Last week, Bill Clinton was doing a terrible job correcting the media record on his wife’s bout with pneumonia, telling CBS News that Hillary Clinton fainted both frequently and rarely — a line so confusing CBS ended up editing it out.
This week, Bill Clinton is on the damage control beat, speaking to reporters about the relationship between the Clinton Family Foundation and the State Department, attempting to refute claims that Foundation donors received special access to Hillary Clinton and her staff.
And he’s doing a bang-up job. Such a good job, you’d almost think he was working for Republicans.
Monday, in an interview with NPR, Bill Clinton appeared to admit that his wife took meetings with people who were generous to the Clinton Foundation. “It was natural for people who’ve been our political allies and personal friends to call and ask for things,” he told the public radio network. “And I trusted the State Department wouldn’t do anything they shouldn’t do.”
In other words, the Foundation was happy to provide access, and was relying on Hillary Clinton, the Clinton family member in power, and her staff to possess enough of a moral compass to decide whether a meeting should take place.
This is a problem. First, the Clinton Foundation and State Department were supposed to have a “firewall” between them that prevented one from exerting influence over the other — Hillary even signed a Memorandum of Understanding guaranteeing the firewall would remain in place as long as she served at State. And second, the State Department was supposed to answer any accidental request from the Foundation by referring them back to the firewall.
According to Bill Clinton, the process was ad hoc and could have, most certainly, resulted in big money Foundation donors gaining unprecedented influence over State Department affairs — something that very likely happened, but that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has always denied.
And then, there’s Bill Clinton on CNBC Tuesday, commenting on Chelsea Clinton remaining at the Foundation if her mother wins the White House, saying that he can’t promise that there won’t be questions about influence peddling, again, because “we all know people.”
That’s not particularly comforting, least of all for Hillary Clinton who has been battling these allegations for the last month, as she’s been slowly slipping in the polls. The Clinton Foundation scandal simply reiterates to voters that Clinton is untrustworthy and unreliable, two primary concerns about her candidate among undecided voters.
This all begs the question: Is Bill Clinton trying to deliberately tank his wife’s campaign? He’s certainly an experienced politician, and he’s definitely old enough to know better. But yet, four times now, on two separate topics, Clinton has “inadvertently” reinforced arguments against his wife as President.
It’s rapidly becoming less of a coincidence.
