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Clinton Knocks Corporations That Donate to Family Foundation

Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton / AP
May 4, 2016

Some of the corporations Hillary Clinton has criticized on the campaign trail for exploiting tax loopholes have donated to the Clinton Foundation for years.

ABC News reported Tuesday night that two of the companies Clinton has attacked most heavily, Pfizer and Johnson Controls, are longtime members of the Clinton Global Initiative and work in alliance with the foundation, which is headed by Bill Clinton.

Despite Clinton’s financial ties with the Wisconsin-based Johnson Controls, the former secretary of state has not shied away from railing against the group’s recent merger, accusing it of "gaming the system."

Johnson decided earlier this year to merge with Ireland-based Tyco International so that it could move its corporate headquarters overseas and pay lower corporate taxes, a strategy known as corporate inversion.

"It’s not an inversion; it should be called a perversion," Clinton said in February of the deal. Bill Clinton said the merger made him "sick."

The Clintons neglected to mention that Johnson Controls has donated between $100,001 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation since 2010.

Like the Johnson Controls merger with Tyco, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer intended to merge with global pharmaceutical company Allergan so it could base its operations oversees and qualify for lower corporate taxes.

Clinton in December told a campaign crowd that the planned merger "gets my blood going." That deal was later called off.

Again unmentioned by Clinton was the company’s decade-long relationship with the Clinton Foundation, which has funneled between $1,000,001 and $5 million to the organization.

Pfizer placed its donations on hold after the second quarter of 2015, but ABC News reported that it restarted contributions in 2016 despite a shower of attacks from the Clintons.

Clinton has made a plan to block inversion deals central to her campaign, even while her family foundation has made money from companies executing inversions.

"I have a detailed and targeted plan to immediately put a stop to inversions and invest in the U.S., block deals like Johnson Controls and Tyco, and place an ‘exit tax’ on corporations that leave the country to lower their tax bill," Clinton said in a January statement.