A top official with Donald Trump’s Colorado campaign is joining with Trump calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the links between Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation and Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

“Donald Trump is right – we need a special prosecutor to investigate the corrupt pay-to-play scheme involving the Clinton Foundation and the State Department,” said Mark Waller, the deputy director of the Trump campaign’s state operation and former Colorado House Minority Leader, in a statement released Tuesday by the campaign.

Republicans are charging that those who contributed to the foundation, including foreign donors, had special access to Clinton while she was the nation’s top diplomat.

At a rally in Akron, Ohio, on Monday night, Trump called for an “expedited investigation” by a special prosecutor, charging that federal officials had “whitewash[ed]” an earlier probe involving Clinton’s use of a private email server while she headed the Department of State.

“The Clintons made the State Department into the same kind of pay-to-play operations as the Arkansas government was: pay the Clinton Foundation huge sums of money and throw in some big speaking fees for Bill Clinton, and you got to play with the State Department,” Trump said at the rally. “The amounts involved, the favors done and the significant numbers of times it was done require an expedited investigation by a special prosecutor.”

Adding that “some former prosecutors” have suggested the coordination between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department under Hillary Clinton could qualify as a “RICO enterprise,” Trump reiterated his demand that Obama appoint a special prosecutor. “After the FBI and Department of Justice whitewash of the Clinton email crimes, they certainly cannot be trusted to quickly or impartially investigate Hillary Clinton’s crimes,” he said.

While cries of “Lock her up!” have been a staple of Trump rallies – generally referring to allegations Clinton broke the law by using private email and her own server, although the FBI declined earlier this summer to prosecute anyone over the matter – Monday’s speech was the first time Trump has explicitly called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate his political rival.

Bill Clinton on Monday defended his foundation’s work, although he has also recently announced plans to change the way the foundation does business if Hillary Clinton is elected president. Those plans include stopping acceptance of foreign and corporate donations and Bill Clinton’s resignation from the foundation board.

“The foundation has already laid out the unprecedented steps the charity will take if Hillary Clinton becomes president,” said John Podesta, chair of Clinton’s presidential campaign, in a statement, and then turned his fire on the GOP presidential nominee.

“Donald Trump needs to come clean with voters about his complex network of for-profit businesses that are hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to big banks, including the state-owned Bank of China, and other business groups with ties to the Kremlin,” Podesta said. “Donald Trump should stop hiding behind fake excuses and release his tax returns and immediately disclose the full extent of his business interests. He must commit to fully divesting himself from all of his business conflicts to ensure that he is not letting his own financial interests affect decisions made by his potential administration.”

Waller’s statement appeared to be part of a coordinated, nationwide attack on the Clintons and potential ethical issues surrounding the candidate. Also on Tuesday, Republicans in other states issued nearly identical statements.

“The Obama administration has shown that its Justice Department and the FBI can’t conduct an impartial investigation while Hillary Clinton is running for a third Obama term,” concluded Waller, a former judge advocate general in the Air Force.

Like Waller, Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald on Tuesday derided the Clinton Foundation as a “pay-to-play scheme” and said it “demands a special prosecutor because the Justice Department has proven itself incapable of conducting a serious investigation with Hillary running for a third Obama term.”

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com