CNN host Alisyn Camerota pressed a Hillary Clinton supporter Monday on the overlapping interests of the Clinton Foundation and State Department while Clinton was secretary of state, saying the "bright line" the Obama administration desired between the two entities did not exist.
Camerota asked former South Carolina Rep. Bakari Sellers (D.) about a recently released email in which Clinton Foundation official Doug Band directed top Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin to put a billionaire foundation donor in contact with the State Department’s "contact person" on Lebanon.
"It sounds to, at least Mike Pence and the Republicans, as though there is some sort of paying for access," Camerota said.
Sellers denied any pay-for-play action was happening in that exchange.
"There’s no fire here. There’s no smoking gun here," Sellers said. "This again are emails that the American public is tired of."
Camerota concurred that there was no "smoking gun," but she also insisted the clear barrier between the two Clinton-controlled organizations that President Obama wanted was clearly not there.
"There’s also not the bright line here between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation that Hillary Clinton had said was going to exist, or certainly the Obama administration insisted upon when she went to the State Department," Camerota said. "If there are these emails and these conversations of ‘please do a favor for this person’ or ‘please grant access to this person,’ that’s not a bright line."
Sellers pointed to what he called the good work done by the foundation and how the media should focus on that instead.
"People don’t understand that this public charity has literally saved lives around the world," he said.