by Yoni Hersch, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Clinton Foundation received the money while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state without informing the State Department as required • Move was in violation of the ethics agreement Clinton signed upon taking office in bid to avoid conflict of interest.
The Clinton Foundation has confirmed it
accepted a $1 million gift from Qatar while Hillary Clinton was U.S.
secretary of state without informing the State Department, even though
she had promised to let the agency review new or significantly increased
support from foreign governments.
Qatari officials pledged the money in 2011 to
mark the 65th birthday of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton's husband, and
sought to meet the former U.S. president in person the following year to
present him the check, according to an email from a foundation official
to Clinton's presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta. The email,
among thousands hacked from Podesta's account, was published last month
by WikiLeaks.
Clinton signed an ethics agreement governing
her family's globe-straddling foundation in order to become secretary of
state in 2009. The agreement was designed to increase transparency to
avoid appearances that U.S. foreign policy could be swayed by wealthy
donors.
If a new foreign government wished to donate
or if an existing foreign-government donor, such as Qatar, wanted to
"increase materially" its support of ongoing programs, Clinton promised
that the State Department's ethics official would be notified and given a
chance to raise any concerns.
While Clinton Foundation officials initially
declined to confirm the Qatar donation at first, foundation spokesman
Brian Cookstra said last week that the charity accepted the $1 million
gift from Qatar, but this did not amount to a "material increase" in the
Persian Gulf country's support for the charity.
Cookstra declined to say whether Qatari officials received their requested meeting with Bill Clinton.
Officials at the Qatari Embassy in Washington
and in its Council of Ministers in the capital, Doha, declined to
discuss the donation.
The State Department has said it has no record
of the foundation submitting the Qatar gift for review, and that it was
incumbent on the foundation to notify the department about donations
that needed attention.
According to the foundation's website, which
lists donors in broad categories by cumulative amounts donated, Qatar's
government has directly given a total of between $1 million and $5
million over the years.
The Clinton Foundation has said it would no
longer accept money from foreign governments if Clinton is elected
president and would spin off those programs that are dependent on
foreign governments.
At least eight other countries besides Qatar
gave new or increased funding to the foundation, in most cases to fund
its health project, without the State Department being informed,
according to foundation and agency records. They include Algeria, which
gave for the first time in 2010, and the United Kingdom, which nearly
tripled its support for the foundation's health project to $11.2 million
between 2009 and 2012.
Foundation officials have said some of those
donations, including Algeria, were oversights and should have been
flagged, while others, such as the U.K. increase, did not qualify as
material increases.
The foundation has declined to describe what
sort of increase in funding by a foreign government would have triggered
notification of the State Department for review. Cookstra said the
agreement was designed to "allow foreign funding for critical Clinton
Foundation programs" to continue without disruption.
The State Department said it has no record of
being asked by the foundation to review any increases in support by a
foreign government.
Asked whether Qatar was funding a specific
program at the foundation, Cookstra said the country supported the
organization's "overall humanitarian work."
"Qatar continued supporting Clinton Foundation
at equal or lower levels" compared with the country's pre-2009 support,
he said. He declined to say if Qatar gave any money during the first
three years of Clinton's four-year term at the State Department, or what
its support before 2009 amounted to.
Yoni Hersch, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=37741
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