While New York’s attorney general was investigating Trump University in 2014, Donald Trump’s foundation donated $100,000 to a conservative group that sued that same attorney general, according to a Yahoo News report Friday.
The Trump Foundation gave the money to Citizens United in 2014, the same year the group sued Eric Schneiderman over his push to force nonprofits to disclose the identities of their donors.
{mosads}That came a year after Schneiderman sued Trump University, claiming that the real estate mogul and his for-profit seminars defrauded students.
Yahoo’s report shows no direct evidence that Trump’s donation funded Citizens United’s lawsuit, and it’s unclear whether the donation came after the lawsuit was filed. But the timing of the donation sparks another round of questions about whether the billionaire used his foundation’s dollars for his own benefit.
The revelation comes as Trump, now the Republican Party’s nominee for president, continues to battle questions about his foundation’s donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was weighing an investigation into Trump University. Bondi ultimately chose not to initiate a probe, and Trump later hosted a campaign event for her, according to The Huffington Post.
Citizens United’s longtime president and chairman, David Bossie, last month became the Trump campaign’s deputy manager.
A Schneiderman spokesman suggested in a statement to Yahoo that Trump’s donation was motivated by political spite.
“If Donald Trump has proven anything over the past three years, it’s that he’ll do anything to pursue his bizarre but predictable vendetta against this office,” Eric Soufer said.
“Funding a meritless lawsuit against this office would be nothing new for someone like Donald Trump, who has filed baseless ethics complaints, planted bogus stories, and tweeted a steady stream of incoherent insults just to make himself feel better for being exposed as the fraud he clearly is.”
Michael Boos, Citizens United’s executive vice president and general counsel, pushed back, arguing that there “is no relationship at all between the gift and our lawsuit.”
“Schneiderman’s claim that our lawsuit is part of a Donald Trump vendetta against him is consistent with our belief that he suffers from delusional paranoia and should never be trusted with access to confidential donor information,” Boos said.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request to comment to Yahoo News.