Clinton's charity confirms Qatar's $1
million gift while she was at State Dept
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[November 05, 2016]
By Jonathan Allen
NEW YORK (Reuters) - 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.
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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.
"MATERIAL" INCREASE
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.(http://reut.rs/2fkHPCh)
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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
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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.
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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.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Additional reporting by Tom Finn in
Doha; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Andrew Hay)
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