The Sun-Sentinel also calls for “an independent federal investigation”:

We never would have known about this eyebrow-raising episode were it not for Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell, who spotted Trump's donation shortly after Bondi's office said it had received complaints against Trump University and Trump Institute. "I couldn't imagine any ethical prosecutor taking money from someone her office had been asked to investigate," he wrote this week. "Imagine you were robbed and the prosecutor gave the suspect a pass after taking $25,000 from him. There would be universal outrage — and rightfully so. This is not the behavior of an ethical prosecutor." [...] Make no mistake, despite Bondi's inaction, plenty of Floridians lost big with Trump University [...] Yet Bondi decided the losses suffered by Floridians weren't worth pursuing. It's hard to tell who looks worse in this, Bondi or Trump.

Dan Gelber at The Miami Herald:

While an Attorney General attains an office through political means, it is paramount that it be administered free of any scent of politics. I spent nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor, mostly in the public corruption unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Florida. I spent the same amount of time as a state legislator where political fund-raising was a necessary fact of life. I’ve served in both worlds and know the difference between them. [...] Pleasing constituents, pursuing campaign contributions and reading polls should have nothing to do with how a prosecutor decides to direct the power of the state. When political contributions seem entwined with official law enforcement actions no one should be surprised that the public wonders whether their interests are being lost in a mountain of campaign cash. This is unfortunate because it taints not just the decision of the office, but the many fine career attorneys who work there.

Michael Auslen at The Miami Herald reports Bondi is sticking her head in the stand, hoping the scandal goes away:

She’s evaded questions about her relationship with the Republican nominee for president, refusing interviews and ignoring text messages. A one-time Fox News regular, she has kept her public appearances to a minimum as questions about “pay-for-play” mount. While Bondi’s office this week answered unrelated questions posed by the Herald/Times, it took two days for her office to respond to questions related to Trump’s contribution. And even then, some responses didn’t come close to providing answers. This is what is known about what the New Yorker now calls “The Scandal that Won’t Go Away.”

From American Bridge:

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Side note: If you missed this fairtytale-inspired op-ed on the Bondi-Trump relationship by John Romano at The Tampa Bay Tribune from earlier this week, its definitely worth a click.

POLITICO’s headline says “Trump's pay-for-play scandal intensifies,” and Nick Gass reports on the latest developments:

Joy-Ann Reid at The Daily Beast:

In Bondi’s case, she is not just Florida’s top prosecutor, she was Trump’s first high-level Florida endorser, spurning hometown candidate Sen. Marco Rubio; she was talked up in Trumpworld for a spot on his ticket and given a prime speaking slot at the Republican convention. These are not frivolous questions. Clinton’s emailgate was triggered in part by legal filings from Judicial Watch, a gadfly conservative “watchdog” group that has been hunting the Clintons since the 1990s. Meanwhile, a June complaintfiled with Robert L. Capers, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Christopher Canova, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, remains open and unresolved. It accuses Bondi of “violations of federal anti-bribery laws and federal laws prohibiting mail fraud, wire fraud, and criminal conspiracy.” The filing adds that: “Federal jurisdiction in this case is based on evidence that Trump and Bondi participated in a bribery scheme in New York and Florida that crossed state lines, violated federal laws concerning tax exempt charitable organizations, and required the use of interstate telephone, mail, internet and banking facilities. There is probable cause to find that Trump and Bondi used the mail, telephone, internet [sic] and other interstate facilities with the intent to give and receive a bribe.”

The Washington Post calls Trump a “hustler”:

At the very least, the news should remind voters of two of the many disqualifying elements of Mr. Trump’s record. First is the scandal of Trump University and the Trump Institute, sleazy operations that took thousands of dollars from poor, uneducated and credulous people who thought they would learn the secrets of the real estate business. Many report getting little to nothing for their money. This is among the pieces of evidence suggesting that Mr. Trump is not a brilliant businessman but a shameless hustler. Voters should also see how Mr. Trump once again attempted to use his charitable foundation, which other people have funded over the past several years, for his own personal ends. The $25,000 he transferred from the foundation to Ms. Bondi was an illegal donation; charitable groups cannot give to campaigns. The Internal Revenue Service only recently fined Mr. Trump for this transgression because a supposed clerical error made it seem legitimate. Even if that mistake were genuine, why was Mr. Trump attempting to use money meant for charity to fund a political campaign? These points, among others, suggest that Mr. Trump’s penchant for lying and deception does not end with relatively harmless campaign-season overstatement. It is a business strategy, and it has real-world consequences.

Speaking of The Washington Post, they also penned an editorial saying that “the Hillary Clinton email story is out of control,” calling it a “minor scandal” and urging voters to reject Trump: