The scandal surrounding the Clinton Foundation is becoming increasingly problematic for Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, the AP reported that more than half of the people outside of government who met with Hillary during her time as secretary of state were donors to the Clinton Foundation. Even Hillary’s close friends and fellow Democrats are criticizing the foundation; some are calling for it to be shut down entirely.
Some Clinton allies, on the other hand, have gone to extreme lengths to defend the Clinton Foundation, arguing that people will literally die if the controversial organization is wound down if Hillary becomes president to avoid the blatant conflicts of interest that scenario would present.
Others are wondering why shutting down the Clinton Foundation would be such a big deal. Why, for example, couldn’t the foundation’s infrastructure simply be transferred to another “lifesaving” organization such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation?
Oddly enough, it seems that some of the Clinton Foundation’s biggest donors are shady billionaires and Middle Eastern regimes that, as Hillary Clinton herself has acknowledged, don’t do enough to prevent their citizens from funding terrorism, and have a decidedly unprogressive approach to women’s rights.
For some reason, sketchy Middle Eastern regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates seem to prefer giving their money to the Clinton Foundation.
As McClatchy reported last year, these four countries have donated as much as $40 million to the Clinton Foundation since 2001, but have given no money to six other global charities that do similar “lifesaving” work. The International Committee of the Red Cross received just $6.8 million from these countries during that time.
If the Clinton Foundation’s defenders were being honest, they might argue that selling access and favors to unsavory individuals and regimes around the world enables them to raise more money than other charities that focus solely on doing good works and saving lives. Of course, the Clintons haven’t come as far as they have by being honest.
TAKE THE POLL