Donald Trump has long boasted that his past political contributions have given him unique insight into the way Washington is rigged. “I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me,” he bragged during the first presidential debate. Trump’s candor won him fans, and burnished the billionaire’s claim to be the one candidate who both understands how the donor-donee relationship really works while not being beholden to donors himself.

Now, with just two months until Election Day, the Republican presidential nominee’s claims to have worked the system to his advantage are coming back to haunt him. Over the Labor Day weekend, Trump faced renewed questioning about why his family foundation had donated $25,000 to a political group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2013—in violation of federal rules preventing foundations from donating to political candidates—at the same time that her office was considering whether to investigate Trump University for alleged fraud. Bondi, according to reporting by the Associated Press in July, “personally solicited” the political contribution, just before she declined to move forward with the Trump University case.

Speaking to reporters in Ohio on Monday, Trump fervently denied ever having spoken to Bondi directly. “I never spoke to her, first of all. She’s a fine person, beyond reproach. I never even spoke to her about it at all. She’s a fine person. Never spoken to her about it, never,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post. “Many of the attorney generals turned that case down because I’ll win that case in court,” Trump added, referring to the two federal class-action lawsuits that have been brought against his now defunct for-profit education company. Former students of the company’s real-estate training course have claimed that they were aggressively coerced into paying for classes and that the school “preyed” on vulnerable students.

Trump, who once declared that he could have gotten casino gambling legalized in Florida, if he had wanted to, by donating to the right people and calling favors, denied Monday that his donation to Bondi’s group was a bribe, and said that he simply admired her for the “amazing job” she was doing as attorney general.

News of Trump’s eyebrow-raising contribution to the pro-Bondi group had been reported earlier this year. It was also previously reported that the Donald J. Trump Foundation had categorized its contribution to the I.R.S. as to another group with a similar-sounding name, effectively disguising the contribution, whether intentionally or not. (Trump paid a $2,500 penalty to the I.R.S. for misreporting the contribution, and the Trump Organization claimed that an employee had mistakenly listed Trump’s personal donation as one from the Foundation.) But Trump’s latest denial introduces a new twist to the scandal. As the Associated Press revealed earlier this summer, Bondi made a personal phone call to the real-estate mogul to solicit a donation, according to an aide, Marc Reichelderfer. Trump’s claim never to have spoken to Bondi means there are now two conflicting stories about how the donation came about. And at least one of the three—Trump, Bondi, and Reichelderfer—is not telling the truth.