TRUMP TO HILL: CLOSE ‘CORRUPT ENTERPRISE’
WASHINGTON — Renewed heat on Hillary Clinton over donations to her family foundation had rival Donald Trump calling for a shutdown of the nonprofit, Bill Clinton vowing changes and political observers saying it raises more doubts about whether she can be trusted.
“Voters care about corruption and insider deals,” GOP strategist John Feehery said of the Clinton Foundation disclosures. “This whole thing stinks.”
Emails released yesterday, obtained as part of a lawsuit by conservative group Judicial Watch, show a Clinton Foundation official setting up a 2009 meeting between Clinton and the crown prince of Bahrain, a foundation donor, after an attempt to get such a meeting through official State Department channels apparently failed.
In the email, foundation executive Doug Band told Clinton’s State Department aide Huma Abedin that the prince was “asking to see” Clinton and was a “good friend of ours.” Abedin initially told Band that Clinton didn’t want to commit, but ultimately set up a meeting.
The email was among 725 pages of previously unleashed State Department documents released by Judicial Watch as Trump called for an immediate shutdown of the foundation.
“It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history,” Trump said yesterday in a statement. “What they were doing during Crooked Hillary’s time as Secretary of State was wrong then, and it is wrong now. It must be shut down immediately.”
The Clinton campaign shot back, calling into question Trump’s own self-interests.
“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,” said Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, who called on Trump to “fully divest himself of all his business conflicts.”
Bill Clinton also clarified steps the foundation would take if his wife is elected, releasing a letter stating that he would step down
from the board and the foundation would only accept donations from U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
“If Hillary is elected president, the Foundation’s work, funding, global reach, and my role in it will present questions that must be resolved in a way that keeps the good work going while eliminating legitimate concerns about potential conflicts of interest,” Bill Clinton wrote.
But Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the watchdog group Common Cause, said that would not be enough to end questions about potential conflicts of interest.
“The challenge you still face is the money that has already come into the foundation in the past when she was secretary of state and also running for office,” Hobert Flynn told the Herald.
Hobert Flynn, whose group has called for an independent audit of donations to the Clinton Foundation, also said Trump’s business interests raise questions of the appearance or existence of conflicts of interests that won’t be solved by his vow to step down from his real estate empire and allow his children to run it if he wins the presidency.
“They both face those kinds of problems,” Hobert Flynn said.
But the steady stream of revelations from Hillary Clinton’s emails are hurting her in an area where she already suffers, voters view of her trustworthiness, all at a time when her campaign has tried to capitalize during a rocky couple of weeks for Trump, which included a reshuffling of his campaign leadership.