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 At the outset, the Clinton Foundation did indeed publish what they
said was a complete list of the names of more than 200,000 donors
and has continued to update it. But in a breach of the pledge, the
charity's flagship health program, which spends more than all of the
other foundation initiatives put together, stopped making the annual
disclosure in 2010, Reuters has found.
In response to questions from Reuters, officials at the Clinton
Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and the foundation confirmed no
complete list of donors to the Clintons' charities has been
published since 2010. CHAI was spun off as a separate legal entity
that year, but the officials acknowledged it still remains subject
to the same disclosure agreement as the foundation.
The finding could renew scrutiny of Clinton's promises of
transparency as she prepares to launch her widely expected bid for
the White House in the coming weeks. Political opponents and
transparency groups have criticized her in recent weeks for her
decision first to use a private email address while she was
secretary of state and then to delete thousands of emails she
labeled private.
CHAI, which is best known for helping to reduce the cost of drugs
for people with HIV in the developing world, published a partial
donor list for the first time only this year.
CHAI should have published the names during 2010-2013, when Clinton
was in office, CHAI spokeswoman Maura Daley acknowledged this week.
"Not doing so was an oversight which we made up for this year," she
told Reuters in an email when asked why it had not published any
donor lists until a few weeks ago.
A spokesman for Hillary Clinton declined to comment. Former
President Bill Clinton, who also signed on to the agreement with the
Obama administration, was traveling and could not be reached for
comment, his spokesman said.
STATE DEPARTMENT REVIEW
The Reuters inquiries also raised questions about a second assurance
Hillary Clinton made to the Obama administration: that the State
Department would be able to review any new or increased
contributions to CHAI by foreign governments while she served as the
nation's top diplomat. The Clintons said the pledge was intended to
defuse accusations that foreign governments might use such donations
to earn favors.
By the time Clinton left office in February 2013, the charity had
received millions of dollars (Graphic: http://reut.rs/1Lvua8z) in
new or increased payments from at least seven foreign governments.
Five of the governments came on board during her tenure as secretary
of state while two doubled or tripled their support in that time,
according to data provided by CHAI spokeswoman Daley.
The State Department said it was unable to cite any instances of its
officials reviewing or approving new money from any foreign
governments. Daley confirmed that none of the seven government
donations had been submitted to the State Department for review.
One instance was an admitted oversight, Daley said: CHAI should have
told the State Department before accepting donations totaling
$340,000 from Switzerland's Agency for Development and Cooperation
in 2011 and 2012. However, it did not believe U.S. authorities
needed to review the other six governments, including Britain and
Australia, she said, citing various reasons.
 Hillary Clinton told the Senate during her confirmation hearing in
January, 2009, that the disclosures she and her husband agreed to
were "very unprecedented."
At that time, she did not dispute the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee's concerns that utter transparency was necessary to
protect the integrity of the United States' diplomacy and foreign
policy.
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BRITAIN, AUSTRALIA BOOSTED DONATIONS Since it was published in 2008,
the foundation's online donor list has been updated annually, naming
everyone from individuals giving a few dollars to governments
awarding eight-figure grants, the foundation said. It has been pored
over by interest groups, the Clintons' political opponents, and the
media.
The foundation list has not included those who donated just to CHAI
since the initiative was spun off in 2010, foundation spokesman
Craig Minassian said. Minassian said the foundation believed CHAI
continued to be bound by the agreement with the Obama
administration.
He did not elaborate on why CHAI did not honor it and referred
inquiries to Daley.
In the donor list that CHAI published this year, for the first time
since its spin-off from the Clinton Foundation, not all donors were
identified. Many were grouped together as "Individual Donations",
which cumulatively came to less than $1 million. Those donations
were small and so "did not warrant posting," said Daley.
In 2008, the Clintons agreed that existing government contributors
that wanted to "materially increase" their commitments during
Hillary Clinton's tenure would be reviewed by State. Australia
almost doubled its support between 2009-2012, to $12.2 million,
while the United Kingdom nearly tripled its support, to $11.2
million.
CHAI did not report these increases to the State Department because
the new money was for "expansions of existing programs," Daley said.
Daley also provided a number of explanations for why other
governments that appeared on a donor list provided to Reuters did
not need to be reviewed by the State Department. Swaziland and Papua
New Guinea, which gave small grants for AIDS programs, were not
submitted for review because the money they gave originated from
other sources, including existing donor Australia and the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, she said.
In the case of Sweden, its International Development Cooperation
Agency has given CHAI $7.2 million since 2012 to train health
workers in Zambia, but nothing in at least the previous three years.
This did not need State review because Sweden had given to the
foundation prior to 2009, Daley said.
Rwanda, which CHAI listed as a donor, gave the charity $200,000 in
2012. CHAI considered this a fee for medical work it did in the
country, not a grant or donation, and so did not tell the State
Department about it, Daley said.
Money from all of these governments amounted to about 1 percent of
CHAI's total budget, she said.
The White House declined to answer questions about whether the Obama
administration was aware of CHAI not disclosing its donors or
submitting new donations from foreign governments. White House
spokeswoman Jennifer Friedman noted, however, that the agreement the
Clintons entered into "went above and beyond standard ethics
requirements."
(Editing by Ross Colvin)
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