After Bill Clinton left office, he set up the William J. Clinton Foundation, now called the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. The Foundation, under whatever name, has had some interesting challenges along the way.
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal posted an article which included the following:
The Clinton Foundation has dropped its self-imposed ban on collecting funds from foreign governments and is winning contributions at an accelerating rate, raising ethical questions as Hillary Clinton ramps up her expected bid for the presidency.
Recent donors include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany and a Canadian government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline.
In 2009, the Clinton Foundation stopped raising money from foreign governments after Mrs. Clinton became secretary of state. Former President Bill Clinton, who ran the foundation while his wife was at the State Department, agreed to the gift ban at the behest of the Obama administration, which worried about a secretary of state’s husband raising millions while she represented U.S. interests abroad.
The ban wasn’t absolute; some foreign government donations were permitted for ongoing programs approved by State Department ethics officials.
As Mrs. Clinton prepares to run for President, foreign donations are again coming in.
The foundation did not announce the foreign donations, The Wall Street Journal had to look for them:
The donations weren’t announced by the foundation and were discovered by The Wall Street Journal during a search of donations of more than $50,000 posted on the foundation’s online database. Exactly when the website was updated isn’t clear. The foundation typically updates its website with the previous year’s donations near the beginning of the year. All 2014 donations were noted with asterisks.
The dangers here are obvious–if a country wanted to curry favor with President Hillary Clinton (or gain access to the President), all they would have to do would be make a large donation to the foundation. Whether it is decided that this is legal or not, it is another example of the Clinton family being involved in financial activities that are questionable at best. Do we really want these ethically challenged people back in the White House?