Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal weighed in Monday on the controversy surrounding donations by foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation, calling on Hillary Clinton to return the money in light of her likely bid for president.
“I don’t think the practice of her foundation accepting those donations is appropriate at all. I think they should return them, and I think it undermines her credibility,” Jindal, a likely Republican candidate for president, told the Washington Examiner. “If she does aspire to be president, if she does want to be in position of making foreign policy again, taking these donations from foreign governments … is bad both in perception and actuality.”
Clinton has faced backlash since the Wall Street Journal reported that the Clinton Foundation quietly began accepting millions of dollars from foreign governments after Clinton left the state department at the beginning of 2013. The foundation had stopped accepting such donations at the request of the Obama administration when Clinton became secretary of state in 2009.
The most recent donations included millions of dollars from countries that had not donated previously, including the United Arab Emirates, which donated between $1 million and $5 million in 2014. The sudden spike in foreign donations sparked cries from Republicans of a conflict of interest.
Former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” of those donations that “the appearances are awkward at best.”
“I think they’re going to have to do something in the very short term to deal with this in a way that will put it off the table,” Gibbs said.
In a statement Friday, the foundation suggested it might revert to its policy from Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state if she runs for president. In that scenario, Clinton would likely also step down from her role at the head of the foundation along with her husband and daughter.
But Jindal said the foreign donations will be the least of Clinton’s worries in a presidential election.
“I think even bigger than that. She’s got real issues in terms of bearing responsibility for a failed, a disastrous foreign policy,” Jindal added. “She was secretary of state, she wasn’t just an observer. She was at the center of these policies, and I don’t think it’ll be easy for her to run away from those policies.”
Jindal is among the Republicans weighing a bid for the presidency, but he has yet to develop a strong national profile, with support in the low single digits in most national polls.
