So far, the saga of the Clinton Foundation has been limited to one main point: large donors have given multimillion dollar contributions to the foundation and those donors have gotten favorable treatment from the State Department or access to deals in ways that only the Clintons could arrange. There is no document or witness to Hillary Clinton actually promising to help any contributor, but she may have taken care of the by destroying her emails and the server as well. The Clinton brigade of defenders, however, has been pointing out that Hillary got nothing out of this. It was money for charity, or so they say. Well, it seems another Clinton defense is crumbling.
The New York Post today has an article pointing out that in 2013 the foundation itself reported raising $140 million dollars in grants and pledges but spending only $9 million on direct aid. The foundation also reported on those same tax returns a total of almost $65 million in expenses and administration. To be fair, some portion of the foundation annual payroll of $30 million is for the aid workers employed by the organization. There are, however, some very large expenses paid to friends and supporters of the Clintons for "work" for the foundation that is also included in that $30 million. For example, an old friend of Chelsea Clinton got paid $275,000 for five months work during the year as the head of the foundation. Nine other "executives" got paid over $100,000 in the same year. Think about that for a moment; just for executive pay, the Clinton Foundation paid out well over a million dollars so that the organization could approve just $9 million in grants and aid to the needy.
The tax returns for the Clinton Foundation also show that it spent about $18 million on travel and conferences (roughly half for each). While the Clintons themselves do not draw a salary from the Foundation, they do travel in imperial style at the expense of the foundation. On top of this, they use the foundation's conferences to highlight Hillary's political positions and the foundation pays all the cost.
What these tax returns prove is that the Clinton Foundation was a conduit to pay massive expenses for the Clintons as well as for the pre-announcement phase of Hillary Clinton's campaign for the White House. It must have seemed wonderful to the Clintons to think that they had discovered a way to finance the early years of that campaign without having to consider campaign finance laws, with using foreign cash which is forbidden in political campaigns, and with donors actually getting to write the donations off on their taxes.
The Post article also reports that two months ago, Charity Navigator placed the Clinton Foundation on it "watch list" of 23 charities with questionable practices. Charity Navigator is a non-profit organization that rates charities on a series of criteria. Charities that spend the least on administration and fund raising, give the biggest percentage of funds raised to actual charitable work, and provide the most information about their funding and spending are rated the highest. The watch list tells potential donors that there are likely to be major problems at the organizations on the list. For Charity Navigator to put an organization on their watch list is roughly the equivalent of a business being listed as using unethical and shady practices by the Better Business Bureau.
This is damning stuff. Now put on top of this mess the fact that the Clinton Foundation announced that they are going to amend five years of tax returns (including the one for 2013 discussed above) because they made a series of typographical errors that caused them to leave out millions of dollars of foreign contributions each year. So the damning picture painted by the Clinton Foundation's own tax returns is actually better than the reality that the amended returns will show.
If you hear one of the Clinton brigade say that there is not a shred of evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation, JUST LAUGH. In truth, we don't need SNL to do a parody of this stuff; the Clintons are a parody by themselves.
UPDATE: I happened to check on a charity that I support (Disabled American Veterans) on Charity Navigator just to compare it with the Clinton Foundation. DAV spends 96.5% of what it raises on programs for the veterans that it helps. Compare that with the Clinton Foundation that spent about 7% on such programs in 2013. DAV spends 1.5% on fundraising, even though its donations are mostly small amounts from a great many people, so the cost per donation should be higher. Compare that with the roughly 6% that the Clinton Foundation says it spends to get multimillion dollar donations from just a few sources. Something is way off at the Clinton Foundation.
The New York Post today has an article pointing out that in 2013 the foundation itself reported raising $140 million dollars in grants and pledges but spending only $9 million on direct aid. The foundation also reported on those same tax returns a total of almost $65 million in expenses and administration. To be fair, some portion of the foundation annual payroll of $30 million is for the aid workers employed by the organization. There are, however, some very large expenses paid to friends and supporters of the Clintons for "work" for the foundation that is also included in that $30 million. For example, an old friend of Chelsea Clinton got paid $275,000 for five months work during the year as the head of the foundation. Nine other "executives" got paid over $100,000 in the same year. Think about that for a moment; just for executive pay, the Clinton Foundation paid out well over a million dollars so that the organization could approve just $9 million in grants and aid to the needy.
The tax returns for the Clinton Foundation also show that it spent about $18 million on travel and conferences (roughly half for each). While the Clintons themselves do not draw a salary from the Foundation, they do travel in imperial style at the expense of the foundation. On top of this, they use the foundation's conferences to highlight Hillary's political positions and the foundation pays all the cost.
What these tax returns prove is that the Clinton Foundation was a conduit to pay massive expenses for the Clintons as well as for the pre-announcement phase of Hillary Clinton's campaign for the White House. It must have seemed wonderful to the Clintons to think that they had discovered a way to finance the early years of that campaign without having to consider campaign finance laws, with using foreign cash which is forbidden in political campaigns, and with donors actually getting to write the donations off on their taxes.
The Post article also reports that two months ago, Charity Navigator placed the Clinton Foundation on it "watch list" of 23 charities with questionable practices. Charity Navigator is a non-profit organization that rates charities on a series of criteria. Charities that spend the least on administration and fund raising, give the biggest percentage of funds raised to actual charitable work, and provide the most information about their funding and spending are rated the highest. The watch list tells potential donors that there are likely to be major problems at the organizations on the list. For Charity Navigator to put an organization on their watch list is roughly the equivalent of a business being listed as using unethical and shady practices by the Better Business Bureau.
This is damning stuff. Now put on top of this mess the fact that the Clinton Foundation announced that they are going to amend five years of tax returns (including the one for 2013 discussed above) because they made a series of typographical errors that caused them to leave out millions of dollars of foreign contributions each year. So the damning picture painted by the Clinton Foundation's own tax returns is actually better than the reality that the amended returns will show.
If you hear one of the Clinton brigade say that there is not a shred of evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation, JUST LAUGH. In truth, we don't need SNL to do a parody of this stuff; the Clintons are a parody by themselves.
UPDATE: I happened to check on a charity that I support (Disabled American Veterans) on Charity Navigator just to compare it with the Clinton Foundation. DAV spends 96.5% of what it raises on programs for the veterans that it helps. Compare that with the Clinton Foundation that spent about 7% on such programs in 2013. DAV spends 1.5% on fundraising, even though its donations are mostly small amounts from a great many people, so the cost per donation should be higher. Compare that with the roughly 6% that the Clinton Foundation says it spends to get multimillion dollar donations from just a few sources. Something is way off at the Clinton Foundation.
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