In the past several weeks, not a day has passed without a new
scandal surfacing revealing Clinton's lack of judgment whether it
involves her abuse of email protocol, or some previously
undisclosed financial relation between either Hillary Clinton or
the Clinton foundation and an outside donor. The most egregious
revelation took place a few days ago when it emerged that the
Democratic presidential candidate had breached her agreement with
the White House to name all foundation donors during her tenure as
secretary of state.
Specifically, as Reuters reported, Clinton had promised the
federal government that the Clinton Foundation and its associated
charities would name all donors annually while she was the nation's
top diplomat. "She also promised that the charities would let the
State Department's ethics office review beforehand any proposed new
foreign governments donations."
In March, the charities confirmed to Reuters for the first time
that they had not complied with those pledges for most of Clinton's
four years at the State Department.The implication is that
foreigners banned from donating to U.S. political campaigns could
and likely did curry favor with her by giving to the charity that
bears her name. The charities accepted new donations from at least
six foreign governments while Clinton was secretary of state:
Switzerland, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Rwanda, Sweden and
Algeria. And, of course, Ukraine.
The charities never told the State Department about the new and
increased donations. In two instances, the charities said this was
the result of "oversights"; for the other six, they said those
donations were exceptions to the agreement for various reasons.
The charities also stopped publishing full donor lists from 2010
onwards; the annually updated list omitted donors to the
foundation's flagship health initiative.
But the most shocking development took place yesterday when the
US State Department, via spokesman Jeff Rathke, told reporters that
while it "regrets" that it did not get to review the new foreign
government funding, it does not plan to look into the matter
further, spokesman Jeff Rathke said on Thursday.
"The State Department has not and does not intend to initiate a
formal review or to make a retroactive judgment about items that
were not submitted during Secretary Clinton's tenure," Rathke told
reporters.
And while the objective, unbiased media would have been up in
arms had this gross abuse of government privileges and clear
pandering to foreign interests occurred under a Republican
candidate, there has been barely a peep from said media as far as
Hillary's involvement is concerned.
One person, however, did speak up: that was AP's Matt Lee who
asked why the State Department wouldn't investigate further to
determine if the tens of millions of dollars in donations had
influenced her, and thus the US State Department's, decisions in
the 2011-2013 period.
Rathke's response: there is no evidence that these donations to
the Clinton charities had any effect on Clinton's decisions. Were
not going to make a retroactive review on these cases and we will
not make a retroactive judgment, he said.
Of course, the circular logic involved is so twisted even
hardened, conflicted government apparatchiks would not fail to
recognize that there is no way to make a determination if said
previously undisclosed donations had influenced her decisions
without a further inquiry, an inquiry the State Department refuses
to make because it assumes that it would find nothing.
Lee quickly noted this told Rathke that the reason you are not
aware of anything is because the building is refusing to go back
and look at it to see if there is anything that might raise a
flag."
What followed was 6 minutes of squirming that would make even
the most hard-core Clinton supporter blush red with embarrassment
at the farce and the corruption evident at every single level of
government, especially when certain pre-approved (by Wall Street)
candidates are involved.
The full exchange below.
