Critics doubt Clinton Foundation’s pledge to curb foreign donations

Trump’s son questioned why the foreign contributions would pose a conflict of interest for a president if, as Hillary Clinton frequently argues, they posed no conflict for her when she was secretary of state.

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the proposed adjustments were “too little, too late” to insulate Hillary Clinton from the controversy surrounding the charity.

“[I]f everything was above board while Hillary Clinton ran the State Department as the Clintons have said, then why change a thing?” Priebus said in a statement. “But now that they have admitted there is a problem, the Clinton Foundation should immediately cease accepting foreign donations and return every penny ever taken from other countries, several of which have atrocious human rights records and ties to terrorism.”

The RNC chairman also blasted the Clinton Foundation for continuing to welcome foreign and corporate donations during Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Bill Clinton’s announcement of the changes came amid renewed scrutiny of the foundation’s ever-growing donor rolls. Recently released emails revealed Clinton Foundation donors were provided special access to Hillary Clinton’s senior staff in the early months of her tenure.

Matthew Whitaker, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, said Hillary and Bill Clinton entered a similar agreement with the White House in 2009. That agreement did not prevent the Clinton Foundation from accepting foreign and even “questionable” donations during Hillary Clinton’s four years in the administration, Whitaker noted.

“This would supposedly stop foreign donations. It doesn’t address the special access issues,” Whitaker told the Washington Examiner. “Donors can still give to the foundation to receive special treatment.”

The Clinton Foundation is comprised of more than a half-dozen separate groups and projects operating under the same philanthropic network. While the lines between those entities are often blurred, the new policies may apply inconsistently across the organization.

For example, the largest arm of the foundation, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, told Reuters Friday it had not yet decided whether to implement the same strict limits on contributions as the rest of the charity.

Bill Clinton said the upcoming annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, one of the most controversial incarnations of the foundation, would be its last regardless of the election results.

The Clinton Global Initiative convened celebrities, corporate executives and wealthy donors at glitzy conferences each year, encouraging attendees to pledge money and resources to a wide range of charitable causes.

However, fewer than half of the “commitments” made at the Clinton Global Initiative events ever became reality.

The Clinton Foundation has served as a magnet for criticism since Hillary Clinton launched her campaign last year.

Following the publication of a book in May 2015 about the charity’s foreign benefactors, Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer, Republicans began raising questions about the pattern of preferential treatment that seemingly flowed from the State Department toward the foundation’s most generous contributors.

Dozens of emails obtained through a handful of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits in the months since have demonstrated instances in which foundation employees or donors had contact with Hillary Clinton’s closest aides in an apparent violation of the Memorandum of Understanding she signed upon entering the administration.

Under that agreement, the Clinton Foundation was supposed to reduce dramatically its acceptance of overseas contributions and disclose its foreign donors to the government. That did not occur in every case, subsequent reporting revealed.