Donors to the Clinton Foundation had special access to
Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State, fresh documents brought
to light by two conservative groups on Monday showed, in a setback to
the Democratic candidate’s presidential campaign. Republican candidate
Donald Trump has sought an investigation by a special prosecutor into
the links between the foundation and the State Department under Ms.
Clinton.
Former President Bill Clinton said in a
statement on Monday the foundation would stop accepting foreign
donations, if his wife were to become President. The foundation had made
the same announcement last week.
Ms. Clinton had
pledged to dissociate from the functioning of the foundation when she
took over as the Secretary of State. However, the staff of the
foundation sought special treatment for donors from the State
Department, according to documents.
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| Ms. Clinton had pledged to dissociate from the functioning of the foundation when she took over as the Secretary of State. Photo: AP |
New revelations
Among
the new revelations is how the foundation staff intervened on behalf of
the Crown Prince of Bahrain, a donor. The Crown Prince could not get a
meeting with Ms. Clinton through State Department channels, but did get
one after Foundation Executive Douglas Band wrote to Huma Abedin, a
close aide of hers. “Good friend of ours,” Mr. Band wrote to Ms. Abedin,
requesting a meeting for the Crown Prince.
“No issue
better illustrates how corrupt my opponent is than her pay for play
scandals as Secretary of State,” Mr. Trump said, demanding an
investigation. “I’ve become increasingly shocked by the vast scope of
Hillary Clinton’s criminality. It’s criminality… the amounts involved,
the favours done and the significant numbers of times it was done
require an expedited investigation by a special prosecutor immediately,
immediately, immediately.”
Email scandal
By
alleging criminality, Mr. Trump may be stretching the point, but
several instances of Clinton Foundation donors benefitting from State
Department policy has cast a shadow on Ms. Clinton’s trustworthiness.
The Clinton campaign has said these were mere coincidences and there
were no quid pro quo involved. Some emails that surfaced on Monday were
held back by Ms. Clinton from the FBI that investigated the case
regarding a private server that she used while in office.
In
a separate development, a federal judge on Monday asked the State
Department to expedite the process of reviewing and releasing a set of
nearly 15,000 emails that were not handed over to the Department as
‘work-related’ earlier. The FBI had uncovered these emails during its
investigation of a private server Ms. Clinton had maintained.
The
Clinton Foundation accepts money from foreign donors, including foreign
governments, which Mr. Trump alleges is a threat to U.S. national
security.
The Clinton campaign hit back at the
Republican opponent questioning his business interests overseas. “Donald
Trump needs to come clean with voters about his complex network of
for-profit businesses that are hundreds of millions of dollars in debt
to big banks, including the state-owned Bank of China, and other
business groups with ties to the Kremlin,” said John Podesta, chairman
of the Ms. Clinton’s campaign.
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