Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is one of 16 people named Friday to President-elect Donald Trump's presidential transition team.
First elected in 2010, Bondi was an early supporter of Trump and spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
During the presidential campaign, she came under fire for her acceptance of a $25,000 campaign check for her own re-election run from the Donald J Trump Foundation shortly before announcing two years ago that she would not act on complaints involving Trump University.
She spoke publicly about the matter for the first time in September, defending herself for asking Trump for the money in the first place and for not returning the contribution even after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit alleging fraud at Trump University.
“If I had returned it, you would have reported, ‘Bondi accepted a bribe, got caught and returned it,’” Bondi said. “That’s how the reporting goes. And so, no, there was nothing improper about it. So there was no reason to return it.”
A growing number of Floridians have come forward this year saying they lost money or were dissatisfied with the for-profit, unaccredited Trump University, which closed in 2010, But Bondi said that at the time of the contribution, her office had only fielded one complaint -- and that did not lead to an investigation.
That lawsuit and a separate federal class-action civil lawsuit in California alleged that Trump University -- which was largely owned by Trump himself -- defrauded consumers by as much as $35,000 each with promises of a real estate investing education that they either did not receive or found to be worthless.
According to The Associated Press, Trump’s attorneys on Thursday agreed to enter settlement talks in the class-action fraud lawsuit, raising the possibility of a quick end to the six-and-a-half-year-old case just before it goes to trial.
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