Bill Clinton eyes possible exit from foundation
WASHINGTON—When Bill Clinton told the staff of his global charity he would have to step down if Hillary Clinton won the White House, he was vividly clear about how that felt: Worse than a root canal, he said.
For Clinton, the foundation that bears his name has shaped much of his post-White House legacy, helping transform him from a popular yet scandal-tainted former president into an international philanthropist and humanitarian. But the Clinton Foundation is also the focus of election-year scrutiny—pushed along by Donald Trump—about the Democratic power couple’s ability and willingness to separate the organization’s wealthy contributors from past and possible future government roles.
The decisions surrounding the foundation’s future are the latest chapter in an unprecedented partnership of personal and political ambitions. While political spouses—Hillary Clinton among them—often put aside their own goals, never before has that been required of a former president.
Friends and associates say that while Bill Clinton knows his role in the high-profile charity has to change, settling on how and when he might walk away has been emotional. He’s also said to be deeply frustrated with the criticism shadowing his potential exit.
“We’re trying to do good things. If there’s something wrong with creating jobs and saving lives, I don’t know what it is,” he said last week.
Mark Updegrove, the director of the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library and author of “Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House,” said that while the foundation has unquestionably done good work around the world, the former president has no choice but to step aside if his wife wins the White House.
“Bill Clinton is smart enough to know that as much as the Clinton Foundation might help to augment his legacy, Hillary Clinton becoming president will be a far greater legacy than anything he himself can do as a former president,” Updegrove said.
The foundation made some adjustments after she became secretary of state, but it has still faced numerous questions about how rigorously firewalls were upheld that were meant to separate donors from her government work.
An Associated Press review of Clinton’s calendars from a two-year stretch show that more than half of those she met with from outside of government had made contributions to the foundation.
For Trump and other Republicans, the Clintons’ overlapping worlds are rife with ethical lapses. And for some Democrats, even that perception is worrisome in an election year where control of the White House and Congress are at stake.
Meanwhile, there’s an odd reality of modern American politics: What presidents do after leaving the White House can shape their legacy almost as much as their tenure in the Oval Office.