Hillary Clinton’s campaign is pushing back against reports that the former secretary of state granted State Department access to Clinton Foundation donors, calling allegations of impropriety “outrageous.”
“At every juncture they set up the highest possible standards and the State Department itself has said that there was no conflict of interest,” campaign manager Robby Mook told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.
An Associated Press investigation published Tuesday said that over half of the meetings Clinton held with private citizens as secretary of state were with Clinton Foundation donors, prompting Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to accuse her of fostering a “pay-for-play” environment.
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon released a statement Tuesday charging that the report used “utterly flawed data” that “cherry-picked a limited subset of Secretary’s Clinton’s schedule to give a distorted portrayal of how often she crossed paths with individuals connected to charitable donations to the Clinton Foundation.”
Mook told “Morning Joe” that Clinton held 1,700 meetings with world leaders and hundreds more with U.S. government officials during her time in the State Department. The AP investigation said that 85 of 154 meetings or phone calls Clinton held with private citizens were with donors to the family charity.
Mook argued that Clinton’s meetings paled in comparison to Donald Trump’s complex financial ties to international businesses.
“Hillary Clinton and her family had a foundation. It is charitable. They don’t receive a salary from it,” Mook said. “Donald Trump and his bottom line and his net worth are directly connected to all kinds of international entities. The Bank of China. A number of large Russian companies. Goldman Sachs. He is indebted or reliant for income on a number of these entities and nobody is asking him to disclose or divest.”
Trump this week called the foundation a “criminal enterprise” that should be shut down.
