Scrutiny for thee, but not for she.
Donald Trump dismissed allegations of impropriety on Monday, saying his foundation’s $25,000 donation to Florida’s attorney general had nothing to do with her office mulling an investigation into Trump University.
The Republican candidate’s press secretary confirmed to NBC News that Trump paid a $2,500 fine over the donation to a campaign group linked to AG Pam Bondi.
News of the fine — levied after an ethics group complained that the donation had not been disclosed to tax officials — was first reported by The Washington Post. A Trump Organization confirmed the candidate reimbursed the foundation for the fine.
The newspaper also reported that Trump’s foundation listed the donation as intended for a charity with a different — albeit similar — name to Bondi’s political group.
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed to NBC News that Trump had paid the fine but dismissed the incident as “minor.”
“This was a minor issue that was brought to the attention of the Foundation and addressed immediately,” Hicks said in a statement.
After months of spraining their necks to look away from the fact that the Clinton Global Initiative was nothing more than a pay-for-play slush fund when Hillary Clinton was America’s top diplomat, the MSM finally has something it feels safe to inspect.
The double standard here is egregious even by what pass for the standards of the modern Democrat Media Complex. That they feel so comfortable being duplicitous indicates just how little they think of the American electorate. While it is true that we are getting to the time in every presidential election cycle that the most people pay attention to, it isn’t far-fetched to assume that this election has probably gotten more attention, if not scrutiny than previous contests have. The dynamic is definitely shifting a bit, and even casual observers of the news are no longer beholden to the biased leftist outlet, but those outlets probably still have a fair amount of influence.
Which is precisely why they’re doing this.
The phrase that gets worn out whenever one of the Clintons is in any kind of government office is “appearance of impropriety”. These appearances were everywhere when Granny Maojackets was at State. The number of official business meetings that just happened to immediately precede or follow donations to Clinton Global redefined “coincidence”. If you are a consumer of center-right online media, you are well aware of all this. Those who rely on more mainstream choices may have vague remembrances of such things, but they don’t seem that important because they were only mentioned once. That’s how the MSM plays the bias game. They will report something, they just won’t repeatedly hammer it into the public consciousness. That way they can say that they did their jobs but the public didn’t find it all that important. This completely glosses over the fact that they dictate much of what the public does find relevant simply by the amount of airtime and repetition they give it.
Each appearance of impropriety surround the woman who would be Queen is quickly left behind by the MSM. This Trump situation with Pam Bondi will get the “pitbull sinking its teeth into steak” treatment, however.
What’s new with this story is the fact that the media is really tipping its bias hand now. Until recently, whenever something mildly or greatly damning about Hillary came to light, Trump would give the media a pass by saying or doing something stupid to distract everyone. Sure, they could have reported on both candidates but we all know how this game is played. There’s no reason to make a rigged game easier for those doing the rigging, which is precisely what Trump was doing. Now he’s moved into a more serious mode, and they have to find more creative ways to ignore the Hillary debacle du jour.
Hillary has coughing fit that looks like it’s an audition for a TB ward? “Let’s talk about Pam Bondi!”
This isn’t a new story that just popped up today. I wrote about it last March. What it is rather is a desperate distraction from the fact that Hillary Clinton’s health probably qualifies her for little more reading to school children and, oh yeah, her rapidly disappearing lead in the polls.
If Trump and Bondi are guilty of a little pay-for-play they should be held accountable. This post isn’t meant to excuse them.
If, however, the former Secretary of State who is running for president was selling favors on an international scale that might just be a bigger deal.
In a sane world.
