He said the foundation’s continued acceptance of foreign donations during Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was a “massive, ongoing conflict of interest that gets bigger by the day”. Before Hillary Clinton took over the State Department she signed a memorandum of understanding with the White House stating that the Clinton Foundation would disclose all of its donors each year.
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On Thursday, the Clinton Foundation announced that donations from foreign entities or corporations would no longer be accepted if Hillary Clinton is elected president.
Bill Clinton also said the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in NY next month will be the final CGI meeting, no matter what happens with Hillary Clinton in November.
Hundreds of millions in donations have been given to the Clinton Foundation by foreign nationals and countries; such groups are forbidden from donating to USA political campaigns.
LawNewz also reported that the foreign arm of the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, is not subject to the guidelines either and would not shut down if Clinton wins the election.
Because foreigners and nations can’t donate to American politicians’ campaigns, the foundation’s donations seemed to some like a loophole for foreign nations to support Hillary. On Thursday, Bill Clinton said the gathering in September in NY would be the foundation’s last.
Mook repeatedly called the foundation’s decisions on separating its work from the political careers of the Clintons “unprecedented”.
The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, founded in 2001, has raised more than $2 billion for causes that focus on health and environmental issues, mainly in the developing world.
CGEP, which says Canadian law prevents it from disclosing its donors’ names without their permission, was founded by Bill Clinton, the former USA president, and Canadian businessman Frank Giustra in 2007 to improve work opportunities for people in poor countries. She will face Republican Donald Trump in the November 8 election.
“This is important, life-saving work, and there were some foreign governments like Australia and Norway, that were – that had existing donations to the foundation, and the foundation wanted them to be able to follow through on their commitment”, he said. “This was someone who had a relationship with Clinton long before her tenure as Secretary of State”.
As part of the changes, Bill Clinton agreed that he would step down from the board of the organization if his wife was elected and would do no more fundraising for the group. The statement did not specify Bill Clinton’s future role.
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Donors to that cause included people who would now be barred from making contributions to the Clinton Foundation charities, including Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who offered $1 million from his private charity. “I believe, as do many others, that it has done a great deal of good”, he said.
