Clinton leads Trump in national and state polls, leaving many of her aides and supporters to conclude that addressing the issue isn’t worth the risk to her electoral standing.
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ATLANTA (AP) – Former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday that he’s proud of people who have donated to the Clinton Foundation and the work the organization has done, as he waded into a dispute that Republicans are hoping will damage his wife’s presidential campaign.
Even if this isn’t the straight quid pro quo that it seems to be, the tandem operation of government and Clinton’s charity created a clear conflict of interest and the appearance of impropriety again and again during her time as secretary of state.
Bill Clinton announced that next month’s Clinton Global Initiative meeting in NY will be the final gathering.
“Gee – we’re going to disband the Clinton Foundation if Hillary’s elected president, but it was okay while she was secretary of state?”
Former U.S. Secretary of State and first lady Hillary Clinton speaks at a press conference announcing a new initiative between the Clinton Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, on December 15, 2014, in New York City. Trump tops Clinton as more honest and trustworthy (49% to 39%), and 11% say neither major party candidate for president has the edge on honesty.
Bill Clinton said the foundation would no longer hold annual meetings of its worldwide aid program, the Clinton Global Initiative, and it would spin off its foreign-based programs to other charities.
Trump’s running mate and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence also weighed in on Monday, telling Breitbart, “Frankly today in Iowa I reiterated Donald Trump’s call that Hillary Clinton should shut down the Clinton Foundation immediately”.
Hillary Clinton defended her family’s charitable foundation on Wednesday against criticism from Donald Trump, saying it had provided more transparency than her Republican rival’s sprawling business interests.
Trump was introduced by Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, who argued that Clinton “committed numerous, numerous serious federal felonies” and that recent emails suggesting favors traded between the Clinton Foundation and Clinton’s State Department amounted to a scandal potentially “bigger than Watergate”. “If any American voter is troubled by the idea that the Clintons want to continue working to solve the AIDS crisis on the side while Hillary Clinton is president, then don’t vote for her”.
The new emails reveal more than half a dozen instances in which foundation donors pulled special strings for access to government that ordinary citizens don’t have. Bill Clinton said Wednesday that the foundation has begun looking for partners to take over some of its work in preparation for that outcome. “I made policies based on what I thought was right”, Clinton said.
The proportion is considered “extraordinary” because, well, apparently the Associated Press says so.
A representative of the foundation said that over 300,000 donors from around the world have given to the foundation, most of those donations are under $250. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. In total, the 85 donors reviewed by the AP contributed roughly $156 million to the Clinton Foundation, which does not include USA federal employees or foreign government representatives.
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Blackstone donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. According to Hillary Clinton’s tax returns, at least 98.5 percent of the Clintons’ charitable donations have gone directly to the Clinton Family Foundation or Clinton Global Initiative.
