Clinton Foundation Walks Back Pledge to Halt Foreign Donations

And they wonder why people think they are untrustworthy...

From Reuters:

Clinton Foundation health project still mulling foreign donations

It was reported on Thursday that the Clinton Foundation would no longer receive donations from foreigners or corporations if Clinton wins the election in November, an effort to defuse criticism that donors to the globe-straddling charity might inappropriately seek White House favors in return.

But representatives of the charities confirmed on Friday that the new guidelines would only apply to a small portion of the foundation's activities, including its work on climate change and some of its work on economic development.

The Clinton Health Access Initiative apparently is a separate entity with it's own board, and it may continue to accept foreign funds.

The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, a Canadian offshoot (with a name which keeps popping up in the press):

"If Secretary Clinton wins the election, we plan to spin CGEP into an independent entity to continue this important work," Giustra said in a statement. "President Clinton and I believe it is important that we continue the work of alleviating poverty around the world." The statement did not specify Bill Clinton's future role.

No comment.

Here's a comment from Giustra in 2015:

An article published in the New York Times (“Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal” April 23, 2015) suggests that my contributions to the Clinton Foundation were made to further my business interests. This is not true! I support the work of the Clinton Foundation because I believe in the Clinton Foundation’s mission and effectiveness. The world is a better place because of it. As a philanthropist, I am extremely proud of the significant work we do to help thousands of people all over the world. We are truly changing lives. I would like to take this opportunity to explain and clarify some of the questions that have been raised.

He also says:

It is disheartening that all the great work we are doing is being unfairly tarnished in the press.

The campaign refuses to answer questions about the Foundation.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton signed an ethics agreement governing her family's charities in order to become President Barack Obama's secretary of state. She promised that her family's charities would name all their donors on an annual basis and seek clearance from the U.S. State Department before accepting new donations from foreign government money. Last year, the charities said they did not comply with these promises, blaming "oversights."

For more on Giustra, see this Business Insider piece:
The billionaire linked to the 'Clinton Cash' scandals once said something amazing about doing business with Bill Clinton

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riverlover's picture

Bill seems to have tapped into the money-lode in the mountain of the rich. It's hog heaven out there, if You have enough power, friends and wealth.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Power and money is all the Clinton's have. No friends, and the word "wealth" means so much more than just having a big pile of one dollar bills and the stuff you can buy with them. They are desperately impoverished, thus their desperation for political power, sexual power,criminal power, which again, absent true compassion and heart connection, are all forms of hell. Have you looked at Obama's eyes lately ? These people are in hell, we just have to create a world whereby they don't pull us all down with them !

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Centaurea's picture

Your description of the Clintons (and the rest of the oligarchy and their servants and hangers-on) reminds me of the Buddhist concept of pretas or "hungry ghosts"; with huge stomachs and long, narrow necks, they wander the Earth seeking to fulfill their immense cravings that can never be satisfied. They devour and devour, and it's never enough. They live an agonizing existence, truly a state of hell.

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

Yes,

That is probably one of the original and most poetic descriptions of one aspect of hell. And this hell is not created by God, but by one's own mind. We all carry some self created hell within, which I feel makes it so compelling and painful to watch this samsaric endeavor unfold in the public eye. Makes Watergate look like a child's play. I haven't seen pictures of hungry Ghosts in white pantsuits, but maybe after all this...

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josb's picture

If they promise to stop acting unethically in the future, we are supposed to forget about their unethical acts in the past? Seriously? Or am I reading this wrong?

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And accept this without question, even though she didn't adhere to the MOU while at state.

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josb's picture

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Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

Jump on board and Vote for $hillary...

We should just build a luxury jail cell for these people...
It would be worth it...

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,

if it's the money or the power. They're both old (I'm 70, so please don't be offended), accomplished, and have two brandy new grandchildren. So, why don't they just relax and enjoy their remaining years? They seemingly have enough power (see the linked article), and enough money where it's now just a case of mine's bigger than yours. The only thing I can think of is if they aren't around to deflect the curious, maybe they'd both end up in prison. And the only way they can protect themselves is to remain as part of government. Whadaya think?

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Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

Other than keeping it going, or going to prison...

There is no way out...

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
edg's picture

If Hillary gets elected to 2 consecutive terms, she'll be 77. In fact, she may die in office if her health is as bad as rumored. So she'll have the perfect get out of jail free card and as president, she can pardon Bill if he gets convicted. A sweet deal all around.

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WindDancer13's picture

The only problem that I can see is that there has been no evidence of all this "good work" that the Clinton Foundation has performed. When I worked for nonprofits, there is such a thing that was called outcomes where the entity had to show measurable success in the programs for which funds were solicited. In fact, future funding often depended on significant progress and effectiveness.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

As Charity Navigator has pointed out...

Why isn't this organization rated?
We had previously evaluated this organization, but have since determined that this charity's atypical business model can not be accurately captured in our current rating methodology. Our removal of The Clinton Foundation from our site is neither a condemnation nor an endorsement of this charity. We reserve the right to reinstate a rating for The Clinton Foundation as soon as we identify a rating methodology that appropriately captures its business model.

What does it mean that this organization isn’t rated?
It simply means that the organization doesn't meet our criteria. A lack of a rating does not indicate a positive or negative assessment by Charity Navigator.

It's not a charity...
It's not a non-profit...

It's a money laundry and tax dodge...

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
WindDancer13's picture

It is generally used to show the kinds of positive (and sometimes negative) results either intended or unintended that a funded program has achieved. These are often used for promotion purposes and to garner more funding for the program being assessed or other programs that the nonprofit wants to pursue.

If the Clinton Foundation were pursuing legitimate ends, then the raters would have had those documents/outcomes to use for the rating.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Dhyerwolf's picture

"But representatives of the charities confirmed on Friday that the new guidelines would only apply to a small portion of the foundation's activities, including its work on climate change..."

The only work on climate change that Clinton generally seems to push is making it worse.

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snoopydawg's picture

Bill made $48 million in speaking fees while Hillary was the Secretary of State, he made the speeches to governments and other organizations just before Hillary's state department would sell weapons to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others that had horrible human rights violations accusations against them. Or the state department would run interference with financial institutions that had business dealings with it.
The democrats, the republicans, Obama and other agencies of the government all knew what Hillary and Bill were doing, but turned a blind eye to it.

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

Amanda Matthews's picture

paydays.

***

Bill Clinton Sought State Department OK For Paid Speeches Related to North Korea, Congo, New E-mails Show
One email sent in June 2012 to Clinton State Department chief of staff Cheryl Mills from Amitabh Desai, a foreign policy director at the Clinton Foundation, passed on an invitation for a speaking engagement in Brazzaville, Congo.

The catch? The dictators of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo would both be attending -- and required photos with Bill Clinton. The speaking fee? A whopping $650,000.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bill-clinton-sought-state-department-paid...

***

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

arrangements than a photo op with Bill. The quid pro quo arrangements avoided being recorded on paper is all.

However, any one of these less than friendly nations could easily have video or tape of Bill and or Hillary being compromised. Nice little blackmail to hold onto for the future when there's a little more power than SOS to deal with.

The potential for blackmail is further increased when you consider all the unsecured servers that lay open for anyone to hack throughout Hillary's 4 years as SOS. There are hacks we don't even know anything about. How long did it take us to figure out the ability of a hacker to remotely control the audio and visual tools on electronic equipment?

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Billy's staff would get to read EVERYTHING the SOS was doing, and co-ordinate activity, so he and CGF could get the most out of any of SOS activity in any country.

Of course, avoiding FOIA too. Hubris is not strong enough word. Corrupt, venal, evil, selfish, arrogant, oblivious to anything but their own personal benefit, and of course "political viability" so can anyone even imagine how they'd behave when no longer having to be concerned about political viability. Terrifying.

What's funny too, they're all trying to make us afraid of Trump. Ha!

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criminal and traitorous? That's what the Clintons are. Every day the Clintons are in power, we get a little poorer and the world dies a little more.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

which is why it looks like they are all in on the scam and will be laughing all the way to the bank once her heinous gets in office and pays off all the lackeys (including Herr Drumpf) for getting her there. Oscar award winning performances are happening in real life.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

All of the deleted emails would have shown how much time Hillary and her staff spent on setting up the bribes. The most iconic image showing this if you can call it that was the email exchanges between Hillary staff members celebrating the huge sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve.

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Galtisalie's picture

which I don't to be sure (https://gardenvarietydemocraticsocialist.com/2015/07/11/hillary-clintons...), the Clinton Foundation and related permutations are a volunteerist distraction from the need for fundamental system change, a capitalist salve on a few of the wounds created by capitalism. That's the biggest scandal.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

the Clinton Foundation and related permutations are a volunteerist distraction from the need for fundamental system change, a capitalist salve on a few of the wounds created by capitalism.

I'd say more like:

a capitalist salve band-aid on a few of the wounds cancer created by capitalism.

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Galtisalie's picture

Peace be with you.

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hester's picture

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Don't believe everything you think.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-a...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article2478...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/state-department-undue-influence-clinton-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-million...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/hillary-clinton-foundation-s...

And so many more.

Trump would have done the same no doubt. May head lice perennially afflict these two, the parties that nominated them out of 350 million people and every self-serving traitor who endorsed either of them or messed with anyone's primary vote. Lice on louse.

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Azazello's picture

Much too lenient, I suggest genital herpes.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Not as long as they're fucking the whole world over, please!

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

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detroitmechworks's picture

Not both.

(Sorry, sorry, physics joke)

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

PriceRip's picture

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elenacarlena's picture

"Of course they do". I never believed their pledge in the first place.

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Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

Anja Geitz's picture

Has become its own clever joke. And, oh, how they are laughing.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Seems the Clinton Cabal is working on getting her base to support the continued and unfettered use of the Clinton Foundation to launder money in the guise of all the good work they do. I guess to keep one option open.

If the Clinton's were to totally cut ties with the Foundation, there goes their cash flow for the next four years, relying only on her presidential salary and their huge cash reserves. And after she will be an ex-president no longer able to approve of military contracts, etc. Where's the money in that. I think Obama will find that when he tries to go on the speaking circuit, he will in no way get the monies Hillary or Bill got when she was SoS. He may get a few speeches like that, but not much. Michelle on the other hand, if she even hints of a political run, will get bunches of money.

The whole Clinton Foundation scandals in many ways goes to who the Clintons are and how they operate. I don't think Hillary and Bill can let go the power, the privilege, and the money at this point. We will see Washington turned into a corrupt ancien regime with the worst sorts of court intrigues. Even worse than it is now.

But if the post-Trump gop "retools", then they will crush the Dems in 2018 probably ensuring impeachment. This is all going to turn into some Greek or Shakespearean tragedy.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

josb's picture

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Under the unconstitutional corporate coup in process, with domestic law outsourced in all involved countries to corporate courts where the public interest has no standing and all that matters is the maximization of the profits of specifically involved corporations/billionaires, what difference will anything, including the opinions, health, democracy/freedom of choice and lives of the dispossessed and disposable people of the world, matter?

And what happens to these corporate/billionaire puppets once they're no longer needed by the corporations/billionaires already beginning to cannibalize each other to maintain unsustainably ever-increasing quarterly profits? Especially after they're stripped of all they've accumulated under the most-powerful-bully-wins, dog-eat-dog tyranny they set up/facilitated - and have been tossed out among whichever of us has survived that long?

Wen you lie down with rabid dogs, you may never get up again...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

moneysmith's picture

Apparently, the "pledge" was actually meaningless anyway, like most of what the Clinton's say:

http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/dont-fall-for-the-false-promises-clinton...

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Hell is empty and all the devils are here. William Shakespeare

Shahryar's picture

even Cheney had to step down, or at least look like he did, at Halliburton.

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ZimInSeattle's picture

The Clinton Foundation is an unprecedented abomination to American democracy. Under the pretenses of charitable work, the foundation has furthered the interests of the Clintons and their corporate and wealthy donors across the globe. It has also blurred the lines between donations and off-the-record political favors, while providing the Clintons with plausible deniability of auctioning off access to the most politically powerful couple in modern U.S. history.

~snip~

“The foundation should remove a political — and actual — distraction and stop accepting funding,” wrote the Boston Globe editorial board on August 16th. “If Clinton is elected, the foundation should be shut down.” The foundation should have been shut down before Clinton began serving as Senator of New York. As long as either Bill or Hillary Clinton serve or attempt to serve as political servants to either elected or appointed offices, they should not be operating an entity that thrives off of donations from the very same foreign governments, corporations, and wealthy influences these elected offices are meant to regulate and maintain diplomatic relations with in the public interest.

Empty Promises About the Clinton Foundation

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

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influence of bibis' Israel. Why are any politicians accepting money from an organization that puts any interest above that of US citizens? Rhetorical question, forgive me

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Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. Stephen Hawking

This is the most obvious case of projection ever. Disowned aspects of themselves projected onto poor folks, defenseless folks: children. Funny, real charities that actually do good work are under massive assault for "outcomes" but a money laundering operation (how many millions or even billions from wealth) go to rig outcomes that affect millions of people. The future is grim: and Trump is the gun to our head to effect the heist. This is pure evil. The devastation, genocide, and ecocide is phenomenal: funny how this coincided with knowledge of climate change and the subsequent silencing of efforts to address this: Selfish and narcissistic doesn't begin to cover it. There are no words for the grief most of us feel: we have had so little public benefit for forty years: peace is a dead concenpt: the U.S. officially closed its office of human rights, and apparently the economic vultures forcasts mean that significant parts of the world will die: and they will survive: hope they kill of each other after that.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

LOL. So I guess you can't just turn out the lights on a multinational influence-peddling slush fund after all.

Why would the Saudis spend all that money to get Hillary elected in the first place if they can't continue to bribe the Clintons to push though sweetheart deals on tanks and clusterbombs once she's President?

The graft must go on!

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

terriertribe's picture

Why would the Saudis spend all that money to get Hillary elected in the first place ...

You mean the Saudis are trying to influence our sacred election?

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Now interviewing signature candidates. Apply within.

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

And yet the Keystone Kops at the FEC finally figured it out just last week.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?