TOM LLAMAS: David, today, former President Bill Clinton made a major announcement, saying the Clinton Foundation will no longer accept foreign or corporate donations if Hillary Clinton is elected president. If Clinton is elected, the foundation should be shut down.
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Nevertheless, if elected, the foundation will only accept contributions from USA citizens and independent charities.
The stricter rules are a compromise aimed at balancing ethical concerns about donor influence with the former president’s determination to preserve an entity that has been the focus of his post-White House years and that he sees as a key piece of his legacy in the United States and around the world.
In September, the former president will convene his 12th and final Clinton Global Initiative, an annual meeting that has included Obama, foreign heads of state, corporate leaders and celebrities to discuss commitments aimed at addressing poverty, health care, education, climate change and other topics. He was accompanied daughter Chelsea Clinton at the meeting.
The former secretary of state has been able to ride a post-convention bounce and mostly uncontested television airwaves to her strongest position yet in CNN’s Electoral College outlook this year.
This week, it was the FBI’s delivery to Congress of notes from its investigation into Clinton’s email habits that put one of the most uncomfortable parts of her State Department tenure back in the headlines.
Also, if there is indeed the potential that donations to the Clinton Foundation might somehow affect government policy, shouldn’t the foundation stop accepting donations now? But Bill and Chelsea Clinton have remained in leadership roles.
Reuters stated: “The attacks have left some Democrats and Clinton campaign officials anxious that the hackers might have obtained emails and voice messages that could be used to reinforce Republican charges that donors to the Clinton Foundation were rewarded with access to Clinton and her aides while she was secretary of state or to her husband, former President Bill Clinton”.
A spokesman for Clinton’s campaign declined to answer questions about the foundation.
“They’re low-class grifters and gifters at every turn, whether it’s the money they make giving speeches, whether it’s the pay-for-play at the State Department”, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said. It also noted that, even though it is a charity, many donations come from overseas, including foreign governments “with troubling human rights records”.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called the move “too little, too late”.
In early 1992, voters knew Bill Clinton as an Ivy League graduate who avoided serving in Vietnam and had been accused of extramarital affairs, said Paul Begala, a key strategist for the then candidate who now works for the main Democratic super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton’s White House bid.
Priebus added that the Clinton Foundation’s activities had already raised red flags during Clinton’s campaign.
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It was reported on Thursday that the Clinton Foundation would no longer receive donations from foreigners or corporations if Clinton wins the election in November, an effort to defuse criticism that donors to the globe-straddling charity might inappropriately seek White House favors in return.
