The USA Today editorial Board joined the chorus of voices demanding that the Clinton Foundation shutter its doors for good amid accusations that the organization used pay-for-play tactics during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
While former President Bill Clinton said Monday he would resign from the foundation’s board and stop soliciting donations in an official capacity if his wife wins the White House, USA Today said the changes "won’t stop people from trying to buy access through the foundation."
USA Today wrote in an op-ed published Wednesday:
Ending foreign and corporate contributions is a good step, but allowing them to continue at least through the first week of November looks more like an influence-peddling fire sale (Give while you still can!) than a newfound commitment to clean government. And the complex plan for allowing donations from U.S. citizens and permanent residents, keeping some parts of the Clinton Foundation alive, and maintaining scores of Clinton-family allies on the payroll is less an opportunity for a clean slate than a guarantee of new controversy.
The only way to eliminate the odor surrounding the foundation is to wind it down and put it in mothballs, starting today, and transfer its important charitable work to another large American charity such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
A foundation spokesman confirmed to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that Chelsea Clinton would remain on the Clinton Foundation board regardless of whether her mother is elected president this fall, raising more questions for the charity.
Donald Trump has seized on recently leaked State Department emails underling overlapping interests between the Clinton Foundation and the department while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state. Trump on Monday called the foundation "the most corrupt enterprise in political history" and has demanded that a special prosecutor investigate the organization.
An April 2009 exchange published from Clinton’s private server revealed that a top associate at the foundation had pushed to set up a meeting between a billionaire donor and the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon.
USA Today said if Hillary Clinton refuses to close down the foundation, she "opens herself up to the same kind of pay-to-play charges that she was subject to as secretary of State."
"Should Clinton win, she’ll face an uphill battle to rebuild trust in government and find a way to get Washington working again. That task will be all the harder if millions of voters repulsed by Trump’s rhetoric and concerned with his volatile behavior find that his ‘Crooked Hillary’ taunt had some substance in fact," the editorial board wrote.