Foreign cash

Hillary Clinton struggles to contain media barrage on foreign cash

There have been drips of information leaking out from an upcoming book. Recently, it turned into a gush.

By Nick Gass

Hillary Clinton’s camp is on the defensive after an onslaught of news reports that detail perceived conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency about tens of millions of dollars in foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation.

In recent days, there have been drips of information leaking out from an upcoming book by conservative author Peter Schweizer, “Clinton Cash: the Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Help Make Bill and Hillary Rich.” It turned into a gush in the past 24 hours, with reports from The New York Times, POLITICO, The Washington Post, Reuters, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal that were either spawned from the book or touched on similar territory.

There is an underlying theme in these reports that has dogged the Clintons for decades and has freshly come to the fore early in Hillary Clinton’s second run for the White House — their secretive tendencies and their connections to big sums of cash.

According to a report by The New York Times, contributions flowed into the Clinton Foundation between 2009 and 2013 as a Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, took over Canadian-based Uranium One with far-reaching uranium holdings. That sale, according to the Times, gave the Russian company control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States.

Clinton’s State Department was one of the numerous U.S. government agencies that approved the deal, which was required since uranium production represents a national security asset.

The chairman of Uranium One made four donations to the Clinton Foundation through his family foundation, totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed, according to the Times report, despite an agreement Clinton made with President Barack Obama’s administration to publicly disclose all donors and donations.

Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Clinton’s campaign, told the Times that no one “has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.” The suggestion that the State Department “exerted undue influence” on the review of the sale “is utterly baseless,” he said.

In another example of the Clintons’ money and transparency problem, Reuters reported Thursday that the Clinton family’s charities are refiling at least five annual tax returns because of errors in reporting donations from foreign governments.

The errors are on forms called 990, which the IRS requires charity organizations to file every year to keep their tax-exempt status. Starting in 2010, and continuing for three years, the Clinton Foundation’s report said that it did not receive any funds from foreign and U.S. governments, a stark contrast from reported donations in the previous years.

“We are prioritizing an external review to ensure the accuracy of the 990s from 2010, 2011 and 2012 and expect to refile when the review is completed,” a foundation spokesman told Reuters.

The foundation’s Clinton Health Access Initiative, or CHAI, is also refiling its form 990s for at least 2012 and 2013, a spokeswoman said, according to the report. The program that provides more affordable pharmaceuticals to HIV patients around the world said its initial filings over-reported government grants by more than $100 million.

The Washington Post’s Clinton headline focused on the companies and organizations that are major donors to the Clinton Foundation and have also paid former President Bill Clinton at least $26 million in speaking fees since he left office. It’s yet another indication of the close relationship between the Clintons’ charity work and growing persona wealth.

The Post’s analysis found that four speeches by Bill Clinton were nowhere to be found on the former secretary of state’s disclosure forms. One of them was to the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm with political pull.

POLITICO reported on Wednesday that Schweizer’s book alleges that, among other things, donor cash influenced Clinton’s position on a trade deal with Colombia while she was at the State Department.

The Clinton Foundation is not the only albatross for the Clinton campaign, which was just formally launched less than two weeks ago.

She is facing a simmering controversy over her use of a personal email server while secretary of state, which was not standard protocol and fuels further allegations of secrecy.

News emerged late Wednesday that the presidential candidate’s lawyer rejected a private interview with the House select committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks when she was secretary of state.

“There is no reason to delay her appearance or to have her testify in a private interview,” David Kendall wrote in a letter to Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).

Clinton’s campaign chairman offered further explanation, and criticized Republicans’ request for a private meeting.

“Hillary Clinton has already spent five hours testifying at two congressional committee hearings but, as she’s been saying since last year, she’s happy to do it again,” John Podesta said. “Unfortunately, Republicans insist her testimony is done behind closed doors, where the American public is unable to see their true, politically motivated intentions.”

Republican presidential contenders have also seized upon the controversy swirling around the Clintons. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has said Schweizer briefed him on the book and that Americans are “going to be blown away” by its contents. He is asking supporters to provide more information about the Clinton Foundation’s acceptance of contributions from foreign governments.

“I’m #ReadyForHillary to return all the money she raised from foreign nations,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted with a link to his campaign website.

The lasting damage of the headlines is unclear, especially if the Clinton campaign can successfully reduce the reports to partisan attacks that turn off that American public.

Also, Clinton is not seen as the only ripe target. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that Schweizer is working on a book about Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush.

“What we’re doing is a drill-down investigation of Jeb’s finances similar to what we did with the Clintons in terms of looking at financial dealings, cronyism, who he’s been involved with,” Schweizer told Bloomberg Politics. “We’ve found some interesting things.”