Donald Trump made donations to state attorneys reviewing his business

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has throughout his career given campaign contributions to state attorneys general while they weighed decisions affecting his business, the WSJ reports, citing a review of his political donations.

The issue recently surfaced during a controversy over his 2013 campaign contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was reviewing a fraud case against Trump University.

Records show Mr Trump, his family and associates donated in particular to attorneys general in New York, from Robert Abrams in the 1980s through incumbent Eric Schneiderman. The money was given often when Mr. Trump’s companies had decisions pending in these offices. Attorneys general are law-enforcement officials with significant oversight of business practices in their states.

 
Mr Trump in his presidential bid has portrayed himself as an outsider independent from special interests and what he called the “rigged” political system. The candidate and his aides have said making legal contributions doesn’t put him in the same category as what they describe as career politicians, such as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, his opponent for the White House.

“He has always said he’s given to politicians his entire career and he thinks the system is b
roken,” said Alan Garten, general counsel at the Trump Organization, an umbrella company for Mr. Trump’s businesses. “Thinking that the system is broken doesn’t preclude him from giving to politicians when they are knocking on his door 365 days of the year.”

Mr Trump has been open about his motives. “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,” he told The Wall Street Journal in July 2015 in discussing donations to Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. “As a businessman, I need that.”

In total, Mr. Trump has given about $140,000 to a dozen people who either were state attorneys general or running for the post from 2001 to 2014, according to donation records. Some of the recipients returned the contributions. Totals before 2001 weren’t available.

Cynthia Darrison, a former fundraiser for ex-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, said Mr. Trump persuaded friends and colleagues to donate, too. “He did a fundraiser for Eliot,” she said. “He had all his vendors come in and write checks—no different than anybody who I asked to raise $250,000.”

A few weeks ago, Mr. Trump acknowledged paying a $2,500 fine to the Internal Revenue Service for a donation to a committee supporting the 2014 re-election of Florida’s Ms. Bondi. The $25,000 donation was paid by his charitable foundation, an improper use of nonprofit funds under IRS rules. Mr. Garten said it was a clerical error.

Ms. Bondi’s office at the time was reviewing a lawsuit by the New York attorney general alleging that Trump University, a real-estate academy, was a scam. A spokesman for Ms. Bondi has said she declined to pursue any action against Trump University because it had yielded only one consumer complaint in Florida and the business was already being investigated by New York.

Mr. Trump’s donations stretch back decades. Following a breakfast meeting with New York’s then-Attorney General Mr. Abrams in 1985, Mr. Trump pledged to contribute $15,000. At the time, Mr. Trump had three apartment-conversion proposals, which required permission from Mr. Abrams’s office, according to a 1989 report by the New York State Commission on Government Integrity.

The commission, which was broadly examining campaign finance in the state, found no conflicts from the donation under state law.

Under Mr. Abrams’s policy, contributors received blue slips with their thank-you notes instructing them to alert the campaign committee if they had a pending co-op conversion plan, which would allow the donation to be returned, Mr. Abrams said in a recent interview.

“In this case, we never heard from the Trump people,” Mr. Abrams said. The money wasn’t returned.

The state commission in its report on the matter said Mr. Trump’s donation showed that “the inference will be created, however unintentionally, that payment will be expected for favorable action by the officeholder.”

Mr Garten, the Trump Organization general counsel, described as “politics as usual” the expectation that donors report potentially problematic contributions. “It’s sort of silly to flip the onus back on the person making the contribution,” he said, adding that the attorney general’s office knows if a donor has a government decision pending.

Mr Spitzer, New York attorney general from 1999 to 2007, twice returned Mr. Trump’s donations, according to former Spitzer aides and public records.

Mr Trump sent Mr. Spitzer a $10,000 check shortly after his 1999 election. The donation was returned because Mr. Trump had plans pending approval by Mr. Spitzer’s office.

In 2002 and 2003, Mr. Trump donated $21,000 to Mr. Spitzer around the time Mr. Trump was in a dispute with prospective buyers of a condo who wanted their six-figure deposit returned. Mr. Spitzer’s office had jurisdiction over the disagreement, which Mr. Trump later won.

Mr Spitzer had a policy of refusing contributions from people who had business before his office, and asked donors to check a box on a form if they did. Ms. Darrison recalled Mr. Trump telling her he wasn’t aware of the condo deposit dispute. At the time, a lawyer for the buyers battling Mr. Trump argued Mr. Spitzer had a conflict of interest because of the donation, which was returned.

New York officials have said the policy of asking donors to police themselves is necessary to keep separate campaign and government work at the attorney general’s office.

Mr Spitzer, who declined to comment, kept the donations Mr. Trump helped collect at the cocktail-party fundraiser described by Ms. Darrison.