They also raise anew questions of why they were not turned over by Clinton voluntarily, and what else is in remaining emails held back ostensibly because they were personal.
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Is the Clinton Foundation a problem for Clinton?
It appears that Sec.
Donna Brazile, the interim Democratic National Committee chairwoman, defended Clinton from criticism over the foundation’s influence Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation”.
The AP said the 154 people did not include US federal employees or foreign government representatives “because such meetings would presumably have been part of her diplomatic duties”. Compare that to virtually every politician who provides access to big donors.
“No wild political attack by Donald Trump is going to change that”. I take responsibly for it. In spite of supposedly forgiving the debts I fully expect that he will repay his loans.
“The Associated Press’ reporting relied on publicly available data provided by the State Department about Hillary Clinton’s meetings, phone calls and emails, cross-referenced against donor information provided by the Clinton Foundation and its related charities on its websites”, Colford wrote. Again, according to AP, in her first two years, Secretary Clinton met with a total of 154 individuals who did not work for the USA or any foreign government – of whom 85 had made contributions to the foundation. But rather than having meetings with people who also make philanthropic contributions to major global charities, they tend to insist that donors show up at fundraising events so that a campaign check can be handed over person-to-person. They’ll want to act immediately to ban – er, take advantage of – this egregious system of pay for play.
In an interview released Thursday by CNN, Clinton said that her decisions during her 2009-2013 tenure as the top USA diplomat were never influenced by the interests of donors to the foundation created by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, as suggested by several recent press reports.
Clinton has said she did not know the information was classified at the time.
“I am sure because I have a very strong foundation of understanding about the foundation”, Clinton said in the Morning Joe interview, via USA Today.
How large? nearly half of the donors wrote checks in excess of $100,000 to the Foundation – and 20 of them forked over more than a million apiece.
Here’s another ugly stat: almost 200 entities that lobbied the State Department during her tenure are also donors to the Clinton Foundation.
One way to understand what happened here is to ask whether the favors that Band and others requested from the Clinton State Department would have been sought – and, to the extent they were, would have been granted – even if the Clinton Foundation had never come into existence.
The point is, a Secretary of State and the State Department should want to avoid any such doubts and questions being raised.
ABC on Saturday reported that newly released emails from 2010 showed that Doug Band, the chief executive of the Clinton Foundation, recommended to Clinton the names of several donors to invite to an exclusive lunch with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
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More than her economic agenda, more than her plan to stop ISIS, Hillary Clinton’s relationship with the charitable foundation set up by her ex-president husband has become a campaign flashpoint.
