The Clinton Foundation has no plans to reveal who is paying for a lavish birthday party Friday for former President Bill Clinton, a spokesman said just hours after Donna Shalala, president of the foundation, indicated that it would.
Shalala told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota Thursday that she had reviewed the list of donors to Bill Clinton’s Manhattan bash, which was first reported by Politico on Wednesday, and planned to disclose them.
“There is a found raiser coming up … in honor of President Clinton’s birthday, and there will be a fundraiser for the Clinton Foundation,” Camerota said. “But I think you’ve said that they will not disclose what amount is raised or from whom.”
Shalala quickly indicated the party sponsors would be made public.
“We will disclose the donors, there’s no question about it,” Shalala said. “We will, as we do on our tax return, disclose the money that we raise, the tax — the IRS tells you actually not to connect the donation with the person’s name. But we certainly will disclose the donors. And listen — for that party, I looked at the list, and other than two people, all of them are people who have been annual donors to the foundation and are longtime friends of the president.”
But a foundation spokesman told the Washington Examiner that the disclosure will come in the form of a “donor update” including the names of everyone who gave to the charity over the past quarter.
By doing so, the identities of who paid for Bill Clinton’s party — and how much they spent — will be indistinguishable from the rest of the contributions the charity raked in over the past three months.
Bill Clinton’s 70th birthday party will double as a foundation fundraiser; guests were asked to pay $250,000 to be listed as a chair or $100,000 to be listed as a co-chair.
The glitzy gathering comes as Hillary Clinton struggles to overcome the perception that her family’s foundation posed potential conflicts of interest while she served as secretary of state.
Bill Clinton has pledged that the charity will reject foreign and corporate donations should his wife win the White House in November and agreed to shutter the Clinton Global Initiative no matter who voters select as the next president.
