Speculation has swirled all week regarding the nature of Trump’s announcement. Trump will donate for Obama records

Donald Trump said on Wednesday that if President Obama releases his college records and his passport application, the mega-millionaire developer will give a $5 million check to charities of Obama’s choosing.

Trump tweeted a video of himself in which he offers Obama a “deal that I don’t believe he can refuse, and I hope he doesn’t.”


The records must be turned over by Oct. 31 by 5 p.m., and the check will be made within an hour after the records are released, Trump said.

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“President Obama is the least transparent president in the history of this country. There’s never been anything like it,” Trump said in the video, taking credit for getting Obama to release his longform birth certificate “or whatever it may be.”

“If he releases these records, it will end the question and indeed the anger of many Americans. They’ll know something about their president. Their president will become transparent, like other presidents,” he said. “I absolutely would be the most happy of all if I did in fact make this contribution through the president to these charities.

White House senior adviser David Plouffe said in response, “Direct those questions to Boston because Donald Trump is Mitt Romney’s biggest supporter, so he owns everything he says.”

( Also on POLITICO: Trump mocked on Twitter)

About about an hour after his video was made public, Trump tweeted, “The response has been fantastic — actually overwhelming! Thank you!” Trump, who flirted with a presidential run before endorsing Mitt Romney, said on Facebook later Wednesday afternoon that former presidents of both parties have released the requested records.

Read Trump’s full statement here.

Without any evidence, conservatives have attacked the president’s time at Columbia University for years, alleging there must something suspicious in his college records.

Building suspense for his noon announcement, Trump tweeted earlier Wednesday morning that “all predictions” regarding the bombshell he’s promised to drop about President Barack Obama are “totally incorrect” - and he was right about that.

Speculation had been swirling for days regarding what Trump would say.

Paddy Power, a European betting house, was accepting wagers on various possibilities. On Wednesday, according to the site, the odds were 4/6 that Trump’s announcement would be that “Barack and Michelle have started divorce proceedings.” Another option: that there was “evidence of illegal drug use by Obama,” a bet that had 3/1 odds. The line that Trump will claim that “Obama is not an American” was 7/2, while a day earlier, those odds were 2/5.

Longer-odd options include: “Obama is an alien” (100/1), “Obama to host…’The Apprentice’ if Romney takes the White House” (250/1) and the nebulous category “Trump ‘I’m your father Obama,’” with odds clocking in at 500/1.