why the foundation issued the check.

We can't prove this was an attempt to "cover up the donation," as Clinton said, but experts said the situation makes the mistakes peculiar.