Indiana Gov. Mike Pence hammered Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine Tuesday during the vice presidential debate over controversies stemming from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, highlighting the Democratic nominee’s struggle to earn the trust of voters in either party.
“The reason the American people don’t trust Hillary Clinton is because they are looking at the pay-to-play politics that she operated with the Clinton Foundation through a private server while she was secretary of state and they’re saying, ‘Enough is enough,'” Pence said.
Donald Trump’s running mate tried thrice to attack Clinton on the conduct of her family’s foundation and the classified information on her email server.
“Foreign donors and foreign governments cannot participate in the American political process,” Pence said. “But the Clintons found a way to create a foundation where foreign donors and foreign governments could donate millions of dollars.”
Kaine claimed that the State Department has cleared Clinton of wrongdoing through an investigation of her treatment with donors, although no such investigation has taken place.
“Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, took no action to benefit the foundation,” Kaine said. “The State Department did an investigation, and they concluded that everything Hillary Clinton did as secretary of state was completely in the interests of the United States.”
The Virginia senator instead hit Pence on the Republican nominee’s family foundation and its 2013 donation to Pam Bondi, the Florida attorney general who was then weighing an investigation into Trump’s eponymous “university.”
But Pence kept the pressure on Clinton’s controversies throughout the evening, trying thrice to attack Clinton on the conduct of her family’s foundation and the classified information on her email server.
The Indiana governor argued that he and Kaine’s sons, both in the military, would have been court martialed had they stored the same volume of classified material on servers in their basements.
“A full investigation concluded that not one reasonable prosecutor would take any additional steps,” Kaine said in defense of Clinton’s email scandal.
Kaine glossed over a direct question about his running mate’s email controversy early in the debate by arguing he trusts Clinton because she has always demonstrated a “passion” for service.
“She has been focused on serving others with a special focus on empowering families and kids,” Kaine said. “That’s a sharp contrast with Donald Trump.”
The controversy over Clinton’s emails has clung to her campaign since its launch in April of last year.
While the Democratic nominee has repeatedly attempted to shed the scandal by denying wrongdoing, a year-long FBI investigation and protracted open records process has allowed the allegations against her to survive.
Questions about the Clinton Foundation have dogged Clinton since President Obama nominated her for secretary of state in 2009. Shortly before her confirmation hearing, Clinton signed a memorandum of understanding with the White House that was supposed to minimize potential conflicts of interest by requiring the disclosure of donors and spinning off the most controversial arm of the charity, the Clinton Global Initiative, into an independent entity.
But the foundation did not always follow the terms of that deal, failing to reveal some of its foreign contributors in omissions later described as errors by charity staff.
Critics have expressed similar concerns about how the Clinton Foundation will operate should Clinton claim victory in November. Although her husband has vowed to take a step back from the organization if she wins, Clinton has struggled to explain why the charity is still accepting foreign and corporate donations.
Trump’s campaign has blasted the present policy as a “fire sale,” arguing it permits donors to purchase influence on the assumption that Clinton could soon become the next president.
The dangers of the Clintons’ current approach were on full display late last month, when charity donors lavished Clinton’s husband with a multi-million dollar birthday celebration and subsequently refused to release the names of who paid for the party.
In late August, Clinton’s allies blanketed the airwaves in defense of the foundation following a report from the Associated Press that found the former secretary of state reserved more than half of her non-governmental meetings for foundation donors.
Pence pointed to that Associated Press report during the vice presidential debate Tuesday as an example of the preferential treatment Clinton offered to her foundation contributors.
Bill Clinton has vowed that his namesake foundation will reject foreign and corporate donations should his wife win the presidency. Although he would step down from the charity’s board, his daughter, Chelsea Clinton, plans to remain involved with the foundation if her mother is victorious in November.
Chelsea Clinton’s intention to remain on the charity’s board has allowed criticism of the foundation to continue, as critics have argued that donors could still consider the charity a conduit for influence so long as a Clinton sits at its helm.
