Earlier this week, President Bill Clinton admitted during an interview with National Public Radio that many donors to the Clinton Foundation did so because they sought favors from himself and his wife, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“It was natural for people who’ve been our political allies and personal friends to call and ask for things,” he said. “And I trusted the State Department wouldn’t do anything they shouldn’t do.”
Aside from this being the modus operandi of the Clintons for the past 30-plus years, a new report from The Washington Examiner suggests those donors were largely successful in their endeavors. According to the report, nearly 40 percent of all political appointments made by Hillary Clinton while secretary of state went to Clinton Foundation donors.
Hillary Clinton placed dozens of her donors on State Department advisory boards between 2009 and 2012, federal records show. The former secretary of state’s agency appointed 194 donors who had given either to her family’s foundation, her political campaigns or both, or were affiliated with groups that had.
During her tenure, Clinton made 511 advisory appointments within the State Department. While such appointments are hardly unusual in Washington, D.C., coupled with the other instances of questionable ethics in the relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department, it only adds to the “bad optics.”
It certainly didn’t take long for the Donald Trump campaign to pounce—again. Campaign spokesman Jason Miller said it appears “Bill Clinton was telling the truth for once” during his NPR interview.
“The fact that [Hillary Clinton] doled out nearly 200 appointments to donors to her foundation and political campaigns is more evidence of the pay-to-play culture of corruption that thrived on her watch and which would surely continue if she’s elected to the White House,” he added.
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