Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump may be a larger than life symbol of New York City, but Trump has had his hooks in Florida properties and politics for many years.
Donald has owned the famed Mar-a-Lago Club since 1985. He used it as a residence for the first 10 years, until 1995. The Mar-a-Lago was originally built and opened in January 1927 by the wife of E.F. Hutton, Marjorie Merriweather Post.
Post finally found the perfect location near the water. She called it the Mar-a-Lago because the word means ‘Sea to Lake’ in Spanish.
Mara-a-Lago is a massive property. It took three years to build, has 126 rooms and 110,000 square feet of space.
As of April 1995, Donald Trump re-established this private residence into a a very public property known as the Mar-a-Lago Club.
Ever since, Trump has been doing his best to get his money into the pockets of those at the Florida attorney general’s office, among others.
For example, in 2006 Trump donated to both the Democratic and the Republican candidates running for attorney general that year. This is not too unusual.
However, for a billionaire, the donations were nominal and included $500 to each at the beginning of their campaigns.
By the end of the race, when it looked like Republican candidate for Attorney General Bill McCollum was going to clinch it, Trump gave another $1000
Three years after McCollum first won the spot as attorney general, he made a run for Florida’s governorship. Trump was there once again.
He held a $500-a-head fundraiser for McCollum in January 2010 at Trump’s own Mar-a-Lago Club. However, Florida decided to vote for a different attorney general that year. Her name is Pamela Bondi. She took over for McCollum in 2011.
Interestingly, Bill McCollum served in the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 2001. He was also one of the many who voted to have then-President Bill Clinton impeached.
Bondi is a Florida native and daughter of a local politician. She has been on the Florida bar since 1991. Since her election, Trump has become better acquainted with Bondi.
Apparently, Bondi’s office received 22 fraud complaints about Trump University. In 2013, their office announced publicly they were seriously considering joining the New York investigation into Trump’s tax fraud allegations.
Four days later, Bondi reconsidered.
Why? Perhaps it could have been because of the $25,000 donation the Donald J. Trump Foundation gave Bondi’s political support group?
Another interesting note, Bondi didn’t pursue the New York tax fraud investigation.
As Trump University disintegrated, the attorney general’s office in Florida was bombarded with requests from former students wanting action taken to get their money back from Trump.
Ultimately McCollum, who was the attorney general at the time, overlooked the complaints. Instead handing them over to the incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Then, in March 2016, a Washington political watch group filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding the Illegal and unethical nature of the donation.
The Trump Foundation responded by saying the donation was made in error and that the funds had been intended to go to an unrelated Kansas based charity.
However, as of Wednesday, September 14 827 Floridians have demanded that Bondi now investigate Trump’s fraud allegations.
Maybe it’s finally time Trump is going to have to pay his just dues.
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Featured Image Via Sun Sentinel Video.