State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman gave the Clinton Foundation a pass on identifying foreign donors in its charitable filings — making it impossible to know if it got any special favors while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, according to a report Tuesday.
Scripps News found that the foundation and its subsidiary, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, took in $225 million in government donations between 2010 and 2014.
New York’s charity law clearly states: “Organizations that received a contribution or grant from a government agency during the reporting period shall include the name of each agency from which contributions were received and the amount of each contribution.”
But both the foundation and the CHAI failed to do that, and Schneiderman, a member of Clinton’s “leadership council” in New York and a fierce critic of Donald Trump, did nothing about it.
Other charities complied, including the George W. Bush foundation, which reported receiving $5 million from Saudi Arabia and $500,000 from Kuwait.
On its website, the Clinton Foundation reveals its foreign donors, but using only broad ranges, such as $5 million to $10 million, without any time frames. The IRS doesn’t require such disclosures.
In 2009, Clinton’s first year at the State Department, the foundation disclosed a lump sum of $122 million in foreign-government donations in its New York paperwork, posting the total amount on a form that requires all charities to “list each government contribution separately.”
Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin said, “This is a ridiculous accusation. The Clinton Foundation goes above and beyond the disclosure requirements by listing every donor on their website and updating the list quarterly.”
Schneiderman’s office said, “The Clinton Foundation’s disclosures regarding funding from foreign governments are in compliance with New York law.”