AP: Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with Hillary Clinton at State

More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary


Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or


through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary


proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.

At least 85 of 154 people


from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with


Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or


pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of


State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined,


the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more


than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.

Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an


internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh


government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street


executive who sought Clinton’s help with a visa problem and Estee Lauder


executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked


with the firm’s corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South


Africa.

The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and


foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former


president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009.


But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and


donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price


of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails​ released as


recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had


with foundation donors.

The AP’s findings represent


the first systematic effort to calculate the scope of the intersecting


interests of Clinton foundation donors and people who met personally with


Clinton or spoke to her by phone about their needs.

The 154 did not include


U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives. Clinton met with


representatives of at least 16 foreign governments that donated as much as $170


million to the Clinton charity, but they were not included in AP’s calculations


because such meetings would presumably have been part of her diplomatic duties.

Last week, the Clinton Foundation moved to head off ethics


concerns about future donations by announcing changes planned if Clinton is


elected.

On Monday, Bill Clinton​ said in a statement that if his wife were


to win, he would step down from the foundation’s board and stop all fundraising


for it. The foundation would also accept donations only from U.S. citizens and


what it described as independent philanthropies, while no longer taking gifts


from foreign groups, U.S. companies or corporate charities. Clinton said the


foundation would no longer hold annual meetings of its international aid


program, the Clinton Global Initiative, and it would spin off its foreign-based


programs to other charities.

Those planned changes would not affect more than 6,000 donors who


have already provided the Clinton charity with more than $2 billion in funding


since its creation in 2000.

“There’s a lot of potential conflicts and a lot of potential


problems,” said Douglas White, an expert on nonprofits who previously


directed Columbia University’s graduate fundraising management program.


“The point is, she can’t just walk away from these 6,000 donors.”

Former senior White House ethics officials said a Clinton


administration would have to take careful steps to ensure that past foundation


donors would not have the same access as she allowed at the State Department.

“If Secretary Clinton puts the right people in and she’s


tough about it and has the right procedures in place and sends a message


consistent with a strong commitment to ethics, it can be done,” said


Norman L. Eisen, who was President Barack Obama’s top ethics counsel and later


worked for Clinton as ambassador to the Czech Republic.

Eisen, now a governance studies fellow at the Brookings


Institution, said that at a minimum, Clinton should retain the Obama


administration’s current ethics commitments and oversight, which include


lobbying restrictions and other rules. Richard Painter, a former ethics adviser


to President George W. Bush and currently a University of Minnesota law school


professor, said Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton should remove themselves


completely from foundation leadership roles, but he added that potential


conflicts would shadow any policy decision affecting past donors.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon did not respond to the


AP’s questions about Clinton transition plans regarding ethics, but said in a


statement Tuesday the standard set by the Clinton Foundation’s ethics


restrictions was “unprecedented, even if it may never satisfy some


critics.”

Some of Clinton’s most


influential visitors donated millions to the Clinton Foundation​ and to her and


her husband’s political coffers. They are among scores of Clinton visitors and


phone contacts in her official calendar turned over by the State Department to


AP last year and in more-detailed planning schedules that so far have covered


about half her four-year tenure. The AP sought Clinton’s calendar and schedules


three years ago, but delays led the AP to sue the State Department last year in


federal court for those materials and other records.

S. Daniel Abraham, whose


name also was included in emails released by the State Department as part of


another lawsuit, is a Clinton fundraising bundler who was listed in Clinton’s


planners for eight meetings with her at various times. A billionaire behind the


Slim-Fast diet and founder of the Center for Middle East Peace, Abraham told


the AP last year his talks with Clinton concerned Mideast issues.

Big Clinton Foundation


donors with no history of political giving to the Clintons also met or talked


by phone with Hillary Clinton and top aides, AP’s review showed.

Muhammad Yunus, a


Bangladeshi economist who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering


low-interest “microcredit” for poor business owners, met with Clinton


three times and talked with her by phone during a period when Bangladeshi


government authorities investigated his oversight of a nonprofit bank and


ultimately pressured him to resign from the bank’s board. Throughout the


process, he pleaded for help in messages routed to Clinton, and she ordered


aides to find ways to assist him.

American affiliates of his


nonprofit Grameen Bank had been working with the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton


Global Initiative programs as early as 2005, pledging millions of dollars in


microloans for the poor. Grameen America, the bank’s nonprofit U.S. flagship,


which Yunus chairs, has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the foundation —


a figure that bank spokeswoman Becky Asch said reflects the institution’s annual


fees to attend CGI meetings. Another Grameen arm chaired by Yunus, Grameen


Research, has donated between $25,000 and $50,000.

As a U.S. senator from New York, Clinton, as well as


then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and two other senators in 2007 sponsored a


bill to award a congressional gold medal to Yunus. He got one but not until


2010, a year after Obama awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Yunus first met with Clinton in Washington in April 2009. That was


followed six months later by an announcement by USAID, the State Department’s


foreign aid arm, that it was partnering with the Grameen Foundation, a


nonprofit charity run by Yunus, in a $162 million commitment to extend its


microfinance concept abroad. USAID also began providing loans and grants to the


Grameen Foundation, totaling $2.2 million over Clinton’s tenure.

By September 2009, Yunus began complaining to Clinton’s top aides


about what he perceived as poor treatment by Bangladesh’s government. His bank


was accused of financial mismanagement of Norwegian government aid money — a


charge that Norway later dismissed as baseless. But Yunus told Melanne Verveer,


a long-time Clinton aide who was an ambassador-at-large for global women’s


issues, that Bangladesh officials refused to meet with him and asked the State


Department for help in pressing his case.

“Please see if the issues of Grameen Bank can be raised in a


friendly way,” he asked Verveer. Yunus sent “regards to H” and


cited an upcoming Clinton Global Initiative event he planned to attend.

Clinton ordered an aide: “Give to EAP rep,” referring


the problem to the agency’s top east Asia expert.

Yunus continued writing to Verveer as pressure mounted on his


bank. In December 2010, responding to a news report that Bangladesh’s prime


minister was urging an investigation of Grameen Bank, Clinton told Verveer that


she wanted to discuss the matter with her East Asia expert “ASAP.”

Clinton called Yunus in March 2011 after the Bangladesh government


opened an inquiry into his oversight of Grameen Bank. Yunus had told Verveer by


email that “the situation does not allow me to leave the country.” By


mid-May, the Bangladesh government had forced Yunus to step down from the


bank’s board. Yunus sent Clinton a copy of his resignation letter. In a separate


note to Verveer, Clinton wrote: “Sad indeed.”

Clinton met with Yunus a second time in Washington in August 2011


and again in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka in May 2012. Clinton’s arrival in


Bangladesh came after Bangladesh authorities moved to seize control of Grameen


Bank’s effort to find new leaders. Speaking to a town hall audience, Clinton


warned the Bangladesh government that “we do not want to see any action


taken that would in any way undermine or interfere in the operations of the


Grameen Bank.”

Grameen America’s Asch referred other questions about Yunus to his


office, but he had not responded by Tuesday.

Earlier this month, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau


acknowledged that agency officials are “regularly in touch with a range of


outside individuals and organizations, including nonprofits, NGOs, think tanks


and others.” But Trudeau said the State Department was not aware of any


actions that were influenced by the Clinton Foundation.

In another case, Clinton


was host at a September 2009 breakfast meeting at the New York Stock Exchange


that listed Blackstone Group chairman Stephen Schwarzman as one of the


attendees. Schwarzman’s firm is a major Clinton Foundation donor, but he


personally donates heavily to GOP candidates and causes. One day after the


breakfast, according to Clinton emails, the State Department was working on a


visa issue at Schwarzman’s request. In December that same year, Schwarzman’s


wife, Christine, sat at Clinton’s table during the Kennedy Center Honors.


Clinton also introduced Schwarzman, then chairman of the Kennedy Center, before


he spoke.

Blackstone donated between


$250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Eight Blackstone executives


also gave between $375,000 and $800,000 to the foundation. And Blackstone’s


charitable arm has pledged millions of dollars in commitments to three Clinton


Global aid projects ranging from the U.S. to the Mideast. Blackstone officials


did not make Schwarzman available for comment.

Clinton also met in June


2011 with Nancy Mahon of the MAC AIDS, the charitable arm of MAC Cosmetics,


which is owned by Estee Lauder. The meeting occurred before an announcement


about a State Department partnership to raise money to finance AIDS education


and prevention. The public-private partnership was formed to fight gender-based


violence in South Africa, the State Department said at the time.

Kate, the Duchess Of Cambridge, right, shakes hands with Hillary Rodham Clinton while attending a reception with Prince William, second from right, co-hosted by the Royal Foundation and the Clinton Foundation at British Consul General’s Residence Monday, December 08, 2014 in New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, Pool)

AP

The MAC AIDS fund donated


between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In 2008, Mahon


and the MAC AIDS fund made a three-year unspecified commitment to the Clinton


Global Initiative. That same year, the fund partnered with two other


organizations to beef up a USAID program in Malawi and Ghana. And in 2011, the


fund was one of eight organizations to pledge a total of $2 million over a


three-year period to help girls in southern Africa. The fund has not made a


commitment to CGI since 2011.

Estee Lauder executive


Fabrizio Freda also met with Clinton at the same Wall Street event attended by


Schwarzman. Later that month, Freda was on a list of attendees for a meeting


between Clinton and a U.S.-China trade group. Estee Lauder has given between


$100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The company made a commitment


to CGI in 2013 with four other organizations to help survivors of sexual


slavery in Cambodia.

MAC AIDs officials did not make Mahon available to AP for comment.

When Clinton appeared before the U.S. Senate in early 2009 for her


confirmation hearing as secretary of state, then- Sen. Richard Lugar, a


Republican from Indiana, questioned her at length about the foundation and


potential conflicts of interest. His concerns were focused on foreign


government donations, mostly to CGI. Lugar wanted more transparency than was


ultimately agreed upon between the foundation and Obama’s transition team.

Now, Lugar hopes Hillary and Bill Clinton make a clean break from


the foundation.

“The Clintons, as they approach the presidency, if they are


successful, will have to work with their attorneys to make certain that rules


of the road are drawn up to give confidence to them and the American public


that there will not be favoritism,” Lugar said.

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AP: Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with Hillary Clinton at State