Former Clinton strategist Mark Penn has vocally defended President Donald Trump this year.

In a piece published Monday, the Daily Beast traces the two men’s relationship all the way back to three decades before Trump ascended to the presidency, when he was trying to build a massive development dubbed Trump City on the Upper West Side in New York City.

According to the Daily Beast local activists opposed the development, 150-story commercial and residential project. So Trump turned to the polling firm Penn & Schoen Associates, headed my Mark Penn.

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The Beast notes that in his multiple media appearances and platforms—during which he often defends Trump—Penn is always identified through his association with the Clintons. In a statement, Penn denied that his financial links to Trump have anything to do with his support.

“Thirty years ago, [my partner] Doug Schoen brought in Trump and the Trump organization as a minor client to a firm neither of us has been associated with for nearly a decade. I never met his then client, Donald Trump, and, as I recall, Schoen had trouble collecting payment for his work, and had to settle largely for shuttle tickets that then became worthless,” Penn said.

“Resurfacing this old news is a off-base attempt to find some irrelevant link from 30 years ago to work I didn’t do for a firm I’m no longer with, and that is not in any way related to my positions against independent counsels or as a moderate Democrat that have been consistent for over 40 years.”

But “Trump City” wasn’t the only link between the firm and Donald Trump. In 1988, they also did a survey testing Trump’s name recognition among Republican voters, finding it very high.