Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Clinton Foundation: Just Close It Down

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It’s been announced that Chelsea Clinton will stay on the board of the Clinton Foundation if her mother is elected President.
 
How is this going to work? People are going to continue to ask questions about the Foundation, and legitimately so. It seems Hillary Clinton is happy to hand to Republicans in Congress her first-term kryptonite.
 
Mrs. Clinton may end up accomplishing little as President if everybody continues to be preoccupied with who’s the latest donor to the Clinton Foundation, and how much phone or face time they got with the President or her staff before or after making their donation. The Associated Press has already found that, of 154 people with private interests who met or phoned Clinton as Secretary of State, more than half donated to Clinton charities. These were people whose meetings with Clinton were marked on the State Dept calendar obtained by the AP.
 
Mrs. Clinton, just close these foundations, charities, initiatives down. Enough is enough. Once your term as President expires, you should be able to create new charities, and to build a Presidential Library with money raised through speeches given to corporations, wealthy individuals, and foreign governments – the same thing ex-Presidents have done in the past.
 
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  1. Not literally, of course, but the Clintons are the last people in the world who should cave to nonsense like this. She should hit back hard and ask all critics what exactly is there problem with millions of dollars going to promoting democracy, fighting climate change, helping the world’s poorest, etc. The worst I’ve heard is that she met with some donors she was likely to meet anyway.

    • I think, by ‘terrorists’, you must mean the US House majority, which is likely to remain Republican, and will be happy to keep investigating the Clinton Foundation every single day she is in the office.

      What will be accomplished by Mrs. Clinton in her first year if all the talk will be about the Clinton Foundation, interested donors, colluding aides, etc, etc, etc?

  2. Either the Foundation is wonderful and necessary and must be defended at all costs, OR

    It’s highly problematic and should have been shut down as soon as she became a Senator, let along Secretary of State, let alone maybe President.

    Perhaps a press conference is in order? :-/

    • Shut the Foundation down or hand it off to parties with no connection to the family, not even Chelsea working there. The anti-corruption standard worldwide needs to be “the APPEARANCE of corruption” as in MA state law. Anything else leads to more campaign accusations, and HRC’s election is more important than Bill’s ego and job title.

      • I have no patience for complaints about “appearances”. If someone can PROVE a quid pro quo such as a change in policy tied to money with solid smoking-gun tape evidence thereof, then we might have something to discuss.

          • Mrs. Clinton promised in writing no quid-pro-quo AND no appearance of conflict between her appointed job and her foundations.

            Then, she still aided foundation donors, knowing fully this will be an issue going forward.

            I’m still holding my breath that she’ll come around and start behaving as exemplary as it is expected of a Democratic candidate for President, soon to be elected in the highest office.

          • …but appearance is a very subjective standard and I stand by my strong disagreement with it.

  4. They sound so noble, so kind, and while I am sure some are, to me it seems that they are just one more way that the rich keep all their wealth and pay little in taxes.

    America’s richest family – the Waltons – is using a tax loophole related to charitable giving to ensure that large chunks of their enormous wealth can be passed on tax free to their heirs.

    The Billionaire Walmart clan uses this sort of thing to avoid paying estate taxes.

    IRS rules require only that charities spend about 5 percent of their investment assets annually, and all or part of this amount can be spent on salaries and “expenses,” rather than devoted to the charitable purpose the charity purports to be serving. So, what happens with a charitable trust, set up by a billionaire, and controlled by one of the billionaire’s children? The child gets a job and a salary for life. Maybe a mansion to live in and entertain in as a fringe benefit. This is a great gig for the Chelsea.

    While it is possible that all of the Clinton Foundation is totally going to help starving orphans and find lost kittens while Chelsea draws no salary and survives on her hedge fund hubby’s multi million dollar tax sheltered earnings…..the “optics” of this is just wrong and another unforced error on the part of the Clintons in a time when there is a genuine populist movement in the USA.

    Trump may have ruined the Republican Party, but if she keeps this stuff up, Hillary will ruin the Democratic Party.

    • …but 5% does seem like an awfully low threshold. I’d be open to changing that law/regulation.

      • The vibe that I have always gotten from the charitable world is that the Clinton Foundation is actually really good on this measure. Most foundations, like Gates, collect money and dole it out to charities that do whatever “good work” the foundation is trying to support. The Clinton Foundation does the charitable work directly. The real issue has been that people involved with other foundations are a little sniffy at CF because it has celebrity and wow factor that draws donations away from the others.

        The AP report, as far as I am concerned, is BS, bordering on misleading. Look at the big percentage of people HRC met with that donated money! Except, oops, they didn’t bother to count people who work for the US or a foreign government, in an effort to make the percentage look artificially scary.

        The people who get upset about this are the people who hate HRC, will always hate HRC, whether for being a radical leftist, or crypto-Republican, depending on the circumstances of the argument, and will believe literally anything someone writes about her.

        And, by the way, the extraordinary crappiness of that “respectable” AP report is precisely the reason that any member of the “respectable” press that is huffing about the lack of press conferences should be cordially invited to go do something anatomically impossible.

    • Don’t we already have the World Health Organization and numerous UN programs doing the same type of work? Why do egotistical people (not just the Clintons) need to set up their own hierarchies and duplicate power structures to fight over helping the poor and needy? Is the UN that ineffective? Then pull out of it.

      There will be duplicate distribution, fund raising costs, administrators and office help. But then people couldn’t put their name over the door and hire their relatives.

      • Some private foundations are far more efficient than UN programs, or US programs. We should encourage them, the best of the best. The Clinton programs are not.

        In the developing world and especially the post-conflict world, we need speed, money for food, for fuck’s sake just for water. The US (USAID) is slow, Euro govt’s not so bad and Australia better still. Some private foundations are faster, much faster. Clinton Foundation sucks at this. $3000 – $5000 per month apartments in the developing world for the spoiled princes and princesses of Clintonistas is something we should shut down.

  5. Blah blah blah Clinton sucks blah blah blah Clinton is destroying America blah blah blah Clinton is ruining the Democratic Party blah blah blah

    This is the same old same old that the GOP terrorist bullies (yes indeed, that is EXACTLY what they are) have been shouting for decades. I guess some of us haven’t heard enough.

    • This is THE political story of the day. If you’d rather not comment on it or read about it … don’t.

      • I know it’s the “THE political story of the day”. It’s still horseshit. There’s no “there” there.

        Not only would I rather not comment on it, I am disgusted that people don’t see the way sites like CNN are leading us around by the nose.

        The GOP nominee is going down in flames. The “race” is turning into a landslide. The mainstream media are desperately casting about for “stories” to keep it close.

        I’m ok with your downrate. I just think you, and we, are being manipulated.

      • You are wrong, and Tom, as always is right. The fact that Barack and Michelle Obama have never wound up quite so entangled in this vast right-wing conspiracy just proves ever more so how nefarious it is, and SEXIST!! It must be the sexism in the air.

      • Derangement syndrome generally means you don’t think the subject of it is capable of doing anything right.

        • Again. The derangement comes from thinking the extreme in either case, that a person never does wrong or never does right. In this case the HRC crowd continues to screw the pooch when it it would be so easy to fix the situation.

          We should all ask the question about what is more important, the Presidency of the greatest country on earth or a fucking foundation that is the fetish of your husband.

          • …if you Google “Obama Derangement Syndrome”, “Clinton Derangement Syndrome”, or “Bush Derangement Syndrome” the cited examples will all come up with negative attitudes toward the person in question. That is how the term has been used in recent years in a political context.

              • You may have used it in that other context, but it was new to those of us familiar with it as meaning some pathological hatred of the subject.

              • …of the rules against personal attacks (hardly the first time). My job has nothing to do with this.

  6. The Clinton Foundation does phenomenal work in the US and throughout the world including providing low-cost treatment for HIV/AIDS for adults and children worldwide. Good summary here from CNN: http://tinyurl.com/jrpnbmc It should be a positive campaign point rather than a negative one. Instead, once again, the Right defines the terms of the debate.

    Shutting down a foundation that provides aid to schools, clean water, disaster relief etc. because of demands from the Right is capitulation. And it will not make any difference. The Right will continue to use it against her even if t is dissolved, or they will simply find something else. For how many years was the Behghazi tragedy paraded before us in an effort to discredit her?

    • Surely Mrs. Clinton can do this work much better by being President and by engaging the State Dept, the USAID, etc, etc, to perform all this work.

      Let the professional staff at the USAID raise the money, and direct the people willing to pay for personal access to Clinton to give to USAID instead.

      • I am not sure how Mrs. Clinton could direct USAID to solicit money from donors. The agency is funded by Congress and runs international programs or contracts with NGOs to do so, and also provides grants and loans. USAID does terrific work, but it does not receive enough money to accomplish all that needs to be done. Private foundations and similar organizations are necessary to fill the gaps.

        • Mostly in agreement aout the work of USAID, a great org once headed by former MA GOP State Rep Andy Natisios who carries the badge of honor of signing the letter from The Fifty, the Republican foreign policy professionals who have repudiated Trump.

          But OMG, the USAID admin costs suck and won’t get better now that Pelosi’s chief of staff has taken charge.

          (I might admit to having been paid in the past under a USAID contract)

        • Maybe it’s not possible for USAID to raise money directly (now that you mention it), but it would be possible, I think, to match the funds given by USAID to the charities it sponsors.

          When there’s a will to be parted with one’s own money, there’s a way.

          • There is huge money available in the developing world. The Clinton money is not so big and way too bureaucratic. I like the IADB and all of the Nordic countries over Clinton. Gates’ and Soros’ money is good too. They don’t fuck you with paperwork.

        • Can’t they? If someone wants to donate to AIDS research, why do they have to donate to the JohnTMay Foundation? Really?

      • as among the most foolish comments ever to have appeared on this site, at least that I have seen.

  7. And while we are at it how can Trump be allowed to continue to run his many businesses? Surely he must have to shut them all down to avoid conflict of interest, right? By this logic, it is clearly not sufficient to let his children take over. And in his case, we are talking an ACTUAL conflict, not just optics. How come no one is making a big stink over that issue?

      • True enough, and if his replacement had been someone who would work harder to groom him as an acceptable nominee — including severing at least some of his many entanglemets — then I’d be totally on board with this comment.

        In reality, though, it seems that Mr. Manafort was fired because Mr. Trump feels he went TOO FAR in sanding off the rough edges of Mr. Trump. Since Mr. Trump chose to replace Mr. Manafort with Stphen Bannon, it appears to me that Mr. Trump is likely to dig in rather than anything else.

        I’m glad that somebody is making a big stink about Mr. Trump’s ties and stonewalling — it’s FAR worse than anything alleged about the Clinton Foundation.

        • Yup, Trump is the worst, and has many more interest conflicts than the Dem candidate.

          And his mere success in the Republican primary has brought the level of discourse down.

          But… But! It’s not reason for saying ‘whatever’ in regards to Mrs. Clinton. It does not represent license for Mrs. Clinton to now do any unethical thing short of the Trump-threshold.

      • And not even remotely close to the level that the Clinton foundation has been scrutinized.

    • …that they be put into a blind trust when he is elected. So there will be no opportunity for quid pro quo as he won’t know who IS doing business with him until he is out of office.

      And come to think of it – why DOESN’T this apply to the Foundation? If she isn’t on the board, if daughter isn’t an employee, why couldn’t it continue its good work without her being able to know who donors are?

      • A blind trust for Trump’s holdings… Sorry, I have to laugh.

        Yes, the law requires assets to be put in a blind trust. For Donald Trump, it will be impossible to do this – he might go bankrupt just by virtue of the blind trust selling his myriad of assets. For a slick businessman like him, did he not think of the consequences?

        Why is this not a bigger story than it is? It’s impossible to place Donald Trump’s assents in a blind trust. For one, who would be the trustee understanding all of Trump’s entanglements?

        Could Steven Wynn be a blind trustee for Donald Trump? 🙂

        • Most recently, there was a well-researched New York Times piece on 20-Aug-2016.

          Sadly, one factor in why this is not a bigger story is that neither the public nor most media outlets have the ability or patience to understand or convey the complex issues involved.

          Here are some excerpts from the above NYT piece (emphasis mine):

          Earlier in the campaign, Mr. Trump submitted a 104-page federal financial disclosure form. It said his businesses owed at least $315 million to a relatively small group of lenders and listed ties to more than 500 limited liability companies. Though he answered the questions, the form appears to have been designed for candidates with simpler finances than his, and did not require disclosure of portions of his business activities.
          …
          Mr. Trump has said that if he were elected president, his children would be likely to run his company. Many presidents, to avoid any appearance of a conflict, have placed their holdings in blind trusts, which typically involves selling the original asset, and replacing it with different assets unknown to the seller.

          Mr. Trump’s children seem unlikely to pursue that option.

          Richard W. Painter, a professor of law at the University of Minnesota and, from 2005 to 2007, the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, compared Mr. Trump to Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs whom Mr. Bush appointed as Treasury secretary.

          Professor Painter advised Mr. Paulson on his decision to sell his Goldman Sachs shares, saying it was clear that Mr. Paulson could not simply have placed that stock in trust and pretended it did not exist.

          If Mr. Trump were to use a blind trust, the professor said, it would be “like putting a gold watch in a box and pretending you don’t know it is in there.”

          We are at the mercy of what the media deems “big”, and that strikes me as having more to do with what maximizes advertising revenue than with actual importance.

          • Blind trusts work for financial assets. President zillionaire puts all of the investments under the control of Secret TRustee, and Secret Trustee buys, sells, or holds as she sees fit, and it isn’t so easy to tell what’s going on in there.

            But if your assets are big, operating businesses, that doesn’t work. Hey, the President is travelling, and gee that requires renting out multiple floors of a hotel for staff and security. That must be expensive. Hey, he is staying at the Trump Hotel, I wonder who owns that? Dunno, seems to be some kind of trust.

            And of course he is the sort of guy to do that: when he self-funded his campaign, his real estate gave it office space. Once he started to collect money from donors– then he charges big rent.

            • Trump’s stated goal is to run a cash positive campaign. Reportedly, so far, he has: flying Trump Air, renting Trump helicopters, lodging at Trump hotels.

              He gets to move money from his political donors, in his left pocket, to a series of Trump businesses, in his right pocket. Federal anticorruption rules even force Trump to pay market rates to Trump hotels, airlines, etc. These rules were designed to avoid kickbacks to politicians from businesses in form of service discounts.

              Trump has turned all that on its head and is making a profit.

              • As until recently, he did not have many donors, and self-funded. Trump Air hasn’t existed since President Bush was in the White House– no not that one, the first one. So it hasn’t been like that for the whole campiagn, but in recent weeks, you may be closer to the mark.

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