Democratic
U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton pauses while speaking at a campaign
rally at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 4, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
By Jonathan Allen | NEW YORK
The Clinton Foundation has confirmed it accepted a $1
million gift from Qatar while Hillary Clinton was U.S. secretary of state
without informing the State Department, even though she had promised to let the
agency review new or significantly increased support from foreign governments.
Qatari officials pledged the money in 2011 to mark the
65th birthday of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton's husband, and sought to meet
the former U.S. president in person the following year to present him the
check, according to an email from a foundation official to Hillary Clinton's
presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta. The email, among thousands hacked
from Podesta's account, was published last month by WikiLeaks.
Clinton signed an ethics agreement governing her family's
globe-straddling foundation in order to become secretary of state in 2009. The
agreement was designed to increase transparency to avoid appearances that U.S.
foreign policy could be swayed by wealthy donors.
If a new foreign government wished to donate or if an
existing foreign-government donor, such as Qatar, wanted to "increase
materially" its support of ongoing programs, Clinton promised that the
State Department's ethics official would be notified and given a chance to
raise any concerns.
Clinton Foundation officials last month declined to
confirm the Qatar donation. In response to additional questions, a foundation
spokesman, Brian Cookstra, this week said that it accepted the $1 million gift
from Qatar, but this did not amount to a "material increase" in the
Gulf country's support for the charity. Cookstra declined to say whether Qatari
officials received their requested meeting with Bill Clinton.
Officials at Qatar's embassy in Washington and in its
Council of Ministers in the capital, Doha, declined to discuss the donation.
The State Department has said it has no record of the
foundation submitting the Qatar gift for review, and that it was incumbent on
the foundation to notify the department about donations that needed attention.
A department spokeswoman did not respond to additional questions about the
donation.
According to the foundation's website, which lists donors
in broad categories by cumulative amounts donated, Qatar's government has
directly given a total of between $1 million and $5 million over the years.
The Clinton Foundation has said it would no longer accept
money from foreign governments if Clinton is elected president and would spin
off those programs that are dependent on foreign governments.
Foundation officials told Reuters last year that they did
not always comply with central provisions of the agreement with President
Barack Obama's administration, blaming oversights in some cases.
At least eight other countries besides Qatar gave new or
increased funding to the foundation, in most cases to fund its health project,
without the State Department being informed, according to foundation and agency
records. They include Algeria, which gave for the first time in 2010, and the
United Kingdom, which nearly tripled its support for the foundation's health
project to $11.2 million between 2009 and 2012.
Foundation officials have said some of those donations,
including Algeria, were oversights and should have been flagged, while others,
such as the UK increase, did not qualify as material increases.
The foundation has declined to describe what sort of increase
in funding by a foreign government would have triggered notification of the
State Department for review. Cookstra said the agreement was designed to
"allow foreign funding for critical Clinton Foundation programs" to
continue without disruption.
The State Department said it has no record of being asked
by the foundation to review any increases in support by a foreign government.
Asked whether Qatar was funding a specific program at the
foundation, Cookstra said the country supported the organization's
"overall humanitarian work."
"Qatar continued supporting Clinton Foundation at
equal or lower levels" compared with the country's pre-2009 support, he
said. He declined to say if Qatar gave any money during the first three years
of Clinton's four-year term at the State Department, or what its support before
2009 amounted to.
In another email released by WikiLeaks, a former Clinton
Foundation fundraiser said he raised more than $21 million in connection with
Bill Clinton's 65th birthday in 2011.
Spokesmen for Hillary Clinton's campaign and Bill Clinton
did not respond to emailed questions about the donation.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said
that major donors to the Clinton Foundation may have obtained favored access to
Clinton's State Department, but has provided little evidence to that effect.
Clinton and her staff have dismissed this accusation as a political smear.
Last month, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
ordered the Donald J. Trump Foundation to stop fundraising in the state, saying
it had not registered to solicit donations.
