New allegations hit Hillary campaign

Clinton Foundation’s ties with foreign countries is a threat to national security, says Trump

Ms. Clinton had pledged to dissociate from the functioning of the foundation when she took over as the Secretary of State. Photo: AP

Donors to the Clinton Foundation had special access to Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State, fresh documents brought to light by two conservative groups on Monday showed, in a setback to the Democratic candidate’s presidential campaign. Republican candidate Donald Trump has sought an investigation by a special prosecutor into the links between the foundation and the State Department under Ms. Clinton.

Former President Bill Clinton said in a statement on Monday the foundation would stop accepting foreign donations, if his wife were to become President. The foundation had made the same announcement last week.

Ms. Clinton had pledged to dissociate from the functioning of the foundation when she took over as the Secretary of State. However, the staff of the foundation sought special treatment for donors from the State Department, according to documents.

New revelations

Among the new revelations is how the foundation staff intervened on behalf of the Crown Prince of Bahrain, a donor. The Crown Prince could not get a meeting with Ms. Clinton through State Department channels, but did get one after Foundation Executive Douglas Band wrote to Huma Abedin, a close aide of hers. “Good friend of ours,” Mr. Band wrote to Ms. Abedin, requesting a meeting for the Crown Prince.

“No issue better illustrates how corrupt my opponent is than her pay for play scandals as Secretary of State,” Mr. Trump said, demanding an investigation. “I’ve become increasingly shocked by the vast scope of Hillary Clinton’s criminality. It’s criminality… the amounts involved, the favours done and the significant numbers of times it was done require an expedited investigation by a special prosecutor immediately, immediately, immediately.”

Email scandal

By alleging criminality, Mr. Trump may be stretching the point, but several instances of Clinton Foundation donors benefitting from State Department policy has cast a shadow on Ms. Clinton’s trustworthiness. The Clinton campaign has said these were mere coincidences and there were no quid pro quo involved. Some emails that surfaced on Monday were held back by Ms. Clinton from the FBI that investigated the case regarding a private server that she used while in office.

In a separate development, a federal judge on Monday asked the State Department to expedite the process of reviewing and releasing a set of nearly 15,000 emails that were not handed over to the Department as ‘work-related’ earlier. The FBI had uncovered these emails during its investigation of a private server Ms. Clinton had maintained.

The Clinton Foundation accepts money from foreign donors, including foreign governments, which Mr. Trump alleges is a threat to U.S. national security.

The Clinton campaign hit back at the Republican opponent questioning his business interests overseas. “Donald Trump needs to come clean with voters about his complex network of for-profit businesses that are hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to big banks, including the state-owned Bank of China, and other business groups with ties to the Kremlin,” said John Podesta, chairman of the Ms. Clinton’s campaign.