Women in the World’s Tina Brown punted when asked for her opinion on allegations Bill and Hillary Clinton personally benefited by exploiting Clinton’s position in the State Department to solicit donations to the Clinton Foundation.
Brown, an outspoken Clinton supporter, offered no substantial defense of Clinton’s actions other than attempting to split Hillary Clinton from the Foundation’s actions. The former editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and the Daily Beast struggled to formulate a coherent retort to accusations of Clinton’s corruption.
"The Foundation is the Foundation and–you know, they are going to have to sort whatever it is they do out," Brown said. "I mean, this woman is running for president now. We’ll see how she handles all of this."
The Clinton Foundation remains a major foil for Clinton and her allies’ presidential ambitions. Brown’s decision not to side with Clinton on the issue may stem from the Foundation’s acceptance of money from foreign nations with severe policies against women’s rights, undermining Clinton’s position as a women’s advocate.
A book called Clinton Cash, set for release May 5, alleges that a number of foreign governments received favors from Clinton after they donated to the Clinton Foundation while she was at the State Department. Peter Schweizer’s investigation found that Bill Clinton received high paying speaking engagements in exchange for access to Hillary in Foggy Bottom.
"We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds," Schweizer said.
Clinton Cash aims to confirm an apparent conflict of interest: large sums of money from foreign governments flooding the Clinton Foundation’s coffers so that they could buy influence with the State Department
The "pay-for-play" examples include a free-trade agreement with Colombia that benefited a donor, developments in Haiti following a destructive earthquake in 2010, and more than $1 million paid to Bill Clinton by a Canadian bank with interest in the Keystone XL pipeline at the same time the State Department was making its decision on the project.
Even though Clinton said that she and her husband were "dead broke" when they left the White House, the couple has raked in more than $100 million since 2000. The majority of their income came from paid speeches with billings has high as $500,000.