Dipto Islam, Feb 8, 2016
“There already is too much ‘dark money’ in our elections, in
the form of spending by supposedly independent nonprofit groups that are not
required to disclose their donors and operate as sort of shadow campaigns,”
Rapoport said. “The Clinton Foundation and any other foundations tied to a
candidate or his or her family provide one more way for potential donors to
gain access and curry favor from candidates – without the public knowing about
it. That lack of transparency creates a clear risk of undue influence and
conflicts of interest.”
One of the donors to the Clinton Foundation includes Canadian
company Uranium One. The New York Times reported that the Clinton Foundation received
donations from Uranium One’s chairman which were not publicly disclosed by the
Clintons despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White
House to publicly identify all donors. The donations were given to the Clintons
for Uranium One deal which eventually gave control of the Canadian company with
uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West to the Russian
atomic energy agency, Rosatom. The deal had to be approved by a committee
composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies.
Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then
headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Whether the
donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown. But
the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton
Foundation. In a statement, Brian
Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, said, “To suggest
the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in
the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless.”
In an article, “Shaky Foundations: The Clintons’ so-called
charitable enterprise has served as a vehicle to launder money and to enrich family
friends” for Harper’s Magazine, Silverstein, a Washington, D.C. based
investigative reporter, writes: “After endless delays and excuses, the Clinton
Foundation released its 2014 tax return as well as amended returns for the
previous four years and an audit of its finances. That fulfilled a pledge made
last April by Clinton Foundation acting CEO, Maura Pally, who acknowledged that
the foundation had previously made a few unfortunate accounting ‘mistakes.’ He alleged that the Foundation so-called
charitable enterprise has served as a vehicle to launder money and to enrich
Clinton family friends…. and that the foundation donors and the Clintons’
political allies have won the focused attention of presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton when she served as Secretary of State. The Clintons have used
their foundation for crass profiteering and influence peddling, he alleged. He
added that Clinton apologists will write these accusations off as conspiracy
mongering and right-wing propaganda, but it’s an open secret to anyone remotely
familiar with accounting and regulatory requirements for charities that the
financial records are deliberately misleading. …
However, the Times’ reporting discovered that the Clinton
Foundation had errors in its federal tax returns—forcing them to tell
reporters the same thing as with the e-mails: there were unintended
mistakes, they’re being fixed, there will be transparent. The Clinton Foundation's
Acting Chief Executive Officer Maura Pally admitted that the charity had made
mistakes on how it listed government donors on its tax returns and said it was
working to make sure it does not happen in the future, Reuters reported.
Common Cause President Miles Rapoport said, “Six years ago,
at Mrs. Clinton’s confirmation hearing for her appointment as secretary of
state, then-Sen. Dick Lugar observed that ‘that foreign governments and entities
may perceive the Clinton Foundation as a means to gain favor with the secretary
of state.’ He was right, and his remarks remain relevant today as Mrs. Clinton
seeks the presidency.”
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