After being taunted by Democratic rival Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton have finally released some of their tax returns, which show the Democratic power couple raking in $109 million over the past eight years and donating $10.2 million to charity.
As usual with the Clintons, however, there is less — and more — than first meets the eye. More than half of the Clintons’ charitable tax write-offs went to the Clinton Family Foundation, based in their Chappaqua, N.Y., home. Bill is foundation president, Hillary its secretary and treasurer, and daughter Chelsea a director. Veteran Clinton watchers aren’t surprised that the Clintons are their own favorite charity or that Hillary failed to list her own home-based foundation on her annual Senate disclosure forms at least five times. When Republicans do this kind of thing, it’s called a tax dodge or worse.
As The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets have noted, the Clinton Family Foundation was set up in 2001 but made most of its disbursements only after Hillary announced her bid for the presidency. Thisraises questions about whether the Clintons’ “politically targeted philanthropy” in key primary states violated federal election laws. A $100,000 gift the foundation made, for example, to a South Carolina library the day after Hillary appeared there for a presidential debate fails the political smell test. So does a grant to Arkansas businessman Tansukhlal “Tom” Bhakta, whose business partner represented Hillary’s broker when her commodities trading made nearly $100,000 in profits in the late 1970s. In 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned Bhakta for a 1991 tax evasion conviction only months after the Bhakta family contributed to Hillary’s Senate campaign.
Tax-exempt charitable funds are for helping the helpless or advancing worthy causes, not paying off campaign contributors. The Clintons can’t even give money away without raising eyebrows. These disturbing financial disclosures came just as Mark Penn was removed as chief political strategist, supposedly for helping the Colombian government gain a free-trade deal with the United States even as Hillary slams free trade daily on the campaign trail. But because Penn willcontinue polling for and advising the Clinton campaign, only his title has changed. This is vintage Clinton — trying to have it both ways. If Hillary Clinton can’t run a presidential campaign without getting into ethical hot water, how can she possibly avoid it while running the country?
