Oy Vey The deplorable election goes completely negative in the final five days

In Final Days, Clinton and Trump Go Negative 

“Scorched earth” is how some of Hillary Clinton’s allies on Thursday described Donald Trump’s final days as a 2016 presidential candidate. “Nasty” was President Obama’s summary of the entire election, as he, too, threw some rhetorical accelerant on the contest while stumping for the Democratic nominee in Florida.

Even the launch of last-blast negative ads by both campaigns Thursday helped guarantee that America’s most venomous and lurid presidential election in modern history will slither to the finish line.

Clinton, sensing the fierce urgency of tighter battleground polls, abandoned thoughts of an entirely uplifting script in her final five-day sprint. While going high about her own presidential vision, she continued to go low about Trump’s.

In North Carolina, where Clinton believes African-Americans, women and younger voters could sway the contest for 270 electoral votes, she concentrated on Trump’s bumpy record on questions of race. 

“He has spent this entire campaign offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters,” the former secretary of state said. “He retweets white supremacists and spreads racially tinged conspiracy theories. And you better believe he's being heard loudly and clearly. Just a few days ago, and I want you to hear this because this has never happened to a nominee of a major party … Donald Trump was endorsed by the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan.” Meanwhile, the GOP nominee, who barnstormed through four rallies Thursday, has been cheered by polls showing a closer contest in the wake of negative news coverage about Clinton’s emails, Affordable Care Act premium increases, and the late-breaking decisions by many GOP voters to back their party, despite misgivings about the nominee. In the RealClearPolitics four-way polling average, Clinton leads Trump by a scant two percentage points.

Trump is finishing the race the way many Republicans wished he could have run it from the start: fiercely on message and on offense.

Campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, the business mogul painted a bleak picture of what life and governance would be like under a Clinton administration. If elected, Clinton “is likely to be under investigation for many, many years,” he said, invoking a scenario of impeachment. “This is not what we need. This is going to be a mess for many years to come.”

Trump has largely adhered to his teleprompters and resisted controversial tweets this week. As Clinton campaigned a few days ago with Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe winner with whom Trump has infamously feuded, the GOP nominee focused primarily on higher costs for Obamacare and the revived FBI investigation into emails pertinent to Clinton’s private server. The campaign believes those issues bolster his closing argument that Clinton is corrupt and a vestige of old politics, while he says he’s an agent of change. On Thursday, Trump pounced on a Fox News report citing sources that claimed the FBI is investigating possible pay-to-play allegations involving the Clinton Foundation. Other news outlets have reported heightened tensions between Department of Justice and FBI officials over the agency’s handling of the revived email probe and other matters. But the FBI has not publicly confirmed a formal investigation of the foundation. Trump claimed the Justice Department is likely to seek an indictment against Clinton, but there is no evidence to support that prediction under this administration.

While appearing more focused and on-script, Trump has continued to occasionally abuse the facts. He forecast that Clinton will be engaged in an “unprecedented constitutional crisis” and that the FBI’s email probe “is likely to conclude in a criminal trial.” But the FBI concluded earlier this summer that its probe was complete, and that no reasonable prosecutor would charge Clinton with a crime because there was no evidence of intent to break the law by the former secretary or her top aides.

Trump’s campaign released an ad Thursday titled “Unfit,” in which a narrator says Clinton’s emails were found on “pervert” Anthony Weiner’s laptop, referring to the former New York congressman. But the FBI has not said whether the emails discovered on the disgraced Democrat’s laptop were sent to or from Clinton, or that they contained any sensitive government information. Weiner’s estranged wife, Huma Abedin, a close Clinton aide, reportedly said she was unsure how communications that may have been hers or passed through her custody ended up on her husband’s computer.

“America’s most sensitive secrets, unlawfully sent, received and exposed by Hillary Clinton, her staff, and Anthony Weiner. Hillary cannot lead a nation while crippled by a criminal investigation,” the Trump ad’s narrator intones. 

Trump repeated the ad’s claims during his address in Jacksonville. He also attacked Clinton on foreign policy, claiming “Hillary brought death and disaster to Iraq, Syria and Libya, she empowered Iran, and she unleashed ISIS.” The GOP nominee continued lashing his opponent during two subsequent stops Thursday in North Carolina, a must-win state where he is currently tied with Clinton in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

For the first time since her controversial address during the Republican National Convention, Melania Trump appeared on the trail in Philadelphia and delivered a more positive message on behalf of her husband, designed to appeal to women voters. 

“He certainly knows how to shake things up, doesn’t he?” she said during a prepared and much-previewed speech to a crowd in Chester County, a key Philadelphia suburb that swung just barely for Mitt Romney in 2012. Using a teleprompter, she spoke of her immigrant background, describing herself as an “independent woman” and a legal migrant to the United States from Slovenia.

Melania Trump said she would “advocate for women and for children” as first lady and identified bullying on social media as a concern she would address. "We need to teach our youth values: kindness, honesty, respect, compassion, charity. Our culture has gotten too mean and rough,” she said. While her first solo appearance was well received by the crowd, the tone of her remarks stood in stark contrast to her husband’s.

The rivals’ full-on attacks at the campaign’s bitter end are intentional and tactical: negative information that keeps Trump in the spotlight lifts support for Clinton among voters, according to polling and data analyses. In the reverse, Trump’s newfound discipline in avoiding unforced errors combined with Clinton’s troubles help boost his standing with some voters.

An October study authored by Geoffrey Skelley, the associate editor of University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato’s website Crystal Ball, found that “Clinton and Trump have the highest unfavorable ratings of any major party nominees in modern history,” which complicates life for each when they linger in the limelight for lengthy periods. Why? Because when they are leading the news, they are most often there because of predominantly negative media coverage. The spotlight, Skelley found, is dangerous.

Nonetheless, that fact has not curbed Trump’s tendency to taunt and criticize the press when he knows it pleases his supporters. During a rally in Florida on Wednesday, for instance, Trump singled out NBC News political correspondent Katy Tur for what he claimed was her network’s failure to report the size of his rallies, even though the campaign controls the camera setups and networks often show the crowds. 

At the same rally, Trump hinted at how his advisers are likely coaching him to resist such urges in the contest’s final stretch.

“Stay on point, Donald, stay on point,” the GOP nominee said, his hands moving up and down gently in the air. “No side tracks, Donald. Nice and easy."

At her North Carolina rally Thursday, Clinton pointed to Trump’s self-coaching with a sneer, telling her supporters that her rival could not change who he is at heart.

“Stay on point, Donald. Stay on point,’” Clinton said. “His campaign probably put that in the teleprompter.”

Obama offered another in a series of high-wattage endorsements to his former Cabinet secretary during Florida rallies Thursday. But like the Democratic nominee, he mixed the high with the low.

Obama assailed the GOP-controlled Congress for what he said was its devotion to gridlock and its disingenuous political motives, and he took on Sen. Marco Rubio, who is running to keep his seat in Florida after losing badly in the GOP presidential primaries.

“You are somebody who will say anything or be anything, be anybody just so you can get elected or cling to power,” the president said, pointing to Rubio’s opposition to Trump, followed by the senator’s subsequent reversal. (Obama is supporting Democrat Patrick Murphy for Senate.)

Obama conceded Thursday during his remarks to a predominantly young audience in South Florida that the presidential election has been so relentlessly caustic, it has turned some voters off. His goal at the rally was to inspire Floridians to vote, and like Clinton, his technique aimed to frighten them into rejecting Trump by Nov. 8, even if he failed to persuade them that Clinton is as outstanding as he says she is.

“You're out there and you're looking it, and you're saying, 'Man, this is really nasty,'” the president conceded.

“It’s tempting to want to not really focus on our government and our politics. But this election is critical. And the good news is, once you get past all the noise and all the distractions, and all the okey-doke, the choice could not be clearer,” he said.

“Donald Trump is uniquely unqualified to be president,” he added. “I’m not just asking you to believe in Hillary’s ability to change things. I’m asking you to believe in your ability to change things.”

It may have been the most positive message of the day: Voters will soon decide.

Oy Vey The deplorable election goes completely negative in the final five days

In Final Days, Clinton and Trump Go Negative 

“Scorched earth” is how some of Hillary Clinton’s allies on Thursday described Donald Trump’s final days as a 2016 presidential candidate. “Nasty” was President Obama’s summary of the entire election, as he, too, threw some rhetorical accelerant on the contest while stumping for the Democratic nominee in Florida.

Even the launch of last-blast negative ads by both campaigns Thursday helped guarantee that America’s most venomous and lurid presidential election in modern history will slither to the finish line.

Clinton, sensing the fierce urgency of tighter battleground polls, abandoned thoughts of an entirely uplifting script in her final five-day sprint. While going high about her own presidential vision, she continued to go low about Trump’s.

In North Carolina, where Clinton believes African-Americans, women and younger voters could sway the contest for 270 electoral votes, she concentrated on Trump’s bumpy record on questions of race. 

“He has spent this entire campaign offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters,” the former secretary of state said. “He retweets white supremacists and spreads racially tinged conspiracy theories. And you better believe he's being heard loudly and clearly. Just a few days ago, and I want you to hear this because this has never happened to a nominee of a major party … Donald Trump was endorsed by the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan.” Meanwhile, the GOP nominee, who barnstormed through four rallies Thursday, has been cheered by polls showing a closer contest in the wake of negative news coverage about Clinton’s emails, Affordable Care Act premium increases, and the late-breaking decisions by many GOP voters to back their party, despite misgivings about the nominee. In the RealClearPolitics four-way polling average, Clinton leads Trump by a scant two percentage points.

Trump is finishing the race the way many Republicans wished he could have run it from the start: fiercely on message and on offense.

Campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, the business mogul painted a bleak picture of what life and governance would be like under a Clinton administration. If elected, Clinton “is likely to be under investigation for many, many years,” he said, invoking a scenario of impeachment. “This is not what we need. This is going to be a mess for many years to come.”

Trump has largely adhered to his teleprompters and resisted controversial tweets this week. As Clinton campaigned a few days ago with Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe winner with whom Trump has infamously feuded, the GOP nominee focused primarily on higher costs for Obamacare and the revived FBI investigation into emails pertinent to Clinton’s private server. The campaign believes those issues bolster his closing argument that Clinton is corrupt and a vestige of old politics, while he says he’s an agent of change. On Thursday, Trump pounced on a Fox News report citing sources that claimed the FBI is investigating possible pay-to-play allegations involving the Clinton Foundation. Other news outlets have reported heightened tensions between Department of Justice and FBI officials over the agency’s handling of the revived email probe and other matters. But the FBI has not publicly confirmed a formal investigation of the foundation. Trump claimed the Justice Department is likely to seek an indictment against Clinton, but there is no evidence to support that prediction under this administration.

While appearing more focused and on-script, Trump has continued to occasionally abuse the facts. He forecast that Clinton will be engaged in an “unprecedented constitutional crisis” and that the FBI’s email probe “is likely to conclude in a criminal trial.” But the FBI concluded earlier this summer that its probe was complete, and that no reasonable prosecutor would charge Clinton with a crime because there was no evidence of intent to break the law by the former secretary or her top aides.

Trump’s campaign released an ad Thursday titled “Unfit,” in which a narrator says Clinton’s emails were found on “pervert” Anthony Weiner’s laptop, referring to the former New York congressman. But the FBI has not said whether the emails discovered on the disgraced Democrat’s laptop were sent to or from Clinton, or that they contained any sensitive government information. Weiner’s estranged wife, Huma Abedin, a close Clinton aide, reportedly said she was unsure how communications that may have been hers or passed through her custody ended up on her husband’s computer.

“America’s most sensitive secrets, unlawfully sent, received and exposed by Hillary Clinton, her staff, and Anthony Weiner. Hillary cannot lead a nation while crippled by a criminal investigation,” the Trump ad’s narrator intones. 

Trump repeated the ad’s claims during his address in Jacksonville. He also attacked Clinton on foreign policy, claiming “Hillary brought death and disaster to Iraq, Syria and Libya, she empowered Iran, and she unleashed ISIS.” The GOP nominee continued lashing his opponent during two subsequent stops Thursday in North Carolina, a must-win state where he is currently tied with Clinton in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

For the first time since her controversial address during the Republican National Convention, Melania Trump appeared on the trail in Philadelphia and delivered a more positive message on behalf of her husband, designed to appeal to women voters. 

“He certainly knows how to shake things up, doesn’t he?” she said during a prepared and much-previewed speech to a crowd in Chester County, a key Philadelphia suburb that swung just barely for Mitt Romney in 2012. Using a teleprompter, she spoke of her immigrant background, describing herself as an “independent woman” and a legal migrant to the United States from Slovenia.

Melania Trump said she would “advocate for women and for children” as first lady and identified bullying on social media as a concern she would address. "We need to teach our youth values: kindness, honesty, respect, compassion, charity. Our culture has gotten too mean and rough,” she said. While her first solo appearance was well received by the crowd, the tone of her remarks stood in stark contrast to her husband’s.

The rivals’ full-on attacks at the campaign’s bitter end are intentional and tactical: negative information that keeps Trump in the spotlight lifts support for Clinton among voters, according to polling and data analyses. In the reverse, Trump’s newfound discipline in avoiding unforced errors combined with Clinton’s troubles help boost his standing with some voters.

An October study authored by Geoffrey Skelley, the associate editor of University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato’s website Crystal Ball, found that “Clinton and Trump have the highest unfavorable ratings of any major party nominees in modern history,” which complicates life for each when they linger in the limelight for lengthy periods. Why? Because when they are leading the news, they are most often there because of predominantly negative media coverage. The spotlight, Skelley found, is dangerous.

Nonetheless, that fact has not curbed Trump’s tendency to taunt and criticize the press when he knows it pleases his supporters. During a rally in Florida on Wednesday, for instance, Trump singled out NBC News political correspondent Katy Tur for what he claimed was her network’s failure to report the size of his rallies, even though the campaign controls the camera setups and networks often show the crowds. 

At the same rally, Trump hinted at how his advisers are likely coaching him to resist such urges in the contest’s final stretch.

“Stay on point, Donald, stay on point,” the GOP nominee said, his hands moving up and down gently in the air. “No side tracks, Donald. Nice and easy."

At her North Carolina rally Thursday, Clinton pointed to Trump’s self-coaching with a sneer, telling her supporters that her rival could not change who he is at heart.

“Stay on point, Donald. Stay on point,’” Clinton said. “His campaign probably put that in the teleprompter.”

Obama offered another in a series of high-wattage endorsements to his former Cabinet secretary during Florida rallies Thursday. But like the Democratic nominee, he mixed the high with the low.

Obama assailed the GOP-controlled Congress for what he said was its devotion to gridlock and its disingenuous political motives, and he took on Sen. Marco Rubio, who is running to keep his seat in Florida after losing badly in the GOP presidential primaries.

“You are somebody who will say anything or be anything, be anybody just so you can get elected or cling to power,” the president said, pointing to Rubio’s opposition to Trump, followed by the senator’s subsequent reversal. (Obama is supporting Democrat Patrick Murphy for Senate.)

Obama conceded Thursday during his remarks to a predominantly young audience in South Florida that the presidential election has been so relentlessly caustic, it has turned some voters off. His goal at the rally was to inspire Floridians to vote, and like Clinton, his technique aimed to frighten them into rejecting Trump by Nov. 8, even if he failed to persuade them that Clinton is as outstanding as he says she is.

“You're out there and you're looking it, and you're saying, 'Man, this is really nasty,'” the president conceded.

“It’s tempting to want to not really focus on our government and our politics. But this election is critical. And the good news is, once you get past all the noise and all the distractions, and all the okey-doke, the choice could not be clearer,” he said.

“Donald Trump is uniquely unqualified to be president,” he added. “I’m not just asking you to believe in Hillary’s ability to change things. I’m asking you to believe in your ability to change things.”

It may have been the most positive message of the day: Voters will soon decide.

Oy Vey God Save Amerixa from Donny T .... Trump's pay-for-play scandal intensifies

While Donald Trump and Pam Bondi say there’s no fire underneath the smoke, the Manhattan businessman’s political wheelings and dealings are now drawing more scrutiny. | AP Photo

Trump's pay-for-play scandal intensifies

The Republican nominee has denied any wrongdoing in his donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The swirl of scandal around Donald Trump’s donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is intensifying, with the Republican nominee and his aides vigorously pushing back against the idea that he bought the decision by Bondi to not pursue an investigation into his Trump University.
The controversy whipped back up last week when news emerged that Trump paid a $2,500 fine because his foundation improperly donated $25,000 to Bondi’s political election committee in 2013 (tax-exempt charitable groups are not allowed to make political contributions).

Following the donation in 2013, Bondi’s office declined to join a fledgling multi-state probe into Trump’s real estate seminar program. The links between the two continued, with Trump hosting a lavish fundraiser for Bondi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in March 2014, and Bondi endorsing Trump in March of this year.

While Trump and Bondi say there’s no fire underneath the smoke, the Manhattan businessman’s political wheelings and dealings are now drawing more scrutiny, especially because Trump’s campaign has been driving hard at the idea that Hillary Clinton engaged in pay for play through her Clinton Foundation and her tenure at the State Department.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday morning brushed aside questioning from George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” remarking that Trump “has supported many, many Republican candidates” while suggesting that the two stories are not comparable in scale or consequence.

“But we do know Mrs. Clinton, Secretary Clinton used the State Department as a concierge for many foreign donors,” Conway said. “And I think there’s actually no comparison between man who gives consistently to Republican candidates in their re-election, George, and a woman who as secretary of state has had her official staff that we pay for bartering for position and bartering for state dinners and, you know, just making contributions that are inappropriate. The State Department is a very busy place. We should get human rights for those women and girls not disrespected and not worry about foreign governments coming in to influence.”

The Trump campaign is also facing a new crop of editorials, with the Miami Herald saying it’s “puzzling” why Trump’s controversy is not getting “equal billing” to that associated with the Clinton Foundation.

“Unlike the faux scandal over the Clinton institution, there were actual victims here — people who paid good money to Trump University and feel they were duped. Why is Pam Bondi not investigating that?” the Miami Herald editorial board wrote in an item titled, “Donald Trump’s gift to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi deserves a closer look.”

The New York Times also dug in, writing on its opinion page, “If Ms. Bondi promised to back off the Trump University suit in exchange for campaign money during that 2013 phone conversation, it could be a crime. As for Mr. Trump, the $2,500 I.R.S. fine is a tiny penalty, unless voters impose consequences of their own.”

The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell, citing records obtained from a public-records request, wrote in an column Tuesday that the “wrong person is receiving the brunt of the scrutiny here.”
“Imagine you were robbed and the prosecutor gave the suspect a pass after taking $25,000 from him,” Maxwell wrote. “There would be universal outrage — and rightfully so. This is not the behavior of an ethical prosecutor.”

Bondi’s 2010 opponent, former federal prosecutor and state Sen. Dan Gelber, said on his blog that the Trump money “taints” the Florida attorney general, who is at least guilty of a crime of optics.
“In fairness to Bondi, it is not at all clear whether she knew the details of the investigation when the check was solicited, or whether it influenced her Office's decision,” Gelber wrote. “But it doesn't have to. Bondi should have rejected the money, or returned it immediately upon learning that Trump was seeking an action - or in this case an inaction - from her Office.”

Bill Clinton ramped up his own attacks, taking a shot at Trump on Wednesday at a rally in Orlando as he told the crowd that Trump “attacked my foundation. He uses his foundation's money to pay off your attorney general."

And even as Trump and Bondi deny any wrongdoing, Trump’s own prior words are also coming back to haunt him.

The billionaire has repeatedly talked about freely donating to both Republican and Democratic politicians, saying they were smart business moves.

“As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal in July 2015.
At the first Republican debate last August, Trump ripped into his primary rivals for taking contributions from him in the past.

“I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people, before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give.” Trump said at the time. “And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.”

Trump laid out a similar rationale for deciding to run for president during his nomination acceptance speech in July, declaring, “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people who cannot defend themselves.”

He added, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

But on Monday, Trump said there was nothing untoward.
“No. I never spoke to her,” Trump told reporters on his campaign plane, according to a CBS transcript. Trump added that Bondi is a “fine person beyond reproach. I never even spoke to her about it at all ... Never spoken to her about it. Never.”

While it wasn’t clear what the “it” was that he was referring to, a spokesman for Bondi told The Associated Press in June that the attorney general asked for the $25,000 donation during a phone call in 2013, and Bondi herself has called the timing of the donation a coincidence.
"I don't think this was a lengthy, memorable call," Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told AP about the conversation. "Mr. Trump talks to a hundred people in any given day. So, I don't know if I will be able to provide that information. That's not exactly a realistic or reasonable request."

The Trump campaign has sought to shift the focus back onto Clinton, particularly after the release last Friday of documents pertaining to the FBI probe into her handling of classified materials, including notes from her July interview with investigators.

Clinton should "come clean" and disclose every single one of the emails related to her time as secretary of state Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence declared Wednesday.
Pence, speaking to "Fox & Friends" from Indianapolis, talked up Donald Trump's speech the previous night in North Carolina in which he emphasized the ties between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department under Clinton from 2009 to 2013.

The Associated Press reported last month that at least 85 of the 154 people from private interests who had phone conversations scheduled or met with Clinton also donated to the foundation or pledged commitments to its international programs.
Pointing to that report, Pence remarked, "This pay-to-play politics has begun to come to light for the American people, but it's time for Hillary Clinton to come clean and make all of those emails available."

Pence has called on Clinton to “come clean” in the past with respect to the State Department and the Clinton Foundation, though the latest recommendation comes after the former secretary of state herself told reporters Tuesday that Trump ought to “come clean” about his tax returns. (Pence reiterated that he would soon release his own returns, with Trump doing the same after the audit has concluded.)

Asked whether Trump’s national and state poll numbers have increased because of the latest reports, Pence emphasized that it is the campaign’s message rather than Clinton’s troubles, driving voters to their corner.

Clinton herself made reference to the allegations of pay for play surrounding Bondi and Trump University on Tuesday as she stopped for a campaign event in Tampa, Florida.

“Of course, as we know, there was a phone conversation between them. They contradict each other. The American people deserve to know what was said, because clearly the attorney general did not proceed with the investigation,” Clinton told reporters aboard her plane.

Bondi hit back at Clinton later in the day on Fox Business Network.

"I will not be collateral damage in a presidential campaign, nor will I be a woman bullied by Hillary Clinton," the Florida attorney general declared. "Hillary Clinton will not bully me."

Bondi affirmed that she had asked Trump for a contribution, but added “that’s not what this is about,” remarking that Clinton erred in her description of the circumstances surrounding the $25,000.
"Of course I asked Donald Trump for a contribution, that's not what this is about," Bondi said. “[Clinton] said he was under investigation by my office, at the time, and I knew about it. None of which is true.”

Clinton, in fact, said that Bondi “was being asked by her constituents to investigate Trump University.”

Trump’s former campaign manager and current ally Corey Lewandowski also came to the nominee’s defense when CNN anchor Chris Cuomo brought up a New York Times article, saying, “There's a list of things that actually happened where he was caught and had to pay fines.”

“How does that make you a change agent? We get what the problem is. We get that it's corrupt. But if you exploit the corruption, how are you the change agent?” Cuomo asked.

Lewandowski, now a CNN contributor, offered up one of Trump’s oldest explanations.
“He’s said this many times. He was the fair-haired boy, right? He was the person who knew the system better than anybody, and he’s the only person who can change it, because he doesn’t need the personal wealth,” Lewandowski said. “What he didn’t do, is he didn’t make $100 million from his service in the federal government, step out of the government and get paid tens of millions of dollars for speeches. He made his money in the private sector, and he used the rules in the private sector to benefit his company. That’s what business executives do.”

Oy Vey God Save Amerixa from Donny T .... Trump's pay-for-play scandal intensifies

While Donald Trump and Pam Bondi say there’s no fire underneath the smoke, the Manhattan businessman’s political wheelings and dealings are now drawing more scrutiny. | AP Photo

Trump's pay-for-play scandal intensifies

The Republican nominee has denied any wrongdoing in his donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The swirl of scandal around Donald Trump’s donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is intensifying, with the Republican nominee and his aides vigorously pushing back against the idea that he bought the decision by Bondi to not pursue an investigation into his Trump University.
The controversy whipped back up last week when news emerged that Trump paid a $2,500 fine because his foundation improperly donated $25,000 to Bondi’s political election committee in 2013 (tax-exempt charitable groups are not allowed to make political contributions).

Following the donation in 2013, Bondi’s office declined to join a fledgling multi-state probe into Trump’s real estate seminar program. The links between the two continued, with Trump hosting a lavish fundraiser for Bondi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in March 2014, and Bondi endorsing Trump in March of this year.

While Trump and Bondi say there’s no fire underneath the smoke, the Manhattan businessman’s political wheelings and dealings are now drawing more scrutiny, especially because Trump’s campaign has been driving hard at the idea that Hillary Clinton engaged in pay for play through her Clinton Foundation and her tenure at the State Department.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday morning brushed aside questioning from George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” remarking that Trump “has supported many, many Republican candidates” while suggesting that the two stories are not comparable in scale or consequence.

“But we do know Mrs. Clinton, Secretary Clinton used the State Department as a concierge for many foreign donors,” Conway said. “And I think there’s actually no comparison between man who gives consistently to Republican candidates in their re-election, George, and a woman who as secretary of state has had her official staff that we pay for bartering for position and bartering for state dinners and, you know, just making contributions that are inappropriate. The State Department is a very busy place. We should get human rights for those women and girls not disrespected and not worry about foreign governments coming in to influence.”

The Trump campaign is also facing a new crop of editorials, with the Miami Herald saying it’s “puzzling” why Trump’s controversy is not getting “equal billing” to that associated with the Clinton Foundation.

“Unlike the faux scandal over the Clinton institution, there were actual victims here — people who paid good money to Trump University and feel they were duped. Why is Pam Bondi not investigating that?” the Miami Herald editorial board wrote in an item titled, “Donald Trump’s gift to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi deserves a closer look.”

The New York Times also dug in, writing on its opinion page, “If Ms. Bondi promised to back off the Trump University suit in exchange for campaign money during that 2013 phone conversation, it could be a crime. As for Mr. Trump, the $2,500 I.R.S. fine is a tiny penalty, unless voters impose consequences of their own.”

The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell, citing records obtained from a public-records request, wrote in an column Tuesday that the “wrong person is receiving the brunt of the scrutiny here.”
“Imagine you were robbed and the prosecutor gave the suspect a pass after taking $25,000 from him,” Maxwell wrote. “There would be universal outrage — and rightfully so. This is not the behavior of an ethical prosecutor.”

Bondi’s 2010 opponent, former federal prosecutor and state Sen. Dan Gelber, said on his blog that the Trump money “taints” the Florida attorney general, who is at least guilty of a crime of optics.
“In fairness to Bondi, it is not at all clear whether she knew the details of the investigation when the check was solicited, or whether it influenced her Office's decision,” Gelber wrote. “But it doesn't have to. Bondi should have rejected the money, or returned it immediately upon learning that Trump was seeking an action - or in this case an inaction - from her Office.”

Bill Clinton ramped up his own attacks, taking a shot at Trump on Wednesday at a rally in Orlando as he told the crowd that Trump “attacked my foundation. He uses his foundation's money to pay off your attorney general."

And even as Trump and Bondi deny any wrongdoing, Trump’s own prior words are also coming back to haunt him.

The billionaire has repeatedly talked about freely donating to both Republican and Democratic politicians, saying they were smart business moves.

“As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal in July 2015.
At the first Republican debate last August, Trump ripped into his primary rivals for taking contributions from him in the past.

“I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people, before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give.” Trump said at the time. “And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.”

Trump laid out a similar rationale for deciding to run for president during his nomination acceptance speech in July, declaring, “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people who cannot defend themselves.”

He added, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

But on Monday, Trump said there was nothing untoward.
“No. I never spoke to her,” Trump told reporters on his campaign plane, according to a CBS transcript. Trump added that Bondi is a “fine person beyond reproach. I never even spoke to her about it at all ... Never spoken to her about it. Never.”

While it wasn’t clear what the “it” was that he was referring to, a spokesman for Bondi told The Associated Press in June that the attorney general asked for the $25,000 donation during a phone call in 2013, and Bondi herself has called the timing of the donation a coincidence.
"I don't think this was a lengthy, memorable call," Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told AP about the conversation. "Mr. Trump talks to a hundred people in any given day. So, I don't know if I will be able to provide that information. That's not exactly a realistic or reasonable request."

The Trump campaign has sought to shift the focus back onto Clinton, particularly after the release last Friday of documents pertaining to the FBI probe into her handling of classified materials, including notes from her July interview with investigators.

Clinton should "come clean" and disclose every single one of the emails related to her time as secretary of state Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence declared Wednesday.
Pence, speaking to "Fox & Friends" from Indianapolis, talked up Donald Trump's speech the previous night in North Carolina in which he emphasized the ties between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department under Clinton from 2009 to 2013.

The Associated Press reported last month that at least 85 of the 154 people from private interests who had phone conversations scheduled or met with Clinton also donated to the foundation or pledged commitments to its international programs.
Pointing to that report, Pence remarked, "This pay-to-play politics has begun to come to light for the American people, but it's time for Hillary Clinton to come clean and make all of those emails available."

Pence has called on Clinton to “come clean” in the past with respect to the State Department and the Clinton Foundation, though the latest recommendation comes after the former secretary of state herself told reporters Tuesday that Trump ought to “come clean” about his tax returns. (Pence reiterated that he would soon release his own returns, with Trump doing the same after the audit has concluded.)

Asked whether Trump’s national and state poll numbers have increased because of the latest reports, Pence emphasized that it is the campaign’s message rather than Clinton’s troubles, driving voters to their corner.

Clinton herself made reference to the allegations of pay for play surrounding Bondi and Trump University on Tuesday as she stopped for a campaign event in Tampa, Florida.

“Of course, as we know, there was a phone conversation between them. They contradict each other. The American people deserve to know what was said, because clearly the attorney general did not proceed with the investigation,” Clinton told reporters aboard her plane.

Bondi hit back at Clinton later in the day on Fox Business Network.

"I will not be collateral damage in a presidential campaign, nor will I be a woman bullied by Hillary Clinton," the Florida attorney general declared. "Hillary Clinton will not bully me."

Bondi affirmed that she had asked Trump for a contribution, but added “that’s not what this is about,” remarking that Clinton erred in her description of the circumstances surrounding the $25,000.
"Of course I asked Donald Trump for a contribution, that's not what this is about," Bondi said. “[Clinton] said he was under investigation by my office, at the time, and I knew about it. None of which is true.”

Clinton, in fact, said that Bondi “was being asked by her constituents to investigate Trump University.”

Trump’s former campaign manager and current ally Corey Lewandowski also came to the nominee’s defense when CNN anchor Chris Cuomo brought up a New York Times article, saying, “There's a list of things that actually happened where he was caught and had to pay fines.”

“How does that make you a change agent? We get what the problem is. We get that it's corrupt. But if you exploit the corruption, how are you the change agent?” Cuomo asked.

Lewandowski, now a CNN contributor, offered up one of Trump’s oldest explanations.
“He’s said this many times. He was the fair-haired boy, right? He was the person who knew the system better than anybody, and he’s the only person who can change it, because he doesn’t need the personal wealth,” Lewandowski said. “What he didn’t do, is he didn’t make $100 million from his service in the federal government, step out of the government and get paid tens of millions of dollars for speeches. He made his money in the private sector, and he used the rules in the private sector to benefit his company. That’s what business executives do.”