Donald Trump's campaign manager explains Trump's 6-figure Clinton Foundation donation

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Trump&#039;s Clinton Foundation donation

(Image credit: CNN/YouTube)

last updated 25 August 2016

Donald Trump has been hammering Hillary Clinton for ties between Clinton at the State Department and the Clinton Foundation, calling for a special prosecutor to look into his "pay to play" allegations and calling the apparent access granted to Clinton Foundation donors "what happens in third-world countries." "It is impossible to figure out where the Clinton Foundation ends and the State Department begins," he said at a rally in Austin on Tuesday night. "It is now abundantly clear that the Clintons set up a business to profit from public office" — which would be one long con, since Clinton was appointed secretary of state nine years after the Foundation was launched.

But Trump himself has donated to the Clinton Foundation, giving between $100,000 and $250,000 as of 2014 — a point Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon noted:

CNN's Anderson Cooper asked Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway about those donations, asking if Trump was "paying to play" himself. "Hey, the Clinton Foundation does a lot of good work, and I also want to say that for the record, they do," she said. Cooper asked again if Trump was trying to buy access to Clinton, and Conway said "no, because it seemed like he had access to her anytime he wanted — I mean, she went to his wedding, they went to his wedding." The Clinton Foundation, she repeated, "does good work, and let's hope that that money went to good use." When pressed, Conway said that Trump "was not paying to play," and "he has never told me he's gone to the State Department to have a meeting with Hillary Clinton." Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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