Clintons Tried to Strongarm Charity Watchdog Group to Give Clinton Foundation a Pass on Corruption

by Warner Todd Huston | May 11, 2015 11:42 am

One of the many, many points that came out of the book Clinton Cash is that a watchdog group that monitors charities to rate them as to whether they actually do charity work decided to put the Clinton Foundation on its “watch list” because so many allegations about corruption had been reported from so many sources. This infuriated Hillary and Bill and the pair tried to threaten the group to force them remove their foundation from the watch list.

I actually wrote a little bit about this at Breitbat.com[1] in my piece highlighting the fact that four of the Foundation’s board of directors have been either charged or convicted of serious financial crimes.

I noted that the charity watch dog group Charity Navigator refuses to rate the Clinton Foundation because of its “atypical business model.”

But New York Magazine looked into this aspect a bit more in Clinton Cash and found that the charity group was even threatened by the Clintons[2] over the whole rating business.

The [Clinton] Foundation has demanded they extend the Clintons special treatment. They also allege the Foundation attempted to strong-arm them by calling a Navigator board member. “They felt they were of such importance that we should deviate from our normal process. They were irritated by that,” says [former Charity Foundation CEO] Berger.

…With the publication of Clinton Cash on the horizon, Clintonworld surely knew landing on the Navigator’s watch list would be a public-relations debacle. By early March, Clinton campaign officials were holding regular war-room meetings to orchestrate their defense against the book. Over the next few days, Foundation officials desperately attempted to contact Navigator executives to rebut their claims but, inexplicably, couldn’t get through to anyone on the phone. On the evening of Friday, March 13, Pally sent a detailed email rebuttal. “All of the other organizations on your watch list have had substantiated allegations of financial, fiscal or other impropriety,” she wrote, according to an email the Foundation provided to New York. “The stories you cite about the Clinton Foundation merely point to donations, or gossip around our operations, none of which constitute any wrongdoing.”

It didn’t work. During a tense phone conversation on the afternoon of March 17, Pally and Berger argued over the merits of the media’s claims about the Foundation. Pally said they were without substance; Berger insisted that since the newspapers published the articles, they were relevant. “Our whole thing is, if major media outlets say there’s something here that you should be aware of, we’re not going to be judge and jury on what the media says,” Berger later told me. “We felt there had been enough questions.” As a matter of practice, the Navigator doesn’t conduct its own investigations. On its website, they state: “Charity Navigator … takes no position on allegations made or issues raised by third parties, nor does Charity Navigator seek to confirm or verify the accuracy of allegations made or the merits of issues raised by third parties that may be referred to in the CN Watchlist.”

…Unfortunately for Hillary’s campaign, the Navigator’s policy is that charities that land on the list stay there for a minimum of six months. Sandra Miniutti, the Navigator’s spokesperson, told me that, in order to get off the list, the Clintons need to publicly address each of the controversies raised by the media with a convincing response.

There is a reason Rush now calls the Clinton the “Clinton crime family.”

Endnotes:
  1. Breitbat.com: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/07/revealed-four-clinton-foundation-trustees-charged-or-convicted-of-financial-crimes/
  2. threatened by the Clintons: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/clinton-foundation-vs-a-charity-watchdog.html

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/democrats/clintons-tried-to-strongarm-charity-watchdog-group-to-give-clinton-foundation-a-pass-on-corruption/