WarSclerotic

‘Clinton Cash’ Author: Clinton Foundation Foreign Cash Ban ‘Too Little, Too Late’, Breitbart, Peter Schweizer, August 18, 2016

Greg Allen/Invision/AP

If it would be wrong for Hillary’s foundation to accept foreign cash as president, why wasn’t it wrong for Hillary’s foundation to accept foreign cash from oligarchs and countries who had business pending on her desk as Sec. of State?

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In the wake of reports that the Clinton Foundation may have been hacked, Hillary Clinton’s embattled foundation announced on Thursday that, if Clinton is elected, her foundation will no longer accept the kinds of foreign and corporate donations at the heart of the Clinton Cash scandal.

The new pledge is a stunning tacit admission of wrongdoing, but it comes too little too late and raises the obvious question: If it would be wrong for Hillary’s foundation to accept foreign cash as president, why wasn’t it wrong for Hillary’s foundation to accept foreign cash from oligarchs and countries who had business pending on her desk as Sec. of State?

Moreover, if, as has been confirmed by numerous mainstream media organizations, Hillary Clinton violated her ethics pledge with the Obama administration to disclose all Clinton Foundation donations, why should the American people believe she would now honor a new pledge to forgo bagging cash from foreign oligarchs and countries?

After all, as both Bloomberg and the Washington Post have reported, Hillary’s foundation has still not revealed 1,100 foreign donations. And as Clinton Cash revealed, other hidden foreign donations include four totaling $2.35 million from Ian Telfer, the former head of one of the Russian government’s uranium companies, Uranium One. Let that sink in: the head of Russian’s uranium company was transferring funds to Hillary Clinton’s foundation.

Only now, with the fear of hacked emails being made public, has Hillary Clinton decided to entertain the idea of putting an end to the unprecedented practice of a sitting executive branch official with foreign policies pending on her desk accepting hundreds of millions of foreign dollars.

Indeed, for years, and as recently as this week, voices across the political spectrum have been appalled by the glaring conflict of interest and pleaded for the Clinton Foundation to reject foreign money in the hopes of reducing the threat of influence peddling and pay-to-play schemes. The New York Times, the Boston Globe, and even former Democratic National Committee Chairman Ed Rendell have all called on Hillary to stop. She refused. Only once it became clear that the Clinton Foundation may have been vulnerable to hacking, and the potential exposure of internal communications became a serious threat, did she decide to cut off the spigot of foreign funds into her foundation.

This week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) launched a probe to discover why the Obama Dept. of Justice blocked multiple FBI field office requests to investigate the Clinton Foundation. That’s a start. And the Clinton Cash documentary has now been viewed well over three million times.

But pressing broader questions remain, questions national mainstream media have heretofore been afraid to ask Hillary Clinton about the most glaring and vast series of conflicts of interest in modern American politics.

Hillary Clinton has not answered why her State Dept. approved the transfer of 20% of all U.S. uranium to Russia while not disclosing to the Obama administration that nine investors in that uranium deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary Clinton has not answered why her brother, Tony Rodham, sat on the board of a company that received a rare “gold exploitation permit” from the Haitian government while she was dispersing billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in Haiti earthquake disaster relief.

Hillary Clinton has not answered why she hid $2.35 million in Clinton Foundation donations from the head of one of the Russian government’s uranium companies.

Hillary Clinton has not answered why she has yet to release the names of the 1,100 foreign Clinton Foundation donors that both Bloomberg and the Washington Post confirm remain secret.

Hillary Clinton has not answered why it was appropriate for Bill Clinton to deliver a $500,000 speech in Moscow paid for by a Kremlin-backed bank while she led the so-called Russian reset as Sec. of State—a Clinton Cash revelation so egregious, that even the progressive New Yorker magazine was left to ponder, “Why was Bill Clinton taking any money from a bank linked to the Kremlin while his wife was Secretary of State?”

Hillary Clinton has not answered why her current campaign chairman, John Podesta, sat on the board of a company alongside Russian officials that received $35 million from Rusnano, Vladimir Putin’s funding apparatus.

Hillary Clinton has not answered whether her husband will stop giving paid speeches.

Myriad questions have gone unasked and unanswered about the toxic brew of foreign cash and Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. decisions.

Perhaps now, with this stunning new tacit admission of unethical and inappropriate behavior by Hillary Clinton and her foundation, will the mainstream media find the spine to do the hard work of investigative reporting and the courage to demand serious answers.