Of all of Donald Trump’s controversies from the early summer, the one about Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) was one of the toughest to explain away. As we discussed a few months ago, the Republican A.G. briefly considered joining a multi-state suit against “Trump University,” but Bondi dropped the investigation after the Trump Foundation made a $25,000 contribution towards her re-election campaign.

It didn’t help matters that Bondi “ personally solicited ” the money from Trump while her office was considering a case against “Trump University.”

Also unclear was why the Trump Foundation, ostensibly a charitable entity, was making a campaign contribution. The Washington Post reported late yesterday that the questions prompted IRS scrutiny and a penalty the Republican presidential candidate paid this year.

Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year, an official at Trump’s company said, after it was revealed that Trump’s charitable foundation had violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general. […] In [its 2013] tax filings, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump’s foundation listed a donation – also for $25,000 – to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi’s political group. In fact, Trump’s foundation had not given the Kansas group any money. The prohibited gift was, in effect, replaced with an innocent-sounding but nonexistent donation.

Trump’s organization blames all of this on a series of unintended mistakes, which have since been resolved.

That’s certainly possible, but let’s not lose sight of prevailing political winds.

Guy Cecil, the co-chair PrioritiesUSA, a leading Democratic super PAC, joked on Twitter yesterday, “Breaking: Presidential candidate’s foundation fined for pay-to-play scheme. Looking forward to wall-to-wall coverage.”

He has a point. There’s been intense interest from news organizations in the Clinton Foundation, and several Republicans have asked for a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton’s ties to her husband’s charity – despite the fact that there’s no evidence she did anything wrong and no one seems able to identify the specific allegations against the Democratic candidate.

It’s now taken as a given across much of the political world that the Clinton Foundation is “controversial” for reasons that are still, at best, difficult to explain.