The Atlantic’s editorial director Ronald Brownstein said Friday that the "damage is done" when asked if the Clinton Foundation’s decision to stop foreign donations will erase the damage already done by previous donations during and after Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
The Clinton Foundation announced Thursday it will no longer accept foreign or corporate donations if Hillary Clinton is elected president in November. Bill Clinton also announced that he will no longer give paid speeches.
Brownstein believes that a sufficient amount of damage has already been done, however, despite these decisions by the Clinton Foundation.
"I think the damage is done. You can’t pull out the individual strands, but if you look at the overall numbers, certainly the percentage of Americans who don’t fully trust her or consider her trustworthy is extraordinarily high" Brownstein said.
CNN political commentator John Philips agreed with Brownstein’s comments.
"No. It is a conflict of interest. It was a conflict of interest. It brings the emails back into question because whatever was in those emails she made the determination that it was better for her politically to take the hit for deleting them than for allowing the public to see what was in them" Philips said.
The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. Some of these donations came from countries like Algeria, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, some of which have complicated diplomatic and financial relationships with the United States.