Judge fines Donald Trump $2 million for misusing charity foundation
A judge Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to pay $2 million to an array of charities as a fine for misusing his own charitable foundation to further his political and business interests. New York state Judge Saliann Scarpulla imposed the penalty after the president admitted to a series of abuses outlined in a lawsuit brought against him last year by the New York attorney general’s office. Among other things, Trump acknowledged in a legal filing that he allowed his presidential campaign staff to coordinate with the Trump Foundation in holding a fundraiser for veterans during the run-up to the 2016 Iowa caucuses. The event was designed “to further Mr. Trump’s political campaign,” Scarpulla said. In a defiant statement issued Thursday evening, though, Trump suggested he was neither sorry nor in the wrong. “I am the only person I know, perhaps the only person in history, who can give major money to charity (19M), charge no expense, and be attacked by the political hacks in New York State,” he wrote. He assailed a series of Democratic attorneys general of New York who were involved with the suit, saying they should have spent their time investigating the Clinton Foundation.“It has been 4 years of politically motivated harassment,” Trump said. Trump’s foundation will be dissolved and its $1.7 million in remaining funds will be given to other nonprofits, under agreements reached by Trump’s lawyers and the attorney general’s office. As part of those agreements , made public Thursday, the two sides left it up to the judge to decide what penalty Trump should pay. The settlement was an about-face for Trump. He had tweeted, “I won’t settle this case!” when it was filed in June 2018. Trump’s fine and the charity’s funds will be split evenly among eight organizations, including Citymeals on Wheels, the United Negro College Fund and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Attorney General Letitia James welcomed the resolution of the case as a “major victory in our efforts to protect charitable assets and hold accountable those who would abuse charities for personal gain.” “No one is above the law — not a businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the President of the United States,” said James, a Democrat. The president admitted, among other things, to arranging for the charity to pay $10,000 for a 6-foot portrait of him. He also agreed to pay back $11,525 in foundation funds that he spent on sports memorabilia and champagne at a charity gala. Trump also accepted restrictions on his involvement in other charitable organizations. His three eldest children, who were members of the foundation’s board, must undergo mandatory training on the duties of those who run charities. Charities are barred from getting involved in political campaigns, but in weighing the Iowa fundraiser, Scarpulla gave Trump credit for making good on his pledge to give $2.8 million that his charity raised to veterans’ organizations. Instead of fining him that amount, as the attorney general’s office wanted, the judge trimmed it to $2 million and rejected a demand for punitive damages and interest. The Trump Foundation said it was pleased by those decisions, claiming that the judge “recognized that every penny ever raised by the Trump Foundation has gone to help those most in need.” Trump Foundation lawyer Alan Futerfas said the nonprofit has distributed approximately $19 million over the past decade, including $8.25 million of the president’s own money, to hundreds of charitable organizations. At the time of the Iowa fundraiser, Trump was feuding with then-Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and refusing to participate in the network’s final Republican presidential primary debate before the Iowa caucuses. Instead, he held a rally at the same time as the debate at which he called on people to donate to veterans’ charities. The foundation acted as a pass-through for those contributions. James said the evidence of banned coordination between campaign officials and the foundation included emails exchanged with then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. In one email, a Trump company vice president asked Lewandowski for guidance on precisely how to distribute the money raised. Trump also admitted in the agreements to directing that $100,000 in foundation money be used to settle legal claims over an 80-foot flagpole he had built at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, instead of paying the expense out of his own pocket. In addition, the foundation paid $158,000 to resolve a lawsuit over a prize for a hole-in-one contest at a Trump-owned golf course, and $5,000 for ads promoting Trump’s hotels in the programs for charitable events. Trump admitted these transactions were also improper. As part of the settlement, Donald Trump Jr. reimbursed the Trump Foundation for the cost of the portrait. By Michael R. Sisak Associated Press Follow Michael Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak. Send news tips, documents and recordings to AP securely and confidentially: https://www.ap.org/tips. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Ex-Bill Clinton aide memo roils wife’s campaign over ethics
A 2011 confidential memo written by a longtime Bill Clinton aide during Hillary Clinton‘s State Department tenure describes overlap between the former president’s business ventures and fundraising for the family’s charities. The former aide also described free travel and vacations arranged for the Clintons by corporations, reinforcing ethics concerns about the Democratic presidential nominee. The 13-page memo, by Doug Band, detailed the former president’s management of “Bill Clinton Inc.” It was included in hacked emails from the private account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that were released by WikiLeaks. Band described the “unorthodox nature” of how he dealt with Bill Clinton’s dual interests in seeking out speech and consulting ventures around the world while he raised funds for the Clinton Foundation. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Bill Clinton defends his foundation amid intense scrutiny
Bill Clinton delivered an emotional defense of his family’s charitable foundation Wednesday, applauding contributors for having “validated hope and possibilities.” The former president spoke at the close of the final meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, an arm of the broader Clinton Foundation. The annual CGI gathering in New York has brought together an unusual blend of political leaders, philanthropists and celebrities, with participants expected to make specific commitments for projects around the world. This week’s event was held under a cloud of election year questions fueled by Donald Trump, who is locked in a close race against Hillary Clinton. The Republican has accused the Clintons of using their charity to enrich themselves and to give foundation donors greater access to Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Bill Clinton did not directly address those accusations Wednesday, but aides said he viewed his hour-long address touting CGI’s work as an implicit rebuke to critics. He said the initiative had marked a “profound advance” in global philanthropic efforts and had helped 435 million people in 180 countries. Clinton spent much of his address recalling specific people who have been helped by CGI commitments, including making life-saving drugs more widely available and expanding access to clean drinking water. Clinton has pledged to step down from the foundation’s board if his wife is elected president, a decision he says is as painful as a root canal. He’s ending CGI regardless of the outcome of the election. Trump’s campaign renewed its criticism ahead of the former president’s speech, saying the Clinton Foundation presents “an unprecedented conflict of interest that would badly compromise a Hillary Clinton White House.” The Associated Press found that more than half the people outside the government who met or spoke by telephone with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state had given money – either personally or through companies or groups – to the Clinton Foundation. The AP’s analysis focused on people with private interests and excluded her meetings or calls with U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives. AP’s report was based on Clinton’s formal calendars and daily schedules, the latter of which covered only about half her tenure as secretary. The AP sued the State Department in federal court to obtain the detailed schedules, and the State Department so far has only released half of them. Trump’s own charitable foundation has also faced scrutiny. The Washington Post reported this week that Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from the foundation to settle lawsuits that involved his for-profit businesses. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Jeff Sessions echoes Donald Trump call for special prosecutor to investigate Clinton Foundation
Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions added his voice to the call for a special prosecutor to investigate a “pay-to-play” policy by the foundation linked to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Sessions is echoing the call made by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who called for the Justice Department to launch an “expedited investigation” into the Clinton Foundation, after new allegations emerged that the group pushed for special access to then-Secretary of State Clinton. “The fundamental thing is you cannot be Secretary of State of the United States of America and use that position to extort or seek contributions to your private foundation,” Sessions said in an interview with CNN. “That is a fundamental violation of law and that does appear to have happened.” Trump, at a campaign rally Monday night in Akron, Ohio, said the Clintons “made the State Department into the same kind of ‘pay-to-play’ operation as the Arkansas government” — paying the Clinton Foundation “huge sums of money and throw in big speaking fees” to get “to play with the State Department.” When asked to give examples of how Hillary Clinton extorted money, Sessions said that it was in the way individuals thought they could gain access to the State Department by way of payments to the foundation. “Why are these people giving money to the foundation,” Sessions asked. “Why are these people in countries that are very poor giving millions of dollars — even hundreds of millions of dollars — to a foundation that doesn’t benefit them? “They’re doing it to gain access,” he added. “And you cannot pay for access.” Sessions said the evidence, which came to light in a new series of emails located on a private server used by Hillary Clinton during her time at the State Department, warrants further study and that FBI Director James Comey had not completed a full investigation. “There is a cloud over this,” Sessions said, “just because he might conclude that there’s not a chargeable offense does not indicate there’s no wrongdoing.” Fox News reports on newly emerged documents showing a senior executive at the Clinton Foundation left nearly 150 telephone messages over a two-year period to top Hillary Clinton aides at the State Department.
Bob Sparks: Donald Trump campaign shakeup — will it be enough?
Donald Trump and his campaign are sending a signal with the announcement of Steve Bannon as campaign CEO and Kellyanne Conway as campaign manager. Aside from the clear message that his is a campaign in trouble, it also provides a clear picture of a major focus of his campaign going forward. That focus is to make the election about Hillary Clinton and not Donald Trump. So far, Trump’s world-class lack of discipline has kept the spotlight on himself. There can be little doubt that Bannon has been brought on board to change that dynamic. If the candidate will cooperate and refrain from responding to criticism from Gold Star families, it will be interesting to see if this move works. “It’s an expansion at a busy time in the final stretch of the campaign,” Conway told The New York Times. Bannon is fairly well-known in conservative circles as the Executive Chairman of Breitbart News, the media outlet liberals love to hate. Even some conservatives were unhappy with Breitbart’s softness for Trump during the primaries. No one is talking about Bannon’s accomplishments as a conservative filmmaker, but they should. His skill in that area will make him invaluable to Trump. That is if the candidate will cooperate. Bannon’s most recent work is the film version of Peter Schweizer’s New York Times best-selling book, Clinton Cash. The findings of Schweizer and his team at the Florida-based Government Accountability Institute (co-founded with Bannon) have given Trump and Republicans fodder for op-eds and TV ads for months. (Full disclosure: I represent a group from Japan that translated and published Clinton Cash in that country.) The book and the film chronicle the questionable donations to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments doing business with the U.S. while Clinton was Secretary of State. Clinton is clearly vulnerable to political attacks on the activities of the Foundation. Millions of dollars have come into Foundation from some governments which operate on the notion that being gay is punishable by death. Or women are not even second class citizens. Those are in addition to the almost daily revelations provided by the release of still more emails. For those who like to fall back on the notion that only Fox News is talking about this, think again. The Boston Globe, no conservative organ, published an editorial Wednesday calling for the Foundation to stop accepting donations. Now. These should be the gifts that keep on giving for Trump. Instead, his instinct has been to talk about Clinton and President Barack Obama being the “founders of ISIS” during his most recent Florida swing. This is the state of the playing field as Bannon enters the game. If Bannon can keep Trump on message, a huge undertaking, we should expect television and online ads taking the most devastating snippets from the film. His imprint will be on other ads as well. Conway brings campaign experience, including decades as a pollster. She is also a frequent guest pundit on political shows. We will soon see if Trump puts his faith in his “core four” of Bannon, Conway, campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates. If Conway becomes the most frequent spokesperson, then despite denials, Manafort’s role has likely changed. Manafort is under scrutiny for his role in helping the pro-Russian government in Ukraine (at the time) direct undisclosed payments to U.S. lobbying firms. This dynamic will make him unable to effectively represent the campaign in media interviews, especially the Sunday shows. How does the Trump campaign talk about the Clinton Foundation while its campaign chairman is being peppered with questions by those seeking to create a moral equivalence between the two? The answer: by keeping the chairman under wraps. This is clearly Trump’s last chance to be relevant. It may already be too late, but with an opponent as flawed as Hillary Clinton, anything is possible if the focus stays on her. Only in America.
Darryl Paulson: Why Donald Trump won’t win the GOP nomination
As we rapidly approach the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, speculation increases that Donald Trump will likely be the Republican presidential nominee. I believe Trump has no better than a 20 percent chance of winning the nomination. We all know the common criticisms of Trump. He has made outrageous statements about Mexicans as “rapists,” John McCain as not a military hero, and his rants against Carly Fiorina‘s ugly face and Megan Kelly bleeding from “wherever.” We know Trump has flip-flopped on almost every major issue including abortion, national health care and his attitude toward Hillary and Bill Clinton. We know that Trump has spent far more time as a Democrat or independent than as a Republican and he has given most of his $1.5 million in political donations to Democrats, including large contributions to Nancy Pelosi and the Clinton Foundation. We know that Trump has never been a conservative. Besides calling himself a liberal on health care, Trump quit the Republican Party in 1999 saying, “Republicans are just too crazy right.” We know that PolitiFact awarded Trump the “lie of the year” for his numerous misstatements during the campaign. Of the 77 statements PolitiFact investigated, they rated 76 percent of them Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire. Among the lies cited by PolitiFact was Trump’s comment that he watched “thousands of Muslims” cheering the fall of the World Trade Center on 9/11. You think at least one person would have a photo or video of that incident. None of it has damaged the Trump campaign yet. In fact, the more outrageous his statements, the more his numbers rise. So, why will Trump not win the Republican nomination? Because he will either suffer a Howard Dean-like fall, or because his support is concentrated among people who are not Republicans and people who are less likely to vote. Ross Douthat wrote in The New York Times that Trump’s support will vanish as Election Day approaches. As Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s campaign manager wrote, “People get more pragmatic the closer they get to an actual vote.” According to Trippi, this is what happened to Dean. Why waste a vote on someone unlikely to win? Second, Trump will lose because much of his support comes from people who are not Republican and who don’t vote. Trump’s strongest support comes from what The New York Times called “a certain kind of Democrat.” It is hard for anyone to win the nomination of a political party when much of their support comes from people in the other party. As we get past the early caucuses and primaries, the candidates will face several closed primaries, where only members of a party can vote. If his support comes from Democrats, they will not be able to vote for him in states such as Florida and New York where Trump is doing well in the polls. A final problem for Trump is that much of his support comes from individuals who are least likely to vote, especially in caucuses and primaries. Civis Analytics, in a study of 11,000 Republican-leaning supporters, found that Trump would get 40 percent of the vote of those who have less than a 20 percent chance of voting. Unless Trump has a plan to compensate for these problems, he may quickly find himself, much like Dean, going from first place to out of the race in a period of weeks. If Trump loses the Iowa caucus, where Cruz is now leading, the bottom could fall out of his campaign very quickly. For a “winner” like Trump to lose the first major race of the campaign season would reduce the sense of inevitability that Trump will win the nomination. As other Republicans fall by the wayside, it is unlikely that Trump will win their support. Conservative and evangelical voters are unlikely to align with Trump, who is only a Republican of convenience. • • • Darryl Paulson is Professor Emeritus of Government at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and resides in Palm Harbor, Florida. For more state and national commentary visit Context Florida.
Darryl Paulson: The zenith of Donald Trump
Here are two critical points concerning Donald Trump. First, he is barely a Republican. Second, he is certainly not a conservative. It is obvious that Trump is leading the field of 17 Republican candidates. His support in four recent polls all had Trump in first place, ranging from a low of 21 percent in the Bloomberg poll to 26 percent in both the Fox poll and the Monmouth University poll. That’s the good news for Trump. The bad news is that Trump may move up a few points, but he has reached the zenith of his support. A recent Economist/YouGov.com survey found that about a third of Americans had a favorable view of Trump and 58 percent had an unfavorable view. Trump will soon be taking the “down” elevator in public opinion polls. The same poll found that when the numbers were broken down by age, race, region, gender and income, Trump’s unfavorables were substantially higher in every category but one: voters 65 and older. His support among African-Americans, Hispanics and women is almost nonexistent. A Rasmussen Poll released Tuesday found strong evidence that the Trump decline may have already started. A survey of 651 likely Republican voters conducted between Sunday and Monday, found that support for Trump has declined from 24 percent to 17 percent in the past 10 days. Trump’s support among men has fallen from 30 percent to 19 percent, and support from women has dropped from 22 percent to 14 percent. Trump is at the top right now because he is perceived as the non-politician in the age where Americans of all political stripes hate the establishment. Voters are frustrated and alienated with politics and politicians, and Trump has successfully appealed to them. Trump’s supporters see him as the outsider who will shake-up the system, much like those who supported George Wallace and Ross Perot were viewed as political mavericks. Trump’s one major contribution to the presidential race us that he has demonstrated to the other candidates that the voters do not like them and their hollow promises one bit. Trump will falter for many reasons. As Larry Thornberry has written in The American Spectator, a leading conservative publication, Trump is “an arrogant, self-satisfied, crude and pompous windbag and bully who grossly overestimates his knowledge, his successes, and, not the least, his charm.” He attacks any critic as “stupid” or “loser,” but has a political glass jaw when he is criticized. Trump will lose because he is running as a Republican this year simply because he feels like it. He quit the party in 1999 saying that “Republicans are just too crazy right.” He then hired Roger Stone, who resigned as Trump’s campaign manager a few days ago, to consider a 2000 run as a Reform Party candidate. In 2009, Trump was back as a Republican. The next year he decided he was an independent and then in 2012, he was once again a Republican. His moving from one political party to another, all for political expediency, might remind Florida voters of Gov. Charlie Crist. Trump is the Bernie Sanders of the Republican Party. Both Trump and Sanders are running to lead a party that neither really calls home and that both have spent more time disparaging than uplifting it. During most of the first decade of the 21st century, the vast majority of the $1.5 million that Trump donated to political candidates went to Democrats, including contributions to Nancy Pelosi and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. When asked about his contributions to both Democrats and Republicans, Trump justified them by saying, “When you give, they do whatever you want them to.” I am sure that will appeal to Americans who hate politics for precisely that reason. Trump will lose because he is not a conservative in a party that is dominated by conservatives. In a 2000 book Trump called himself a “liberal” on health care. He supported a single-payer health plan that conservatives loathe, and he was once pro-choice, although he now says he is against abortion. A few years ago, Trump supported a 14.25 percent mega-tax on those making more than $10 million. Now he wants to cut income taxes in half. As Bruce Bartlett, former aide to U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp, said of Trump: “He is nothing if not inconsistent. He’s been on every side of every issue from every point of view as far as I can tell.” If you have not noticed, Trump is also delusional. He calls immigrants “rapists and murderers,” and then says he will win the Hispanic vote. He insults conservative icon Megyn Kelly for attacking him unfairly and having blood coming out her eyes and “whatever.” Trump also believes he will win the votes of women. Republicans, conservatives and Americans deserve better than Trump. “Donald, you’re fired!” Darryl Paulson is Professor Emeritus of Government at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and resides in Palm Harbor.
Archives show Hillary Clinton OK’d tax breaks for nonprofits
As first lady in the final year of the Clinton administration, Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed a White House plan to give tax breaks to private foundations and wealthy charity donors at the same time the William J. Clinton Foundation was soliciting donations for her husband’s presidential library, recently released Clinton-era documents show. The blurred lines between the tax reductions proposed by the Clinton administration in 2000 and the Clinton Library’s fundraising were an early foreshadowing of the potential ethics concerns that have flared around the Clintons’ courting of corporate and foreign donors for their family charity before she launched her campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. White House documents in the Clinton Library reviewed by The Associated Press show Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton were kept apprised about a tax reduction package that would have benefited donors, including those to his presidential library, by reducing their tax burden. An interagency task force set up by Bill Clinton’s executive order proposed those breaks along with deductions to middle-class taxpayers who did not itemize their returns. Federal officials estimated the plan would cost the U.S. government $14 billion in lost tax payments over a decade. In a January 2000 memo to Hillary Clinton from senior aides, plans for a “philanthropy tax initiative roll-out” showed her scrawled approval, “HRC” and “OK.” The document, marked with the archive stamp “HRC handwriting,” indicated her endorsement of the tax package, which included provisions to reduce and simplify an excise tax on private foundations’ investments and allow more deductions for charitable donations of appreciated property. The Clinton White House included the tax proposal in its final budget in February 2000, but it did not survive the Republican-led Congress. “Without your leadership, none of these proposals would have been included in the tax package,” three aides wrote to Hillary Clinton in the memo, days before she led a private conference call outlining the plan to private foundation and nonprofit leaders. Federal law does not prevent fundraising by a presidential library during a president’s term. While most modern-day presidents held off until the end of their term, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush allowed supporters to solicit donations while they were still in office, and President Barack Obama is now doing the same. But in directly pushing the legislation while the Clinton Library was aggressively seeking donations, Hillary and Bill Clinton’s altruistic support for philanthropy overlapped with their interests promoting their White House years and knitting ties with philanthropic leaders. Hundreds of pages of documents contain no evidence that anyone in the Clinton administration raised warnings about potential ethics concerns or sought to minimize the White House’s active role in the legislation. “The theme here for the Clintons is a characteristic ambiguity of doing good and at the same time doing well by themselves,” said Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Hubert H. Humphrey School at the University of Minnesota. Jacobs said the Clinton administration could have relied on a federal commission to decide tax plans or publicly supported changes but not specific legislation. Instead, Jacobs said, “this was a commitment by the Clinton White House to identify options and promote them with no regard to the larger picture.” Spokesmen for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Clinton Foundation declined to comment, deferring to the former president’s office. A spokesman for Bill Clinton’s office said that his administration was not trying to incentivize giving to the foundation, but instead was spurred by a 1997 presidential humanities committee that urged tax breaks for charities to aid American cultural institutions. Bruce Reed, Bill Clinton’s chief domestic policy adviser at the time, also responded Thursday that the former president “wanted to give a break to working people for putting a few more dollars in the plate at the church. Not for any other far-fetched reason.” Gene Sperling, former economic adviser to both Bill Clinton and President Obama, added that the tax reduction package was “developed at the Treasury Department, endorsed by experts and designed to encourage all forms of charitable giving.” The Clinton Foundation would not have benefited directly by the tax proposals. The foundation is a public charity and not subject to the excise tax, which applies only to private foundations and is still law. The foundation is also not known to donate appreciated property and stocks to other charities. But the tax changes would have indirectly helped the foundation — as well as many other U.S. charities — by freeing nonprofits’ investments and donations that otherwise would have gone into tax payments. A reduction of the excise tax would have boosted the assets of private foundations. Higher deductions for appreciated investments and property would have also aided the Clinton Foundation, which accepts noncash gifts. In 2010, for example, the charity declared more than $5 million in donated securities on its federal tax returns. By the time the Clinton administration introduced its tax package in February 2000, the foundation had already raised $6 million in donations, according to tax disclosures. Among corporate-tied nonprofits that pledged or donated at least $1 million to the library project through the early 2000s, according to tax documents and published reports, were the Wasserman Foundation, the Roy and Christine Sturgis Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Anheuser-Busch Foundation. Though Bill Clinton did not take over the nonprofit until after his presidency, he had openly discussed his plans for the organization’s future with New York executives in June 1999. And the foundation’s fundraising was led at the time by a trusted childhood friend, James “Skip” Rutherford, now dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas. Rutherford said he was not aware of the tax proposals and was focused at the time on small donors and likely contributors across Arkansas. Months before proposing the tax breaks, Clinton White House officials began courting leaders from some of the nation’s most influential charities. In the summer of 1999, aides began discussing the
Mo Brooks calls for inquiry into Clinton Foundation contributions
U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, from Alabama’s 5th Congressional District, issued a call for an Internal Revenue Service review of financial contributions to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization that Brooks says inappropriately handled donations from foreign nationals while Mrs. Clinton was U.S. Secretary of State. Brooks also joined Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn in penning a letter to the IRS urging their attention to the matter, which surfaced among revelations that Clinton allegedly sometimes used a private email account for state business. “I am pleased to join my colleague Marsha Blackburn in calling on the IRS to conduct a timely review of the Foundation’s tax-exempt status and shed light on these reports,” Brooks said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. “As a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, we owe it to the American people to ensure the Clinton Foundation is acting within the scope of its charitable mission.” “An IRS investigation of the Clinton Foundation is a prudent first step,” Brooks continued. “I also support hoped-for steps two and three, a Congressional inquiry coupled with an investigation by the United States Justice Department.” The letter co-signed by Brooks is addressed to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. It details allegations against the Clinton group and implores the agency to take action by beginning a probe into possible abuses of tax-exempt status. “…recent media reports have revealed that the Foundation failed to report millions of dollars in grants from foreign governments that it accepted while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and that it facilitated private business transactions between foreign entities. As a result, given the substantial public interest involved, we feel a prompt review of the Foundation’s tax-exempt status is appropriate to determine whether it is acting within the scope of its charitable mission,” the letter reads. The full text of the Blackburn-Brooks letter is below: Dear Honorable Koskinen: We write to ask that you review the tax-exempt status of the Clinton Foundation (hereinafter “the Foundation”). The Foundation maintains that “The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.” However, recent media reports have revealed that the Foundation failed to report millions of dollars in grants from foreign governments that it accepted while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and that it facilitated private business transactions between foreign entities. As a result, given the substantial public interest involved, we feel a prompt review of the Foundation’s tax-exempt status is appropriate to determine whether it is acting within the scope of its charitable mission. First, the Foundation is required to annually file a form 990 series return with the IRS listing foreign contributions. Unfortunately, the Foundation failed to report tens of millions of dollars in foreign government grants between 2010 and 2012. Foundation Acting CEO Maura Pally admitted in an April 26th blog post that “…our error was that government grants were mistakenly combined with other donations.” Former President Clinton recently added that “people re-file their taxes all the time” and that the omissions were “just an accident”. However, the Foundation apparently did report such information prior to 2010. The Foundation’s failure to report the donations is problematic and deserves enhanced scrutiny given Mrs. Clinton’s position as Secretary of State at the time. Second, former President Clinton and Canadian businessman Frank Giustra currently serve as board members of the Foundation. An article titled “The Clintons, a luxury jet and their $100 million donor from Canada” appeared in the Washington Post on May 3rd and details their relationship. The article notes that Giustra has donatedover $100 million dollars to the Foundation since 2005 and that “Clinton has also gained regular transportation, borrowing Giustra’s plane 26 times for foundation business since 2005, including 13 trips in which the two men traveled together.” The Post adds that Giustra “closed some of the biggest deals of his career in the same countries where he traveled with Clinton.” Giustra joined the Foundation’s Board of Directors in 2013. The nexus between the Foundation and Giustra’s business ventures is unusual and raises a question as to whether Foundation activities were used as a pre-text to allow Giustra to gain access to foreign individuals or entities with a stake in his private business interests. Given these widely reported allegations, we believe a review of the appropriateness of the Foundation’s tax-exempt status is necessary. Proceeding under the cloak of philanthropy, the Foundation appears to have facilitated major private business transactions between foreign entities and also failed to report substantial foreign donations during Secretary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department. These actions have created an appearance of impropriety and go behind the Foundation’s pledge to act primarily in furtherance of charitable causes for which it was granted tax-exempt status. Thank you. We look forward to your prompt review.
George Stephanopoulos will not moderate Republican debate
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos won’t moderate a Republican presidential debate next winter, part of the fallout from reports that the network’s top political anchor contributed $75,000 over a three-year period to the Clinton Foundation. Stephanopoulos voluntarily stepped away from the Feb. 6 debate, ABC News spokeswoman Heather Riley said Thursday. It is one of nine debates sanctioned by the Republican National Committee. The co-host of Good Morning America and host of the Sunday morning public affairs program This Week earlier had apologized for not disclosing his contributions to his employer and viewers. The three donations of $25,000 each in 2012, 2013 and 2014 were made to the foundation set up by former President Bill Clinton because of the organization’s work on global AIDS prevention and deforestation, Stephanopoulos said. The network news division said in a statement that “we stand behind him.” Some Republicans have harbored long suspicions about Stephanopoulos because of his past life as a top aide to Clinton during his 1992 presidential campaign and in the White House afterward. Stephanopoulos joined ABC News in 1997, and Riley said the proof of his objectivity as a reporter “is in his work” over 18 years. With Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, the issues have been revived for ABC News. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican running for president, told The New York Times that because Stephanopoulos has been close to the Clintons, “that there would be a conflict of interest if he tried to be a moderator of any sort.” The donations to the Clinton foundation were first reported in Politico as $50,000. But in checking back in his records, Stephanopoulos found an additional $25,000 donation in 2012, Riley said. Stephanopoulos has reported on Peter Schweizer‘s book, Clinton Cash, which traces the public involvement of organizations that have donated to the Clinton Foundation. Stephanopoulos interviewed Schweizer on “This Week.” The news anchor said that he thought his contributions were a matter of public record. “However, in hindsight, I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on the air during the recent news stories about the foundation,” he said. “I apologize.” ABC News, in a statement, agreed that Stephanopoulos was wrong not to notify his bosses and viewers but called it an honest mistake. Besides his regular work on the two programs, Stephanopoulos is ABC News’ chief anchor during major breaking stories and on election nights. Republished with permission from The Associated Press.
AP-GfK Poll: Doubts about Hillary Clinton’s honesty after emails
Americans appear to be suspicious of Hillary Rodham Clinton‘s honesty, and even many Democrats are only lukewarm about her presidential candidacy, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. Is she strong and decisive? Yes, say a majority of people. But inspiring and likable? Only a minority think so. Clinton’s struggles to explain her email practices while in government, along with questions about the Clinton Foundation and Republican criticism of her openness, wealth and trustworthiness seem to have struck a nerve in the public’s perception of the dominant Democratic figure in the 2016 campaign. In the survey, 61 percent said “honest” describes her only slightly well or not at all. Nearly four in 10 Democrats, and more than six in 10 independents agreed that “honest” was not the best word for her. Even so, she is viewed more favorably than her potential Republican rivals, none of whom are as well-known as the former secretary of state, senator and first lady. With Clinton facing little competition on the Democratic side, Republicans are trying to make questions about her integrity central to the early 2016 campaign. They paint her as a creature of Washington who flouts the rules to get ahead. Her use of a private email account run from a server kept at her New York home while serving as secretary of state has fed perceptions that she had things to hide. And questions are swirling about foreign donations to the family’s charitable foundation and whether that money influenced her work at the State Department. James Robins, an independent voter from North Carolina, says his generally positive opinion of Clinton has shifted over the past few months, as more details have emerged about her email usage and foundation fundraising practices. “She and her family think they’re above everything,” he said. “She intentionally destroyed all the evidence on that server. And when you look at some of her other stuff recently it’s equally as bad.” Clinton said last month that she used a personal account out of convenience. She deleted about 30,000 emails that she has described as personal in nature and has declined requests from congressional Republicans to turn over her server for an independent review. The survey suggests that many Americans aren’t buying Clinton’s explanation: A majority said they believe she used a private address to shield her emails from transparency laws and they think she should turn her server over to a third party for further investigation. At the same time, the public is split over whether her email usage is a significant issue for her presidential aspirations: Less than a third — 32 percent — said it was a major problem, 36 percent rated it a minor problem, and 31 percent said it’s not a problem at all. Only 20 percent said they’re paying very close attention to the email story. “We don’t have the whole picture and all the information that we need to make a judgment,” said Ruth Johnson, of Moorhead, Minnesota. “Will she show everything that was emailed? Or has she eliminated a lot of stuff we’ll never know about?” Still, Clinton’s overall ratings remain the strongest in the emerging presidential field and are essentially unchanged since two AP-GfK polls conducted last year. Forty-six percent of Americans express a favorable view of Clinton, slightly more than the 41 percent who express a negative opinion. No potential Republican candidate in the poll had significantly greater positive than negative ratings. Polls generally showed Clinton with a much higher approval rating while she was secretary of state. Opinions of her have become more polarized as she has re-entered partisan politics, as they were when she vied for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. Despite Clinton’s dominance in the early primary field, the survey suggests that some in her party would be open to a challenger. Among Democrats, only 34 percent said they were excited by her candidacy while 36 percent described themselves as merely satisfied. Another 19 percent said they were neutral, and 9 percent were disappointed or angry. “I wish there was somebody else,” said Kenneth Berger, of New York City. “She always has a problem.” ___ The AP-GfK Poll of 1,077 adults was conducted online April 23-27, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using phone or mail survey methods, and later interviewed online. People selected for KnowledgePanel who didn’t otherwise have access to the Internet were provided access at no cost to them. ___ Online: AP-GfK Poll: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com Republished with permission of The Associated Press. Photo Credit: AP Photo/The Canadian Press, John Woods
Clinton Foundation acknowledges mistakes in revealing donors
The acting chief executive of the Clinton Foundation says the global philanthropy is working quickly to remedy mistakes it made in how it disclosed donors, saying that its policies on transparency and contributions from foreign governments are “stronger than ever.” Maura Pally posted the statement Sunday on the foundation’s website amid swirling questions about its financial support as Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton embarks on her presidential campaign. The former secretary of state in recent weeks has sought to dismiss the scrutiny as “distractions and attacks” by Republicans seeking to discredit her, but on Sunday, Pally acknowledged the foundation had made some errors. Pally said the Clinton Foundation expected to refile some of its tax forms, following a voluntary external review, because it had “mistakenly combined” government grants with other donations. She stressed the total revenue was reported accurately and that grants were properly broken out on audited statements on its website. “Yes, we made mistakes, as many organizations of our size do, but we are acting quickly to remedy them, and have taken steps to ensure they don’t happen in the future,” she said. Pally defended the foundation’s charitable work and reaffirmed its commitment to transparency. She explained that it took “unprecedented steps” to avoid potential conflicts of interest with annual disclosure of donors when Clinton became secretary of state in 2009. Now that Clinton is running for president, Pally said, the foundation intends to release the information quarterly and limit foreign government contributions to a “handful of governments.” Pally also described the foundation’s work with the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which she said received funding from a separate organization in Canada. She said that partnership does not disclose its donors because under Canadian law they are not disclosed without prior permission from each donor. “This is hardly an effort on our part to avoid transparency,” Pally said. That partnership has come under scrutiny because it is named after Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining billionaire who has donated more than $31 million to the Clinton Foundation since the mid-2000s. The Clinton Foundation was started in 2001 by former President Bill Clinton. Amid the questions about the foundation’s financing, Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea will be starting a nine-day trip to Africa on Wednesday to highlight the group’s work on issues such as economic growth and empowerment, climate change and empowering women and girls. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
