President Obama will be skipping the Clinton Global Initiative’s final meeting in New York next month as the annual convention comes to an end.
The White House confirmed to Politico on Monday that, while Obama will be in the area mid-September as the event is taking place, he will not be making an appearance at former president Bill Clinton’s final yearly gathering of international leaders.
Obama attended the CGI meeting every year from 2009 until 2015, following Hillary Clinton’s announcement to run for president.
Bill Clinton told Clinton Foundation staff last week that he plans to resign from the foundation’s board and will end the annual CGI meeting regardless of whether his wife wins the presidency.
The decision comes amid renewed scrutiny of leaked State Department emails that underlined overlapping interests between the Clinton Foundation and the department during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
The White House said controversy surrounding the Clinton Foundation did not influence the president’s decision not to attend the meeting. Instead, an administration officials said his absence was due to "a function of schedule."
"The president has spoken at their gathering several times and has expressed how much he values the work being done by the foundation around the world," the official told Politico.