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GOP group calls on Clinton Foundation to return foreign donations - Gabriel
Debenedetti - POLITICO

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/gop-group-clinton-foundation-foreign-donations-115294.html

GOP group calls on Clinton Foundation to return foreign donations
[image: Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is pictured. | AP
Photo]

AP Photo
GOP group calls on Clinton Foundation to return foreign donations

By Gabriel Debenedetti
<http://www.politico.com/reporters/GabrielDebenedetti.html>

2/18/15 5:58 PM EST

Updated 2/18/15 6:49 PM EST

One day after a report revealed that the Clinton Foundation has abandoned
its near-prohibition of raising new money from foreign governments,
Republican opposition research firm America Rising is calling on the
organization to return funds from international sources and to promise to
stop accepting them.

The group is warning against the prospect of countries that in some cases
have given $1 million or more to the foundation having a “special”
relationship with a Clinton administration. The Wall Street Journal on
Tuesday reported that nations
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-government-gifts-to-clinton-foundation-on-the-rise-1424223031>
including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Canada have recently
donated to the foundation.

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“The potential conflict of interest for someone in Clinton’s position
requires they return the money, and the ethical lapse to accept the money
in the first place calls into question Hillary Clinton’s judgment,” the
group will say on Wednesday in its release announcing these requests.

Neither Hillary Clinton’s spokesman nor a Clinton Foundation spokesman
responded immediately to requests for comment.

While Clinton lies low ahead of her campaign launch, Republicans have been
criticizing her work as a public official and a private citizen. The
Journal report reflected one Republican line of criticism — that Clinton’s
foundation ties to foreign regimes could cause her political difficulties —
and a similar fear among some of her allies and defenders.

The organization — which was started by former President Bill Clinton as he
left the White House and was renamed the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton
Foundation in 2013 — has caused Hillary Clinton political headaches before.
It agreed to stop actively seeking out new money from foreign governments,
and to have increases in existing donations vetted, when she stepped into
the secretary of state role in 2009. And it has again been the focus of
Republican scrutiny since she left the State Department in 2013.

Many of Clinton’s public appearances in that year and 2014 were under the
foundation’s umbrella, as the former senator and first lady has been
involved with its philanthropic initiatives while preparing for her likely
presidential bid.

America Rising will demand that the organization “return all donations from
foreign governments, including regional or local government entities since
2013 and pledge never to solicit or accept them.” It is also asking the
foundation to return funds received from nonprofit organizations that are
themselves mostly funded by foreign governments or officials, and to return
money from foreign officers. It is asking Bill Clinton to give back his own
speaking fees from international governments as well.

The Journal article specifically pointed to the United Arab Emirates, which
it said gave the foundation between $1 million and $5 million last year, as
a recent first-time donor. The paper also reported that the Clinton
Foundation received money from Oman, Australia, Germany, Norway, Italy and
the Netherlands.
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Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

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