“This is an example of pay-to-play politics the American people are sick and exhausted of”, Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday on “State of the Union”.
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“After it was revealed that more than half of Hillary Clinton’s non-governmental meetings as Secretary of State were with Clinton Foundation donors, it is unacceptable that the State Department is now refusing to release her official schedule before the election in full”, Jason Miller, the Senior Communications Advisor for the Trump campaign, said in a Friday statement.
“But I will say they liked me a lot”, said Trump.
The emails provide evidence that while the Clintons stopped short of trading donations for favors, they did offer access, if not to Clinton directly then to one of her top advisers.
These failures included $2.35 million in undisclosed donations that flowed to the Clinton Foundation from a family foundation linked to a company that had a takeover deal that required approval by US government agencies including the State Department. No, it is not.
It is believed the information contained in those emails will be so damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign that it could cost her the presidency. Clinton met with thousands of world leaders with no connection to her family charity.
“When Republicans meet with their donors, with their supporters, their activists, they call it a meeting”. At least the Clinton donations go to charity; donations to political campaigns have a far less noble and far more self-interested goal.
Bill Clinton announced this week that if his wife is elected, the foundation will accept only USA contributions, that he will step down from the board and will no longer raise funds for the charity.
Yet here’s the really frustrating part: As troubling as these ethical lapses may be, they pale in comparison to the buffoonery that emanates each day from the Republican presidential nominee and his latest clown vehicle of top advisors.
Nevertheless, the AP’s tweet allowed Donald Trump to stand on stage at a campaign rally and declare that “fifty percent of people who saw [Clinton] had to make a contribution to the Clinton Foundation”. The reality TV show star’s ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin are so obvious that interference by the Kremlin in the fall elections isn’t just some freakish conspiracy theory – whether through computer hacking or public statements by the KGB-trained strongman – it’s already happening. The Obama administration has been unwilling to prosecute Hillary Clinton, his preferred successor to his third term as president. From his relationships to suppliers, his bankruptcies, the dubious Trump University scam to his daily fact-checked failings (his recent claim that black youth unemployment in the U.S.is 59 percent or 40 points above reality being the latest whopper), Trump has little standing to call anyone else “crooked”.
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He’s even less transparent and less ethical than Clinton.
