

Donald Trump knows a thing or two about buying politicians. By his own admission, that was his own relationship with the elected official he now calls Crooked Hillary.

“As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal last year. “As a businessman, I need that.”

A few days later, on stage at the first debate of the primaries, Trump defended the practice.

There was no promise to reform the system; merely a statement of his transactions. That was simply his answer to the difficult question of why this Republican candidate had donated so much money to so many Democrats.

“I will tell you that our system is broken,” he explained. “I gave to many people, before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.”

The political world according to Trump is much like hiring a lawyer or accountant. He pays up; they follow his orders. The art of this deal is straightforward: the buyer enjoys considerable leverage over the seller.

Trump’s explanations of his donations are helpful context for understanding at least two curious payments to state attorneys-general.

Both Pam Bondi of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas (now the Texas governor) were the lucky recipients of Trump donations. Bondi received a $25,000 contribution from Trump a few days after her office declared it was “reviewing the allegations” in a lawsuit filed in New York against Trump University in 2013. Both Abbott and Bondi deny any impropriety.

Bondi’s office ended the review without taking any action against the so-called university, that reports suggest was little more than a high-pressure sales opportunity for a worthless investment seminar.

Trump also handed over cash to Abbott to support his gubernatorial campaign in Texas. That was three years after Abbott dropped its investigation into the business that the New York attorney general has called “straight-up fraud”.

Proving corruption is notoriously difficult in a court of law, and campaign finance laws are just as notoriously difficult to enforce. So for now, we must be thankful to the Internal Revenue Service – and the reporting of the Washington Post – for uncovering the mysterious circumstances of the Bondi payment.

Trump paid Bondi’s campaign through his tax-exempt family foundation, in violation of tax laws. Strangely, the donation was initially listed as going to a Kansas charity with a similar name to Bondi’s political group. “An honest mistake,” said the Trump Organization.

That honest mistake cost Trump a $2,500 penalty to the IRS. It might also cost him his self-proclaimed position as an outsider who can upend the political system; and as a relentless critic of the Clinton Foundation’s approach to donations.

Instead, Trump looks more and more like the political insider he professes to disdain.

Of course, he doesn’t call Pam Bondi of Florida “Crooked Pam”. That would be a little ungenerous since she spoke so eloquently on his behalf at the Republican convention in Cleveland.

“Winning this election means reclaiming something to which I’ve dedicated my entire career: the rule of law. Laws that make our neighborhoods safe. Laws that make our economy strong. Laws that apply equally to everyone,” Bondi explained to the delegates in the hall.

Bondi accused Clinton of being “a former secretary of state who believes the laws don’t apply to her … This lawlessness must stop. Right here. Right now. Donald Trump will stop it.”

After one passing reference to Clinton’s private email server, the crowd began chanting, and Bondi happily responded in kind.

“Lock her up,” said the attorney general. “I love that.”

This is the rule of law seen through Alice’s looking glass. A wonderland where a state’s chief law enforcement officer loves the notion of locking up an elected official without charge or trial.

A topsy-turvy state of affairs where lawlessness will be stopped by a man who is being sued for fraud.

It would be too much to say that Trump is a hypocrite. You see, he hasn’t promised to fix the broken system. He only pointed out that he bought other politicians. He only hinted that he has so much money that he can’t be bought by other donors. Reform was never his rallying cry.

A real reform candidate could have worked wonders in this presidential cycle. An outsider with unimpeachable credentials and a decent claim to credibility might have ripped through both the primaries and the general election. That was, in part, the appeal of Bernie Sanders.

Instead, the Republican party nominated someone who openly admits to buying politicians, and whose relationship with the truth looks like a comb-over.

Trump’s pitch to voters isn’t that he’s cleaner than his supposedly crooked opponent. It’s that he’s paid so much for the broken system that he doesn’t need to sell himself.

This isn’t your typical pay-to-play scheme. Trump has paid the politicians for years, and now he’s trying to play the voters.