A BLIP IN HILLARY CLINTON’S SENATE LOVEFEST: BILL’S DONATIONS
By Massimo Calabresi
TIME Magazine
,8599,1871526,00.html
Jan 14 2009
Things could not have gone more smoothly for Secretary of
State-nominee Hillary Clinton in her Senate confirmation hearings
on Tuesday. Completely on top of her brief, Clinton was masterful
on issues as obscure as America’s arctic territorial concerns
and the Law of the Sea treaty, and she deftly threaded the needle
on such contentious issues as the fighting in Gaza and historic
Turkish-Armenian tensions. Republicans and Democrats alike
were lavish in their praise. Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking
Republican, extolled "her impressive skills, her compassion, her
collegiality." California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer blurted out,
"I’m so excited to see you here today!" Even firebrand South Carolina
Republican Senator Jim DeMint said he was "optimistic and hopeful about
[Clinton’s] role as Secretary of State."
Everything went perfectly. Everything, except for one detail: the
matter of President Bill Clinton’s charitable endeavors, including the
William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, and
the danger that they might taint Hillary Clinton’s role as Secretary of
State. The foundation, according to its public disclosure documents,
aims to promote "the values of fairness and opportunity for all"
as well as "health security, economic empowerment, leadership
development, citizen service, and racial, ethnic and religious
reconciliation." Clinton described her husband’s Global Initiative,
part of his foundation, as a "pass-through" that funnels money from
wealthy donors to development and aid projects around the world,
whose work includes providing AIDS drugs and poverty and hunger
relief. (See pictures of Bill Clinton.)
>From the start, the soft-spoken but respected Senator Lugar, in his
mildest, most diplomatic way, stated his concern that the former
President’s fundraising abroad might create an impression of a
conflict of interest. "Foreign governments and entities may perceive
the Clinton Foundation as a means to gain favor with the Secretary
of State," he said. Therefore, he suggested, "even well-intentioned
foreign donations [to the Clinton Foundation] carry risk for United
States foreign policy."
Lugar, 76, is a paragon of bipartisan collegiality, renowned for
vigorously pursuing the Senate’s mandate to oversee the workings of
the Executive Branch, even when his own party has been in power. (He
was one of the more openly skeptical Republican voices on Capitol Hill
regarding the Bush Administration’s plans for post-war Iraq, and was
an early and influential voice in planning a troop drawdown.) Lugar
raised his concerns while assuring Clinton of his enthusiastic support
for her confirmation — though he publicly warned his old friend from
the Senate of a potential pitfall on her path. "The only certain way
to eliminate this risk going forward is for the Clinton Foundation
to forswear new foreign contributions when Senator Clinton becomes
Secretary of State," Lugar suggested.
Clinton answered by citing the lengthy memorandum of understanding
negotiated between her staff and Obama’s transition team last December
as a condition for her being offered the job. That agreement specified
that Bill Clinton would disclose all prior donors to the Clinton
Foundation, provide an annual list of donors in the future and subject
any proposed donations by foreign governments to a State Department
ethics review.
Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter chimed in with concerns
about the Clinton Global Initiative, which he noted was not covered
by the disclosure requirements of the memorandum of understanding, and
could therefore become a place for anonymous fundraising. (Foundation
spokesman Matt McKenna says the Global Initiative is, in fact, in
the process of being incorporated separately from the charitable
foundation.) Hillary Clinton pointed out that all sponsors of the
initiative are publicly disclosed. When asked by Senator Robert
Menendez of New Jersey whether she had committed to continuing
to disclose such sponsors in the future, Clinton said, "That’s
correct." McKenna confirmed the initiative’s intention to continue
disclosing donors once it spins off the foundation. (See pictures of
Bill Clinton campaigning with Hillary.)
Still, Lugar wanted to make sure that he had made his point. In an
afternoon session, he returned to the dangers of any impression of a
conflict of interest. "The foundation exists as a temptation to any
foreign entity or government that believes it can curry favor through
a donation," he said, and urged Clinton to adopt three additional
measures: first, to disclose all donations over $50,000 immediately
rather than in one year’s time; second, to disclose all pledges over
$50,000 by foreign individuals or businesses immediately; and third,
to submit to the State Department ethics review all foreign individual
and business donations over $50,000.
By the end of the hearings, even Senate Foreign Relations Committee
chairman John Kerry was raising concerns about pledges for future
donations. "There is a legitimate question, and I think, Senator,
you’d agree that it’s hard to distinguish between a donation currently
made and — and acknowledged publicly — and a donation to be made in
the future, a commitment made to but not acknowledged publicly." (See
the members of Obama’s White House.)
Clinton’s response was that she wouldn’t even know who was pledging
money to her husband’s foundation, but Lugar stuck to his guns and
issued one final, powerful warning. "I am hopeful that as we go through
the history of this, that people will not say, well, Senator Lugar and
Senator Kerry and others were prescient; they saw the problems. And
we’ll get full credit, but that will not be helpful to our foreign
policy, to you, your husband and the foundation. And this is why I
plea for you really to give even more consideration. It need not be a
decision made today, because I appreciate the negotiations have been
sizable … But this seems to me to be so important at the outset,
and this is why I’ve dwelled upon it, trying your patience and that
of the committee, because I think it is very important, and I think
you understand that."
Clinton’s approval by the Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday
morning is all but guaranteed. But Senator Lugar has laid down a marker
over the potential for conflict-of-interest questions surrounding
foreign donations to Bill Clinton’s charitable endeavors. And if it
turns out that Senator Lugar saw trouble before it arrived, it won’t
have been the first time.