CLINTON IN ETHICS CONCERNS OVER CHARITY

WASHINGTON • More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was U.S. secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.

At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as US$156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.

Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a non-profit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton’s help with a visa problem; and Estée Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm’s corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa.

The meetings between Clinton and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements she and Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with donors.

The 154 did not include U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives. Clinton met with representatives of at least 16 foreign governments that donated as much as $170 million to the charity, but they were not included in AP’s calculations because such meetings would presumably have been part of her diplomatic duties.

Bill Clinton said in a statement Monday that if his wife won, he would step down from the foundation’s board. The foundation would also accept donations only from U.S. citizens and what it described as independent philanthropies, while no longer taking gifts from foreign groups, U.S. companies or corporate charities.

Those planned changes would not affect more than 6,000 donors who have already provided the Clinton charity with more than $2 billion in funding since its creation in 2000.