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Hillary Clinton Dodges Questions on Bill Stepping Down From Foundation if She Becomes President

June 8, 2016

Hillary Clinton repeatedly dodged Anderson Cooper's questions Wednesday about whether her husband would step down from the Clinton Foundation should she become president.

Cooper asked Clinton this twice.

"Trump has said he is clearly going to be focusing on the Clinton Foundation," Cooper said. "Last night he said, and I quote, the Russians, the Saudis, the Chinese all gave money to the foundation and, ‘got favorable treatment in return.’ The foundation has obviously raised huge sums of money for worthy causes. It's always not been transparent, though. Tens of millions of dollars come from a Canadian partnership whose donors remain secret. There was a large donation from Algeria that wasn't submitted to the State Department for approval. If you're president, will your husband divest himself of any association with the foundation?"

Clinton gave the simple response that she would deal with that if and when she came to it. She acknowledged that there could be donations, "one or two instances," that could have slipped through the cracks. She then continued to list the things that the Clinton Foundation has done, though that was not asked of her. She also took the opportunity to hit Donald Trump.

"Anderson, you know, we will cross that bridge if and when we come to it, but let me try to set the record straight," she said. "We had absolutely overwhelming disclosure. Were there, you know, one or two instances that slipped through the cracks? Yes. But, was the overwhelming amount of anything that anybody gave the foundation disclosed? Absolutely."

Cooper asked again, should she become president, "obviously it's vital that you, or certainly your husband, not to appear to be in any way compromised. I guess, have you considered the idea of him stepping down?"

Clinton responded by telling Cooper that she won't consider anything at this moment. She then wanted to point out that "people give lots of money to presidential campaigns, don't they?"

She ended by saying that the work of her foundation speaks for itself.