Donald Trump’s second-choice pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, in 2013 received from Trump a $25,000 donation for a political action committee supporting her campaign to be re-elected as Florida’s attorney general — just days after a Bondi spokesperson told the media that her office was reviewing a lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general on behalf of numerous students who said they were defrauded by Trump’s unaccredited real estate school, Trump University.

Bondi’s own office had received almost two dozen complaints about Trump’s school.  Soon after, Bondi declined to join New York’s effort on behalf of the students Trump had defrauded.

While there is no evidence of any explicit quid pro quo to explain that chain of events, and both Trump and Bondi denied any impropriety, it doesn’t look good. 

Especially because the whole deal, as with most aspects of Trump’s life, was coated in blatant law-breaking.

Donald Trump’s campaign donation was illegally provided from Trump’s non-profit tax-exempt charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation. The Trump foundation listed the donation in its IRS filing as a gift to a Kansas anti-abortion group with a name similar to Bondi’s re-election effort.

In September 2016, Trump paid a $2500 fine to the IRS for this violation of federal tax law. 

Then, in November 2016, Trump paid $25 million to settle the civil fraud charges brought by New York’s attorney general and by former Trump University students. And in December 2019, Trump paid $2 million and was forced by New York’s attorney general to shut down the Donald J. Trump Foundation in a civil settlement for illegally misusing charitable donations for political and personal purposes.

But while Bondi, with illegal Trump money in her coffers, turned her back on students in her state who were victimized by Trump University, it’s worth noting that she did not block her office from pursuing an investigation against another deceptive college owned by another ultra-wealthy and politically powerful Florida Republican, Arthur Keiser.

In 2012, Bondi reached a settlement with Keiser University, a chain with 20 campuses across Florida, and a few others overseas, over alleged deceptive and predatory practices. The case involved accusations by students that Keiser’s schools misled them regarding matters including costs of enrollment, accreditation, transferability of credits, and terms of student loans. Keiser’s schools admitted no wrongdoing and paid no cash fine, but agreed to provide some students with free job retraining and to comply with consumer protection provisions.

Keiser’s controversial school chain, which has received hundreds of millions from U.S. taxpayers for student aid, has faced multiple law enforcement probes. It also converted from a for-profit to a non-profit in a dubious deal that allowed Keiser to keep making big money off the school; that arrangement was later subject to IRS penalties.

Arthur Keiser and his wife, Belinda, wield political power in both Florida and in Washington DC, using campaign contributions, lobbying groups, and expensive lawyers to buy influence and push for conservative policies as well as reduced accountability for career schools like theirs.

The for-profit college industry is salivating over Trump’s return to power. In Trump’s first term, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos staffed her department with former executives of predatory colleges and reversed all efforts to protect the students —  veterans, single moms, and others — who get lured into heavy debt by false promises from these schools. 

If the second Trump administration, and new education secretary pick Linda McMahon, truly want to help students, and truly want to implement the incoming administration’s professed commitment to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in federal government programs, then it should continue the Biden team’s work of holding predatory colleges accountable.

The U.S. Justice Department and attorney general have a critical role to play in standing up for these victimized students. DoJ will have to decide whether to work to undermine, or instead defend, all of the important regulations created by the Biden Department of Education to protect students and former students from predatory college fraud — the gainful employment rule, the borrower defense rule, and more. DoJ also will have to decide whether to join, or to reject, False Claims Act lawsuits brought by whistleblowers who identify fraud at colleges and in the federal student aid system. 

It’s likely, I guess, that Bondi’s Justice Department would reprise the role DoJ played during Trump 1, and take the side of predatory colleges over victimized students. Just as con man Trump might be inclined to side with scammers over victims, Trump Pentagon nominee Pete Hegseth, who would have a role in higher education options for our troops, was previously a paid shill for predatory for-profit schools. But Bondi’s willingness as Florida’s AG to see through the probe against the powerful Keisers provides a glimmer of hope that she might, sometimes, do the right thing.