If the first $20 million yielded cheers, the second $15 million generated stunned silence. 
 
 Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz vaulted suddenly and without any advance warning to the top rung of Democratic party megadonors with two unheralded tears through his checkbook in the past six weeks. His money significantly altered the short-term financial position of the pro-Hillary Clinton forces and revealed a previously unknown source of cash for Democrats. 
 
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 In the days after Moskovitz's money landed, the party's leading finance operatives struggled to control their excitement at the prospect of finally having an answer to Republicans’ Sheldon Adelson in the shape of a Silicon Valley titan like the ones Democrats have been chasing after for well over a decade. 
 
 “This is a unicorn-type campaign gift — you just don’t see someone basically walk into a campaign without a significant track record of activity and contribute at this level,” said veteran Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, a Clinton White House alum who works closely with top party donors in Silicon Valley. 
 
 The deeply private 32-year-old — who is worth $12.7 billion, according to Bloomberg — is a longtime philanthropist but political newcomer. He hasn’t started to build contacts with local operatives. And he hasn’t said a word publicly about his political involvement beyond a pair of Medium posts announcing it in the first place. 
 
 So now, grateful but puzzled Democrats in Washington and Silicon Valley are wondering, does Moskovitz’s move herald the dawning of the new age of tech money that they’ve been pursuing? Or is his unparalleled cash infusion a non-replicable, one-off response to Donald Trump? 
 
 Campaign cash from the tech industry has long skewed heavily to Democrats, and in recent cycles moguls have developed a practice of pitching in toward the end of the campaign to boost candidates, most notably Barack Obama in 2012. Clinton’s bid has even mobilized a set of tech icons to get more involved than ever before, most prominently Apple CEO Tim Cook and Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, a philanthropist and activist, as the era of Democratic resistance to giving massive donations to super PACs wanes. 
 
 But the $35 million from Moskovitz — who declined POLITICO’s request to talk about his political involvement — is far more than others have contributed, even though he wrote that such big donations to politics make him uncomfortable. And while top Democrats have developed close relationships with other Northern California luminaries as the community established itself as the party’s top money source, he has rarely been part of that circuit. (One email exchange released by WikiLeaks last week illustrates the dynamic: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in August 2015 asked Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta whether he would consider sitting down with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to discuss philanthropy and public policy, and Podesta agreed to set something up. Moskovitz’s name isn’t in any of the hacked Podesta emails.) 
 
 And before this cycle, Moskovitz’s only recorded political donations had been $5,200 to the failed 2014 House bid of Sean Eldridge, the husband of fellow Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, according to Center for Responsive Politics data. 
 
 Despite Moskovitz's hesitance to talk on the record about his involvement, his Twitter page has started to look like that of a regular political junkie, as he quotes Clinton while retweeting poll numbers. (On Oct. 12, he wrote "trumped up trickle down karma," noting Clinton's polling lead, shortly before tweeting a picture of Trump with the "demagorgon" from the TV show "Stranger Things" and calling it "This season's scariest halloween costume.") 
 
 But there was nothing before September that even hinted at the massive and sophisticated donation scheme he would unveil this time around. After announcing in September that he would drop $10 million into a Clinton campaign fund, the Senate and House Democrats’ campaign wings, MoveOn.org, the Color of Change PAC and voter registration and get-out-the-vote groups, plus $5 million each for the League of Conservation Voters and the union-backed For Our Future super PAC, he followed up early this month by pledging $7 million more to registration and mobilization organizations, $3 million to political groups, and $5 million to Priorities USA Action, the main pro-Clinton super PAC. 
 
 The sudden cash injection was unprecedented. 
 
 People familiar with Moskovitz's thinking say he had been inching toward politics after focusing primarily on philanthropy for years. But whether he joins the ranks of Tom Steyer or Haim Saban as top Democratic donors, or even becomes an Eric Schmidt-like ally to party leaders, local and national fundraisers are reluctant to guess. 
 
 Democratic operatives on the West Coast say they still haven’t met Moskovitz, haven’t seen him at party or candidate fundraising events, are not aware of whether he has a political representative helping him, and report that his name had never before been on their donation target lists. Multiple top Democrats responded to POLITICO’s questions about Moskovitz by simply replying, ‘Who?” and two admitted to looking up his name and donations on Google before responding to emails about him. 
 
 Indeed, they say, all indications are that his foray into politics is entirely driven by Trump, who Moskovitz savaged in his pair of blog posts announcing the donations, rather than a longer-term intention to become a political player. 
 
 “The Republican Party, and Donald Trump in particular, is running on a zero-sum vision, stressing a false contest between their constituency and the rest of the world. We believe their positions, especially on immigration, which purport to improve the lives of Americans, would in practice hurt citizens and noncitizens alike. In contrast, the Democratic Party, and Hillary Clinton in particular, is running on a vision of optimism, pragmatism, inclusiveness and mutual benefit,” Moskovitz wrote in September on behalf of himself and his wife, Cari Tuna, calling Trump’s promises “quite possibly a deliberate con, an attempt to rally energy and support without the ability to deliver. His proposals are so implausible that the nation is forced to worry that his interest in the presidency might not even extend beyond winning a contest and promoting his personal brand." 
 
 The day after the publication of a 2005 tape in which Trump made lewd remarks about women, Moskovitz piled on his second wave of cash: “Further investments are warranted, particularly in support of work targeting millennial and independent voters. These contributions will go towards voter outreach and engagement efforts focused on those key audiences,” he wrote. “The events of the past few weeks have only deepened my conviction that Hillary is the best choice for America. I hope that these contributions will help make that outcome a reality." 
 
 To fellow tech-world entrepreneurs and Northern California Democratic insiders, therefore, the development carries all the hallmarks of a major one-time investment — much to the frustration of party fundraising pros whose search for the next George Soros continues apace, but to the short-term delight of party operatives working to help Clinton zero in on the White House. 
 
 “Dustin is acting in the typical Silicon Valley way — be bold, go big, make a difference in the world,” said Steve Spinner, an entrepreneur and top-tier Democratic fundraiser. “Although rarely seen in politics, it’s not surprising at all given the type of person and leader he is." ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201609/3798/1155968404_5116952678001_5116941334001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump's pay-for-play scandal intensifies The Republican nominee has denied any wrongdoing in his donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. 
 
 The swirl of scandal around Donald Trump’s donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is intensifying, with the Republican nominee and his aides vigorously pushing back against the idea that he bought the decision by Bondi to not pursue an investigation into his Trump University. 
 
 The controversy whipped back up last week when news emerged that Trump paid a $2,500 fine because his foundation improperly donated $25,000 to Bondi’s political election committee in 2013 (tax-exempt charitable groups are not allowed to make political contributions). 
 
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 Following the donation in 2013, Bondi’s office declined to join a fledgling multi-state probe into Trump’s real estate seminar program. The links between the two continued, with Trump hosting a lavish fundraiser for Bondi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in March 2014, and Bondi endorsing Trump in March of this year. 
 
 While Trump and Bondi say there’s no fire underneath the smoke, the Manhattan businessman’s political wheelings and dealings are now drawing more scrutiny, especially because Trump’s campaign has been driving hard at the idea that Hillary Clinton engaged in pay for play through her Clinton Foundation and her tenure at the State Department. 
 
 Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday morning brushed aside questioning from George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” remarking that Trump “has supported many, many Republican candidates” while suggesting that the two stories are not comparable in scale or consequence. 
 
 “But we do know Mrs. Clinton, Secretary Clinton used the State Department as a concierge for many foreign donors,” Conway said. “And I think there’s actually no comparison between man who gives consistently to Republican candidates in their re-election, George, and a woman who as secretary of state has had her official staff that we pay for bartering for position and bartering for state dinners and, you know, just making contributions that are inappropriate. The State Department is a very busy place. We should get human rights for those women and girls not disrespected and not worry about foreign governments coming in to influence.” 
 
 Conway later in the day repeatedly tried to sidestep forceful questions during an interview on Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect," dismissing the idea that Trump engaged in a pay to play as "ridiculous." 
 
 Co-host Mark Halperin tried to press Conway, saying, "You're just asking people to accept the timing as a coincidence, given the contribution came right around the time her office was making a decision?" 
 
 "Yes, they say that they never discussed it," Conway said about Trump and Bondi, adding, "I think there is absolutely no equivalence between that and Hillary Clinton using the State Department as a concierge for foreign donors to move hundreds of millions." 
 
 The Trump campaign is also facing a new crop of editorials, with the Miami Herald saying it’s “puzzling” why Trump’s controversy is not getting “equal billing” to that associated with the Clinton Foundation. 
 
 “Unlike the faux scandal over the Clinton institution, there were actual victims here — people who paid good money to Trump University and feel they were duped. Why is Pam Bondi not investigating that?” the Miami Herald editorial board wrote in an item titled, “Donald Trump’s gift to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi deserves a closer look.” 
 
 The New York Times also dug in, writing on its opinion page, “If Ms. Bondi promised to back off the Trump University suit in exchange for campaign money during that 2013 phone conversation, it could be a crime. As for Mr. Trump, the $2,500 I.R.S. fine is a tiny penalty, unless voters impose consequences of their own.” 
 
 The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell, citing records obtained from a public-records request, wrote in an column Tuesday that the “wrong person is receiving the brunt of the scrutiny here.” 
 
 “Imagine you were robbed and the prosecutor gave the suspect a pass after taking $25,000 from him,” Maxwell wrote. “There would be universal outrage — and rightfully so. This is not the behavior of an ethical prosecutor.” 
 
 Bondi’s 2010 opponent, former federal prosecutor and state Sen. Dan Gelber, said on his blog that the Trump money “taints” the Florida attorney general, who is at least guilty of a crime of optics. 
 
 “In fairness to Bondi, it is not at all clear whether she knew the details of the investigation when the check was solicited, or whether it influenced her Office's decision,” Gelber wrote. “But it doesn't have to. Bondi should have rejected the money, or returned it immediately upon learning that Trump was seeking an action - or in this case an inaction - from her Office.” 
 
 Bill Clinton ramped up his own attacks, taking a shot at Trump on Wednesday at a rally in Orlando as he told the crowd that Trump “attacked my foundation. He uses his foundation's money to pay off your attorney general." 
 
 And even as Trump and Bondi deny any wrongdoing, Trump’s own prior words are also coming back to haunt him. 
 
 The billionaire has repeatedly talked about freely donating to both Republican and Democratic politicians, saying they were smart business moves. 
 
 “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 in July 2015. 
 
 At the first Republican debate last August, Trump ripped into his primary rivals for taking contributions from him in the past. 
 
 “I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people, before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give.” Trump said at the time. “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.” 
 
 Trump laid out a similar rationale for deciding to run for president during his nomination acceptance speech in July, declaring, “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people who cannot defend themselves.” 
 
 He added, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” 
 
 But on Monday, Trump said there was nothing untoward. 
 
 “No. I never spoke to her,” Trump told reporters on his campaign plane, according to a CBS transcript. Trump added that Bondi is a “fine person beyond reproach. I never even spoke to her about it at all ... Never spoken to her about it. Never.” 
 
 While it wasn’t clear what the “it” was that he was referring to, a spokesman for Bondi told The Associated Press in June that the attorney general asked for the $25,000 donation during a phone call in 2013, and Bondi herself has called the timing of the donation a coincidence. 
 
 "I don't think this was a lengthy, memorable call," Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told AP about the conversation. "Mr. Trump talks to a hundred people in any given day. So, I don't know if I will be able to provide that information. That's not exactly a realistic or reasonable request." 
 
 The Trump campaign has sought to shift the focus back onto Clinton, particularly after the release last Friday of documents pertaining to the FBI probe into her handling of classified materials, including notes from her July interview with investigators. 
 
 Clinton should "come clean" and disclose every single one of the emails related to her time as secretary of state Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence declared Wednesday. 
 
 Pence, speaking to "Fox & Friends" from Indianapolis, talked up Donald Trump's speech the previous night in North Carolina in which he emphasized the ties between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department under Clinton from 2009 to 2013. 
 
 The Associated Press reported last month that at least 85 of the 154 people from private interests who had phone conversations scheduled or met with Clinton also donated to the foundation or pledged commitments to its international programs. 
 
 Pointing to that report, Pence remarked, "This pay-to-play politics has begun to come to light for the American people, but it's time for Hillary Clinton to come clean and make all of those emails available." 
 
 Pence has called on Clinton to “come clean” in the past with respect to the State Department and the Clinton Foundation, though the latest recommendation comes after the former secretary of state herself told reporters Tuesday that Trump ought to “come clean” about his tax returns. (Pence reiterated that he would soon release his own returns, with Trump doing the same after the audit has concluded.) 
 
 Asked whether Trump’s national and state poll numbers have increased because of the latest reports, Pence emphasized that it is the campaign’s message rather than Clinton’s troubles, driving voters to their corner. 
 
 Clinton herself made reference to the allegations of pay for play surrounding Bondi and Trump University on Tuesday as she stopped for a campaign event in Tampa, Florida. 
 
 “Of course, as we know, there was a phone conversation between them. They contradict each other. The American people deserve to know what was said, because clearly the attorney general did not proceed with the investigation,” Clinton told reporters aboard her plane. 
 
 Bondi hit back at Clinton later in the day on Fox Business Network. 
 
 "I will not be collateral damage in a presidential campaign, nor will I be a woman bullied by Hillary Clinton," the Florida attorney general declared. "Hillary Clinton will not bully me." 
 
 Bondi affirmed that she had asked Trump for a contribution, but added “that’s not what this is about,” remarking that Clinton erred in her description of the circumstances surrounding the $25,000. 
 
 "Of course I asked Donald Trump for a contribution, that's not what this is about," Bondi said. “[Clinton] said he was under investigation by my office, at the time, and I knew about it. None of which is true.” 
 
 Clinton, in fact, said that Bondi “was being asked by her constituents to investigate Trump University.” 
 
 Trump’s former campaign manager and current ally Corey Lewandowski also came to the nominee’s defense when CNN anchor Chris Cuomo brought up a New York Times article, saying, “There's a list of things that actually happened where he was caught and had to pay fines.” 
 
 “How does that make you a change agent? We get what the problem is. We get that it's corrupt. But if you exploit the corruption, how are you the change agent?” Cuomo asked. 
 
 Lewandowski, now a CNN contributor, offered up one of Trump’s oldest explanations. 
 
 “He’s said this many times. He was the fair-haired boy, right? He was the person who knew the system better than anybody, and he’s the only person who can change it, because he doesn’t need the personal wealth,” Lewandowski said. “What he didn’t do, is he didn’t make $100 million from his service in the federal government, step out of the government and get paid tens of millions of dollars for speeches. He made his money in the private sector, and he used the rules in the private sector to benefit his company. That’s what business executives do.” 
 
 Marc Caputo contributed reporting.
– First came Dustin Moskovitz's "historically large donation" of $20 million last month to stop Donald Trump from reaching the Oval Office. Then the Facebook co-founder ponied up another $5 million in mid-October to a Hillary Clinton super PAC (as well as $10 million more to other political advocacy and nonpartisan efforts), per Forbes. This nabbed the 32-year-old billionaire the No. 1 spot on the list of Democrat mega-donors and has him now serving, as Politico frames it, as an antidote to GOP bigwigs like Sheldon Adelson. But while Moskovitz's donations have generated much excitement within the Democratic Party, others are concerned his "unicorn-type" gifts may simply be a one-time occurrence, not a signifier of a deeper trend of tech titans stepping up to help out the party. Moskovitz's sudden political interest has thrown many for a loop, with Politico noting a few Democrat officials it contacted replied "Who?" when his name was mentioned. Moskovitz himself has been publicly stoic: He wouldn't talk to Politico about his donations; the only public references he's made were in two Medium posts, including the latest one in which he noted "further investments are warranted" and that "the events of the past few weeks have only deepened my conviction that Hillary is the best choice for America." Politico adds the operatives it talked to think Moskovitz's abrupt aggressiveness on the political front may be completely Trump-driven. His recent Twitter feed alone appears to validate that—he's been retweeting pro-Hillary messages and trashing Trump, including calling him a "demagogon" in reference to the Stranger Things creature.