Bill
Clinton defends charity, says won't give up paid speeches
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[May 05, 2015]
By Steve Holland and Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S.
President Bill Clinton said on Monday he would continue to give paid
speeches while his wife, Hillary Clinton, runs for president amid
criticism of the income her family draws from people, including
foreigners, with business before the U.S. government.
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He also said he may consider stepping down or taking "less of an
executive role" at the Clinton Foundation should his wife become
president. The Clintons' political opponents have criticized the
foundation for accepting funding from foreign governments for its
endowment and for its charitable work abroad.
"I gotta pay our bills," Clinton told NBC News from Kenya when asked
about his speeches, for which he sometimes charges more than
$500,000, in an interview taped over the weekend. "We do our best to
vet them. And I have turned down a lot of them. If I think there's
something wrong with it, I don't take it."
His decision to emerge from the sidelines and speak out about the
Clinton Foundation reflects concerns about getting Hillary Clinton's
campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination back on a
sound footing after it took a pounding in recent weeks.
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The former first lady, also a previous secretary of state and former
senator from New York, has attempted to present herself as a
candidate who would fight for everyday Americans.
But her campaign has been on the defensive over questions about
foreign donations to the family's charitable organization and
whether her work as President Barack Obama's first-term secretary of
state was influenced by the donations.
In response to the attacks, her campaign plans to unveil a website,
called "The Briefing, which it described as a "one-stop shop to
provide the facts about Hillary Clinton’s positions and her record."
Campaign Chairman John Podesta said in an Internet posting that the
website would provide the public with direct access to Clinton's
policy agenda "as well as the facts needed to debunk false attacks."
Scrutiny of the Clinton Foundation has focused on foreign donations
as well as on Bill Clinton.
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The former president described the controversy as old news.
"There's been a very deliberate attempt to take the foundation
down," Clinton said.
"There is no doubt in my mind that we have never done anything
knowingly inappropriate in terms of taking money to influence any
kind of American government policy," Clinton said. "That just hasn't
happened." There was nothing sinister in getting wealthy people
around the world to donate to a charity that focuses on helping poor
people, he said.
The Clinton Foundation and an associated charity confirmed to
Reuters in March for the first time that they failed to adhere to
central parts of an ethics agreement Hillary Clinton signed with the
White House that required heightened transparency while she was
secretary of state.
A State Department spokesman said on Monday the department was "not
aware of any evidence" that donations to the foundation influenced
the actions that Clinton took as secretary of state.
(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Peter Cooney; Editing
by Bernadette Baum, Ted Botha and Ken Wills)
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