By now, you're well aware of the Clinton Foundation's secretive web of international cash, which has been called a "slush fund" and a "money laundering scheme" by skeptics. Details continue to drip, drip, drip into the media bloodstream, with lame and debunked excuses piling up by the day -- to say nothing of the outright lies. In response to questions regarding the foundation's failure to report tens of millions in donations from foreign governments over several years' worth of taxes, the Clintons have blamed accountants (perhaps the same accountants who are helping them avoid paying high estate taxes) while insisting that everything is now on the up-and-up. Not so, reports Reuters:
The Clinton Foundation has acknowledged that the government funding totals omitted from their tax returns cannot be found on their website either, despite the foundation's acting chief executive officer earlier suggesting they were available there. The foreign government funding received by the globe-spanning charities of Hillary Clinton's family has received particular scrutiny in recent weeks as Clinton seeks to become the Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential election. The foundation's acknowledgement means precise totals for government grants to the charity for the last three years of Clinton's four-year tenure as secretary of state have still not been publicly disclosed. All U.S. charities have to separately disclose each year how much they get in government funding, both domestic and foreign. Shortly before taking office in 2009, Clinton promised the Obama administration heightened transparency concerning donors to her family's charities to avoid accusations of conflicts of interests when she became the nation's most senior diplomat. In recent months, the charities have said they did not comply with some parts of the agreement...Meredith McGehee, the policy director of the non-profit watchdog group the Campaign Legal Center, said the foundation was "hiding behind technicalities." "These explanations do nothing but raise more questions," she said of Bazbaz's comments. "It gives the feeling that they're not coming clean."
Clinton, Inc. failed to disclose foreign contributions from individuals and governments and failed to report those dollars in tax filings over multiple years. When caught, they pushed back by asserting that all of the pertinent information was available on their website. False. Let's again recall the unequivocal transparency pledges Mrs. Clinton repeatedly offered, under oath, during her confirmation hearings:
She vowed that "all contributors will be disclosed," adding that "foreign government pledges will be submitted to the State Department for review." That...didn't happen, including with donors tied into that troubling deal in which the Russian government managed to buy the rights to a large percentage of America's uranium capacity. Conveniently, the State Department has publicly announced it will not investigate the Clintons' numerous breaches of transparency commitments. What difference, at this point, does it make?
State says it has no indication that Bill and Hillary's lake of undisclosed, unvetted foreign money played any role in influencing US foreign policy, so they're not going to look into it. Usually such conclusions are reserved for post-review findings, but the Clintons play by different rules than mere mortals. Meanwhile, the liberal New York magazine reports that the Clinton Foundation sought to exert special pressure on a prominent watchdog group whose mission is to rate the efficacy and reliability of charitable organizations:
After being the subject of a spate of negative newspaper accounts about potential conflicts of interest and management dysfunction this winter — long before Clinton Cash — the Clinton Foundation wound up on a "watch list" maintained by the Charity Navigator, the New Jersey–based nonprofit watchdog. Since March, the Foundation has embarked on an aggressive behind-the-scenes campaign to get removed from the list. Clinton Foundation officials accuse the Navigator of unfairly targeting them, lacking credible evidence of wrongdoing, and blowing off numerous requests for a meeting to present their case. "They're not only punishing us for being transparent but are not being transparent themselves," Maura Pally, the Foundation's acting CEO, told me by phone from Morocco last week. "Charity Navigator doesn't disclose its donors, but we do and yet that means we're suffering the consequences." Navigator executives counter that the Foundation has demanded they extend the Clintons special treatment. They also allege the Foundation attempted to strong-arm them by calling a Navigator board member. "They felt they were of such importance that we should deviate from our normal process. They were irritated by that," says Berger.
They don't want to be held accountable for the shady practices -- which earned them the "slush fund" moniker from another watchdog -- and they think they're entitled to special favors and treatment. They're above the rules. I'll leave you with a reminder that one of the Clinton Foundation's founders explicitly stated that the group "is not charity. It's all bankable. It's a commercial proposition." Also, this is quite a juxtaposition:
Fiorina memo: Carly's been a candidate for 8 days & has answered 322 media Q's. Hillary's been a candidate for 30 days, answered 8 Q's.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 11, 2015