Clinton Foundation Mess Makes The Case For More Transparency

Recent revelations concerning donations to the Clinton Foundation demand further transparency from the foundation in order to put to rest serious questions about the organization’s finances.

What we’ve learned already about the foundation is disturbing enough, but now there are new questions concerning millions in donations from more than 1,000 donors to a Canadian affiliate of the Clinton Foundation network.

The Canada-based Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP), did not disclose the identities of donors who gave more than $33 million, nearly $25 million of which ended up in the coffers of the Clinton Foundation. CGEP, an affiliate of the Clinton Foundation, was covered by an agreement Hillary Clinton made with the Obama White House to disclose Clinton Foundation donors. However, the Clinton Foundation recently claimed that the Canadian charity was not bound by that agreement and said under Canadian law the donors’ names cannot be released to the public. (Independent factcheckers have disputed this claim.)

The charity was setup in conjunction with Canadian mining billionaire and Clinton Foundation megadonor Frank Giustra. Guistra admitted this week that there were 1,100 undisclosed donors to CGEP, and that most of those donors were not U.S. residents.

The names of these donors need to be released immediately so the public can figure out if there were any connections between the donors and activities at the State Department during Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State. We know from the names of the Clinton Foundation donors that have been released already that there was a nexus between foundation donors and the State Department. The public also should know if any foreign governments used CGEP as a vehicle to circumvent the Clinton Foundation’s nominal ban on foreign government donations while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.

Almost 60 percent of the corporations that were nominated for an award from the State Department during Clinton’s time as Secretary of State, and six of the eight winners of the award, were donors to the Clinton Foundation.

Also, during Clinton’s time at the State Department, the department was lobbied by 181 Clinton Foundation donors, including individuals, corporations, and foreign governments.

Most American taxpayers probably didn’t realize they were donors to the Clinton Foundation too. Since 2010, the Clinton Foundation-aligned Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) received more than $6 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Clinton Foundation itself also received more than $1.4 million in taxpayer dollars from the federal government, including money from the ill-fated 2009 stimulus bill. It seems only fair that American taxpayers learn the names of their fellow Clinton Foundation donors, whether they are in Canada or anywhere else.