Bill Clinton defends embattled family foundation
ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION VIA AP
Former President Bill Clinton, left, says hello to Megan Bartlett, of Decatur, Ga., and her 3-month-old daughter Hannah Rice, as he works the crowd at historic Manuel’s Tavern today during a stop in Atlanta.
ATLANTA » Former President Bill Clinton said today 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.
“We’re trying to do good things,” Bill Clinton said. “If there’s something wrong with creating jobs and saving lives, I don’t know what it is. The people who gave the money knew exactly what they were doing. I have nothing to say about it except that I’m really proud. I’m proud of what they’ve done.”
He also defended Hillary Clinton’s contact with donors to the foundation while serving as secretary of state, saying foundation donors like Bangladeshi economist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus have no trouble reaching officials around the world.
An Associated Press report Tuesday found more than half of the non-government officials who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money to the Clinton Foundation.
The meetings between Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee, and foundation donors don’t appear to violate legal agreements both Clintons signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. State Department officials have said they are unaware of any agency actions influenced by the foundation.
Yet the frequency of the overlaps shows the mixing of access and donations. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has criticized the links between the foundation and the State Department, accusing the Clintons of establishing “a business to profit from public office.”
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Bill Clinton said changes at the foundation are needed if Hillary Clinton becomes president that weren’t necessary when she led the State Department. The foundation won’t accept foreign donations, and he will stop personally raising money for the foundation, he said.
“We’ll have to do more than when she was secretary of state, because if you make a mistake there’s always appeal to the White House if you’re secretary of state,” Clinton said. “If you’re president, you can’t.”
A statement Clinton issued on Monday said those changes will go into effect if Hillary Clinton is elected. Bill Clinton said Wednesday that the foundation has begun looking for partners to take over some of its work in preparation for that outcome. That type of transition “takes a reasonable amount of time,” he said.
“You have to do it in a way that no one loses their job, no one loses their income and no one loses their life,” he said. “That’s all I’m concerned about. We’ll do it as fast as we can.”
42 responses to “Bill Clinton defends embattled family foundation”
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Bill Clinton is Lair!!!
STOP ORGANIZED CRIME!!!
VOTE OUT ALL INCUMBENTS!!!
Just remember when republicans lie, people Die.
Since you brought it up,,,,The Clinton’s dead pool list is growing. Three people who had direct connections to Bill and Hillary Clinton died of unusual circumstances over the last few weeks adding to an already long, suspicious list of accidents and supposed suicides.
Since the Democratic National Committee emails were released by Wikileaks a few weeks ago, three people associated with the DNC have all been found dead under questionable circumstances.
According to WND, when DNC staffer Seth Rich was gunned down near his affluent neighborhood in Washington, D.C., on July 10, theories exploded in the news media about Rich’s possible involvement in the WikiLeaks dump of nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails – some of the messages suggesting that the Democratic Party favored nominee Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders from the start.
Now reports reveal Brad Bauman, the man hired by Rich’s family to end the “conspiracy theories” surrounding the unsolved murder, is a public relations manager with the Pastorum Group and specializes in “crisis communications” for the Democratic Party.
WikiLeaks broke the news on Twitter, tweeting: “Seth Rich’s new ‘family spokesman’ is Brad Bauman, a professional Democrat crisis PR consultant with the Pastorum Group.”
Sarge..again you state FACTS…boots only can lol because he is embarassed bc he didn’t know that.
Julian Assange should be looking over his shoulder.
I did not have sex with that woman. We did not pay for play. Chelsea was the one. We gave 15% and kept 85% for us. The Secretary of State did nothing illegal. It was just a coincidence. All previous Secretary of States used private emails and private servers for highly classified government work. All previous Secretary of States had Foundations in their names while serving as Secretary of States.
Huma Abedin set up the “access” without my knowledge. Crooked Hilliary didn’t know anything. She merely suggested how much. Obama didn’t know what was going on either. He was golfing in Hawaii or Martha’s Vineyard. He never goes to Chicago on vacation. The murder capital of the World.
The Godmother has been awfully quiet lately hiding out from the FBI?
Mook has a hard time running cover.
Here’s the case against the Clinton Foundation, in a nutshell: If Bill and Chelsea Clinton are leading a powerful private philanthropy while Hillary Clinton holds a high-ranking government post, it is guaranteed to create at least the appearance of donations to the foundation in return for access to the government.
Conscious of this danger, the Obama administration extracted an agreement from the foundation to disclose its donors, as a prerequisite for Hillary Clinton becoming secretary of state. That disclosure does not seem to have prevented potential conflicts of interest—but it does undergird two important stories Tuesday.
The Washington Post, using emails revealed as part of a lawsuit by the conservative accountability group Judicial Watch, traces the paths from foundation donors to State Department supplicants. Often, the requests seem to have come through Doug Band, a foundation official and close aide to Bill Clinton, and arrived with Huma Abedin, a close aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department. (At the end of her time at the State Department, Abedin received a special classification allowing her to also work for Teneo, Band’s consultancy.)
The requests highlighted by the Post run the gamut. Bono, a frequent Clinton Foundation presence, wanted help streaming U2 concerts to the International Space Station. (Neither Abedin nor Band any ideas.) A Los Angeles sports executive who gave $5 to $10 million to the foundation sought help getting a visa for a British soccer player with a criminal record. (“Makes me nervous to get involved but I’ll ask,” Abedin wrote to Band. “then dont,” he replied.) An activist who gave between $100,00 and $250,000 wanted to set up a meeting between Clinton and an executive at Peabody Coal. “Huma, I need your help now to intervene please,” she wrote. “We need this meeting with Secretary Clinton, who has been there now for nearly six months. This is, by the way, my first request.”
Others of those involved seem unusual. The crown prince of Bahrain, an American ally in the gulf, got a meeting, though he requested it both through official channels and through the Clinton Foundation side channel. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace laureate whose Grameen Bank gave six figures, met with Clinton to discuss his persecution by the Bangladeshi government.
In total, the Associated Press calculates:
More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money—either personally or through companies or groups—to the Clinton Foundation…. At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press.
As questions about the Clinton Foundation mount, the organization announced last week that it would not accept foreign or corporate donations if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency. (On Monday, Donald Trump called for a special prosecutor to look into the foundation.) But these stories show why that measure probably should have been taken before Clinton became secretary of state, and why it’s insufficient if she’s president.
Even if every one of the meetings that Secretary Clinton had with foundation donors was a meeting she would have had anyway, the impression that one can pay to play means that there’s no tidy way to wall the two off. If the Clinton Foundation hadn’t existed and been taking these donations, no one would look askance at Secretary Clinton meeting with many of the principals. Barring corporate and foreign donors, while important, seems incomplete if Clinton is president, in charge of not only foreign but domestic policy. Does anyone believe wealthy executives can’t figure out how to give a personal donation and then try to leverage that for corporate aid? This is why there’s an increasing drumbeat for the Clintons to shut down the foundation entirely, or perhaps to mothball it. Any future findings that suggest pay-for-access will only magnify those calls—and hurt Clinton politically.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/
Where’s the Clingons. Bad day?
Waiting for any lib who’d like to rebut your FACT based post.
I’m not a liberal. I just like to think clearly. The most important fact is that there has been no clear evidence of corruption, despite tremendous efforts by people like Trump and the non-liberal media to find anything.
Clinton’s main mistake is carelessly/stoopidly being involved with the foundation while Secretary of State. Keep in mind that she nor Bill make any personal profit from the foundation, not even a salary. The millions they earn on their own are a separate thing.
Whenever there’s charitable donating, there are people looking for a little consideration, asking to meet with the big wigs, hoping maybe for a future favor, or just to get a little publicity and attention. That’s no different than what happens with Trump entities, no different than what happens in your business or when people donate equipment to your kids’ sports team.
The biggest “smoking gun” you can find is U2 getting to share their music with the Space Station? People asking to have a private meeting is pretty much the norm. Speaking of $100,000 – $250,000 donors, you know that Trump is one of them, correct? Where does Trump fit in all this?
What did Trump expect for his donation? He’s not know to be a charitable person, so you can bet he wanted something back. He must have been disappointed when he made no profit off this deal, you think? Is he evil for doing that?
Question 1: Is there any hard evidence of evil, greedy corruption?
Question 2: Once Hillary stops her participation in the foundation, will this matter be done with? Can the foundation go on, doing good deeds?
Question 3: What is Trump hiding?
@ MillionMonkeys….Getting your info from the MSM and no where else shows in your post. I have seen all those talking points there too..ONLY there.
I have also gone to FNC which has info that is not shown in the MSM.
My only suggestion would be for you is to broaden your news sources.
People close to the vetting said Mr. Clinton turned over the names of all 208,000 donors to his foundation and library and agreed to every condition requested by Mr. Obama’s transition team, including restrictions on his paid speeches and his role at his international foundation. The lawyers agreed to notify all of the donors that their identities would be revealed to the Obama team, but it was not clear if they would all be made public.
Barrack didnt keep his eye on the ball. What a mess.
Nice picture. Bill Clinton kissing babies. If that doesn’t trigger the gag reflex nothing will. Okay, I’m going to resist the urge to type this comment using all CAPS. If I do I’ll just out myself as the under-educated boob that I am. The Clintons have shamelessly used their elected positions (paid by the taxpayers), most recently Hillary as Secretary of State, to peddle influence to anybody foreign or domestic, that had deep enough pockets to buy face time. The people that worked for them (paid by the taxpayers) simultaneously worked 2nd and 3rd jobs managing the payments and scheduling influence buying sessions. The office of Sec’y of Sate and the various Clinton slush funds were joined at the hip. This has been common knowledge for a long time. The AP just got around to printing an article about which the SA picked un on 23 August. Yes, we all know Donald Trump is buffoonish, has bad hair, runs his mouth a lot and most high-minded progressives would rather be seen driving a pickup truck with a gun rack than to vote for him. But the Clintons have taken corruption to a level previously unseen in American politics. Not only that, on the rare occasion the media reports on it, Bill trots himself out to reassure us all that there’s nothing to see here, keep moving, and the media obediently moves along. The two of them are just giving the hard working, law abiding, taxpaying people that make this country work the big middle finger as if to say “we are taking money based on our political status and selling out the country and there’s not a darn thing anybody can do about it”. Meanwhile the republican leadership remains cowed into paralysis in the same manner that have been since Barry was elected.
Watch the hands Bill.
its all corruption pay for play, what Hillary has done is having people give money to the Clinton foundation to meet her, if she is doing any favors for them she should be arrested for corruption, same goes for some of the senators, and congress who do the same thing. get judicial watch to investigate all these people and see who can be jailed for corruption.
Of course he is proud of the people who have donated to the Clinton Foundation. They have helped increase the Clinton’s net worth to $100 million.
wait and see what the Obama library gets from these people who want to meet Obama, he will make his millions like Hillary and carter did, sold this country down the tubes.
Donald Trump is one of the people who have donated to the Clinton Foundation. He’s listed in the $100,000 to $250,000 category. He’s probably disappointed that he didn’t get any special favors for that “huuuge amount” (it’s actually not a big contribution compared to other donations).
What the Foundation makes and the Clintons’ personal net worth are completely unconnected. Although people who like the Foundation probably like the Clintons, too, and vice versa. So a foundation donor might also pay Bill or Hillary or Chelsea to make speeches.
Hillary should have taken herself out of the Foundation business while being Secretary of State; that was a dumb, careless error. No “pay-for-play” has been identified by investigators. And if/when elected POTUS, she will no longer have active participation in the Foundation.
The Foundation is a well-run, highly respected entity, and has an “A” rating with Charity Watch. There’s no hanky-panky there: http://www.charitywatch.org/ratings-and-metrics/bill-hillary-chelsea-clinton-foundation/478
Here’s the case against the Clinton Foundation, in a nutshell: If Bill and Chelsea Clinton are leading a powerful private philanthropy while Hillary Clinton holds a high-ranking government post, it is guaranteed to create at least the appearance of donations to the foundation in return for access to the government.
Conscious of this danger, the Obama administration extracted an agreement from the foundation to disclose its donors, as a prerequisite for Hillary Clinton becoming secretary of state. That disclosure does not seem to have prevented potential conflicts of interest—but it does undergird two important stories Tuesday.
The Washington Post, using emails revealed as part of a lawsuit by the conservative accountability group Judicial Watch, traces the paths from foundation donors to State Department supplicants. Often, the requests seem to have come through Doug Band, a foundation official and close aide to Bill Clinton, and arrived with Huma Abedin, a close aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department. (At the end of her time at the State Department, Abedin received a special classification allowing her to also work for Teneo, Band’s consultancy.)
What illegal, crooked dealings have been identified?
Yes, Clinton was again careless, should not have done fundraising for the foundation while serving as Secretary of State. As the article you pasted says, “…it is guaranteed to create at least the APPEARANCE of donations..in return for access to the government.”
As long as there’s a candidate named Trump and a thing called the Internet, reckless accusations will be bouncing around. If, after numerous investigations and “revealing reports,” nothing substantial appears, there’s no story.
Yes, Huma Abedin is a competent professional who inspires confidence in her employers (and don’t start that distorted Muslim journal BS; fortunately that story has blown away). So if her trustability earned her a special classification and her excellence also got her a consulting job, is anything wrong with that? Shouldn’t trusted, excellent professionals get opportunities? And did either Hillary or the foundation get “zillions of dirty dollars” out of Abedin’s career development?
You’re doing a good job of looking up a fair mix of articles. You could do a better job of reading all the words and of thinking things out. The Donald doesn’t want people to think clearly, of course. Don’t you want to know the truth?
@ MillionMonkeys..do you know who Diane Reynolds is?
I just found this article. What do you think?? Let’s just look back at the Clintons .>>>http://www.freewebs.com/jeffhead/liberty/liberty/bdycount.txt
Thanks, Keoni-rice. I’ll read more about Diane Reynolds when I have time in a few days. So far, the Benghazi email looks like more carelessness (about the facts, as well as discussing State Dept things with her daughter—which is pretty much what Trump would probably do with Ivanka).
Your “speculation” on what Donald Trump would do is your opinion which doesn’t count for anything. Deal with the FACTS.
Benghazi..hiLIARy has American Blood on her hands for NOT TRYING TO HELP AMERICANS…but to you “what difference does it make”.
You say “unconnected.” Try this: State Department, $55 million to Laureate/Becker group. Laureate $16.4 million to “Chancellor” Bill Clinton. Laureate $1 – 5 million to Clinton Foundation. Take off the blinders, Gruber. It’s not the only instance.
This whole scandal probably started innocently enough. It’s not what you know but who you know. One little favor and the word got out. The Clingons were on the take. They couldn’t get out so they enjoyed the ride. End of story.
actually the picture tells it all. the lady is saying to Bill Clinton, I would like you to meet your daughter, but don’t tell Hillary.
say ‘Daddy’
The baby looks just like him. Nahhh, it a coincidence! LOL
Anyone asked Chelsea…”Whooz yo Daddy”?
Chelsea’s daddy is Janet Reno isn’t it?
Lies, lies and more lies. If we could see the 33,000 emails maybe, but she destroyed the evidence. However, there still is enough to cause concern. Why blame Trump? This is all the Clintons doing. Extremely careless.
Where are the mynah birds and Clingons. Usually they are on it 24/7. Even they can’t stand the stench.
“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.
Clinton called into CNN’s “AC360” to address Trump’s suggestions that the foundation started by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had been used to facilitate a pay-for-play scheme during her time at the State Department.
“What Trump has said is ridiculous. My work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces. I made policies based on what I thought was right,” Clinton said. She said the foundation had provided “life-saving work,” adding that neither she nor her husband had ever drawn a salary from the charity.
“You know more about the foundation than you know about anything concerning Donald Trump’s wealth, his business, his tax returns,” Clinton said.”
Other than “lies, lies” (Trump’s favorite word), your post supports Hillary’s story, that the Clinton Foundation does good work, and that neither she nor Bill get money from the foundation. It’s an “A” rated organization, and there’s no hanky-panky.
Apparently, Hillary was careless again, should not have been involved with the foundation at the same time she was Secretary of State, just to avoid having people like Trumpster make reckless accusations (AFTER he donated at least $100,000!). When she is elected, POTUS, she will halt participation in the foundation.
The last sentence in your cut-and-paste is the most important one: When will Donald show transparency and release his tax returns? What is he hiding?
But since he’ll do his best to hide his returns until the election is over, why don’t we ask him a more relevant question: Why did you donate to the Clinton Foundation? Were you expecting any return favors? Did you get any? (The answer is NO.)
I can already foresee Bill’s next move… Bill Clinton arrives at a Girl Scout convention to check out the cookies.
GASP1
Who have they helped? How?
Public schools need to do a better job of teaching reading comprehension. Based on “…more than half of the non-government officials who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money to the Clinton Foundation.”, Donald screams his “pay-for-play” conspiracy theory. All it shows is that the Clinton Foundation is a highly respected entity which people want to contribute to, and that Hillary is an effective fund raiser whom people trust.
If Trump ever had a charitable foundation this big (he wouldn’t, since he’s too concerned with making money for himself), could this “successful businessman” raise as much as Hillary? No, because he doesn’t inspire confidence in people who want to help worthy causes and do their homework.
Hillary’s mistake here, once again, is carelessness. If she wanted to avoid being accused of unfounded conspiracy theories, she shouldn’t have conducted Foundation business at the same time she was Secretary of State. Nevertheless, there has been NO findings of “quid pro quo” or that Foundation contributions led to any change in State Dept policies.
She and Bill have wisely decided that she won’t have any active participation in the Foundation WHEN she becomes president.
Further reading (read the whole article, if you have the attention span):
FactCheck: http://www.factcheck.org/2015/04/no-veto-power-for-clinton-on-uranium-deal/
PolitiFact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/30/donald-trump/donald-trump-inaccurately-suggests-clinton-got-pai/
Or just read the article above: “The meetings between Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee, and foundation donors don’t appear to violate legal agreements…. State Department officials have said they are unaware of any agency actions influenced by the foundation.”
All resolved. Now, let’s talk about Trump’s tax returns, his bankruptcy records, and his inability to convince minorities that he’s a caring person. Would anyone here like to convince others that Donald is a caring person?
Monkey: Let’s also look for the release of Hillary’s Wall Street speech transcripts. You know, the ones that she was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for delivering. Transparency should be required of both parties.
Million Knuckledraggers…”Hillary’s mistake here, once again, is carelessness.”
Jake Sullivan, hiLIARy’s Foreign Policy Adviser, back in 2011 searched for info on drugs for Parkinsons & Alzheimers FOR hiLIARy…that might explain her “carelessness” as you had stated.
hiLIARy has some HEALTH ISSUES that needs to be revealed to Americans.
Libs..”Stuck in…Silence”…crickets…crickets…
Here’s one.
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.
Shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.
The Clinton campaign has removed a statement from its Web site declaring that all survivors of sexual assault “have the right to be believed” — after being reminded that Bill Clinton was accused of rape decades ago.
Hillary Clinton’s lawyers used a special tool to delete emails from her personal server so that “even God can’t read them,” House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy said on Thursday.
Gowdy (R-S.C.) said the use of BleachBit, computer software whose website advertises that it can “prevent recovery” of files, is further proof that Clinton had something to hide in deleting personal emails from the private email system she used during her tenure as secretary of state.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/hillary-clinton-emails-bleachbit-227425#ixzz4ISLAkha7
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