I agree that they need to be much more straight forward in their responses. Include the fact that over the years in public service, the Clintons have developed personal relationships with many, many of these people. Therefore, meeting with them is understandable. Did they receive anything in return from the US government?? that’s what needs to be hammered and hammered.
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You are right, but the way a giant mob emerged in my twitter feed instantly after the AP report was extremely literally queasy…
??? You saw that she had 1700 meetings with world officials and many with government officials here. What make you think she had literally thousands and thousands of meeting with PRIVATE individuals?
For most of us there may be “six degrees of separation” but at Clinton’s (or Trump’s) level there are much less. Who should be surprised that either one of them should know somebody who knows somebody or meets somebody? Clinton is among the most connected people on the planet. Everybody knows that well connected people connect with other well connected people. We should be surprised if they didn’t.
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How do you know she was selling access? We’re talking about a meeting a month during her time at the State Department, and there’s no evidence that those donors she met with didn’t have valid reasons for meeting with her or having a phone conversation. We’re talking about 85 people who are interested in international aid and relations, which is exactly the bailiwick of the State Department. You are assuming they got the meeting due to the donations, but that is not in evidence.
Secondly, the e-mails released that were from Huma A. show that there was a pretty good firewall, and that the vast majority of the requests that came in from the Foundation or that mentioned the Foundation were ignored or declined.
You are falling prey to insinuations and innuendo, and not to the facts. The fact are not exculpatory for Clinton, but they certainly provide more evidence of good intent and proper behavior than ill intent or “selling access.”
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That doesn’t hold up, sorry. The right to redress the government is with regards to the government. And if it has limitations…chiefly that in order to sue the government, you have to have government’s permission.
If you enter into a contract with a foreign business…there is no right to “redress your grievances” to the American government over perceived wrongs in that contract. That doesn’t even make sense.
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this is all getting rather tiresome…so, SEC. CLINTON met with hundreds of people, some donated to the CLINTON foundation…why is this an issue in the media? exactly what did any donor get in exchange for the donation? , nothing ; except the meet…the republican media just keeps hammering away…trying desparately to distract attention from their candidate…
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You make it sound as if the Clintons personally got that much money. It all went to the charity, which is rated as one of the best in terms of giving its money away to genuine causes with one of the lowest overhead costs (11%–none of which goes to the Clinton family).
The guy who wanted to meet to get a visa for a British soccer star with a criminal record got turned down, but gave donations anyway.
And think about it. 85 donors over four years = 22.5 per year. Not a whole helluva lot in the context of her tremendous work.–––––––
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But they’re not saying, “We’ll change.” They’re saying, “If the situation changes and one of our principle directors becomes the most powerful person in the world, we will implement a process to ensure donors cannot influence her.”
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But there is the right to sue that company in an American court – until a trade agreement gives that right up.
I’m glad her campaign is pushing back finally.
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Good point.
I think the point was summed up nicely on CBS this morning. They went over and over the fact that Clinton talked to Foundation donors when she was Sec. of State. They did the innuendo and the “raises questions” thing. but at the end, very quickly, they mentioned there is no evidence any quid pro quo took place. No evidence at all of what they were trying to insinuate.
There is nothing wrong with a person holding two titles to function in both those capacities. In fact there is no way for them not to. At this point both Trump and the media are implying what they know is not true. If you want to look for bad in all this look at them.
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85 donors who gave a total of 156 million to the Clinton Foundation made up the majority of private individuals who met with the SoS during her tenure. You can call it whatever you want to. I put it in quotation marks, because I am not suggesting that there was a quid pro quo. What I am suggesting is that money “talked”.
No, I don’t make it “sound like” anything. The fact is that people who gave money to the Foundation got access to the SoS. Let’s assume that she was curing cancer during these meetings. That doesn’t excuse the fact that giving access to wealthy donors to the CF is not the Secretary of State’s job. She is supposed to be representing the people of the United States, not givng face time to wealthy donors to her family’s charity, no matter how laudable (or not) they are.
I assume that there are worthy people around the world whose laudable projects might have benefited from some face time with the SoS. How many of them didn’t meet with her because she busy with wealthy donors to the CF?
Ok, just so we are clear, you have now moved from your claims of 1st Amendment violations to claims of 7th Amendment violations.
I would be very careful before treading on that particular ice. First off, read this article
Which is some wacko right nativism movement in Oklahoma to restrict the court’s application of foreign laws. In terms of international contracts, that is arguing for skewing the playing field entirely in the favor of Americans. Is that really where you want to go??
Secondly, defining the terms of when a contract will seek arbitration is a matter of the contract. That can be via moderation, arbitration or via the courts directly (and which courts, since we are talking about two different countries). That hasn’t changed.
I believe what you are referring to is Chapter 11 of NAFTA. That is setup so that investors can sue if they feel their investments have been hurt because of NAFTA rules being broken, and such claims are heard by private tribunals. (and while there are some cases that go in favor or Canadian and Mexican investors, the majority go in the favor of US investors. Canada has become the most sued country because of Chapter 11 lawsuits under NAFTA
But even given that, we aren’t talking about huge numbers of lawsuits or settlements).
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They have tons of emails, emails that Hillary wasn’t expecting to be released, is there any emails that show that someone got access because they donated or vice versa? Or is there no there there for the 100th time.
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$156 million dollars sounds like a lot, but it is actually just 7% of the total $2 billion raised by the Clinton Foundation. That means there are people who gave $999,844,000 to the Clinton Foundation who didn’t get a phone call or meeting with Clinton.
If people were using the Foundation to gain access to Clinton, and if they were wink wink making it known that were possible (i.e. “selling” access), then you would expect a higher percentage of the total donation to have gotten meetings. After all, if it were known wink wink that you could buy a phone call or meeting with the Secretary of state by dropping a hundred thousand on her husband’s foundation, more than 84 people would have done it.
And if you read the report you see that some of the people she met with are rich people who run non-profits of their own
- S. Daniel Abraham the Slim Fast mogul who founded the “Center for MidEast Peace”
- Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus who runs a micro-credit charity
- Nancy Mahon of Estee Lauder’s charity arm that does (shocking) similar work on AIDS in Africa (and donated $10M to the Foundation, which 8% of the total of donors who met with Clinton)
The facts simply don’t bear out that she was selling access, or that access was bought without her knowledge. There just aren’t enough meetings to support that theory, and there aren’t any quid pro quos to indicate anything untoward.
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But Hillary got free make-up or something. Heh.
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Your comment is both stupid and a lie.
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Oh, come on. Again, from the AP article:
At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.
A little math question: The Clinton Foundation lists 193 corporations, governments, foundations organizations, and individuals who gave from $1,000,001 or more, I’m not sure how they are defining “private interests” but if you exclude governments (Norway, UAE, Australia, Swedish Lottery, etc.) from that list, what do the think the random chances are that 20 of the “private interests” that met with Clinton happened to have given a million or more to the CF?
(BTW, there’s some wonderful “people” on that list: Exxon Mobil. Duke Energy, Friends of Saudi Arabia, Monsanto, Newsmax (!), Walmart, Humana, Goldman Sachs (!), Walmart, and so on. I’m sure that the are quite pleased to finally have a way to do something about poverty!)