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Aide: Trump’s donation to Clinton Foundation wasn’t ‘pay to play’

by Jesse Byrnes - 08/24/16 2:02 PM ET

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway: Trump was not "paying to play" when he donated to the Clinton Foundation. https://t.co/UFzRy5LATI

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) August 24, 2016

A senior aide to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump insists that the businessman wasn’t “paying to play” when he donated to the Clinton Foundation.

“No, he was not paying to play,” Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Tuesday night on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”

{mosads}”The Clinton Foundation does a lot of good work. I also want to say that for the record, they do,” Conway said.

Conway, who was named as Trump’s new campaign manager last week, was questioned about Trump’s donations to the global charity. The billionaire donated between $100,001 and $250,00, according to a list on the foundation’s website.

The businessman turned Republican presidential nominee has since ratcheted up his attacks on the foundation, calling for it to be “shut down immediately.”

He has described it as “the most corrupt enterprise in political history” as Republicans attack a perceived conflict of interest in donations to the group during Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of State.

“It is impossible to figure out where the Clinton Foundation ends and the State Department begins,” Trump said Tuesday night at a rally in Texas.

The foundation announced last week that it would not accept foreign or corporate donations if Clinton is elected president; her husband, former President Bill Clinton, announced earlier this week he would step down from the foundation he established in 1997.

“Was your candidate donating that money so that he could have access to Hillary Clinton whenever he wanted?” Cooper asked the Trump aide late Tuesday.

“No, because it seemed like he had access to her any time he wanted. I mean, she went to his wedding,” Conway responded, referring to Trump’s marriage to Melania in 2005, when they were photographed smiling alongside Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Conway said Trump donated money to the Clinton Foundation “because they do good work, and let’s hope that money went to good uses.”

Tags 2016 presidential election Bill Clinton Clinton Foundation Donald Trump Hillary Clinton