Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told CNN Sunday that ABC newsman George Stephanopoulos should have disclosed that he had made donations to the Clinton Foundation when he asked lawmakers, including Sanders, for comments on controversies relating to the foundation.
“I think he should have made that public,” Sanders said, noting that as a senator, he has to file financial disclosure forms.
On Friday, Stephanopoulos admitted that he had given $75,000 to the foundation between 2012 and 2014 and failed to disclose this to anyone even while he was covering Hillary Clinton’s presidential race. He said he made the donations to support the foundation’s charitable work.
“I should have made additional disclosures on air when I covered the foundation, and I now believe that directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake,” he said Friday.
On ABC, Stephanopoulos did several interviews relating to the controversy with the foundation, including with author Peter Schweizer, author of Clinton Cash, an expose about the foundation. He also interviewed Sanders, who is running against Clinton for the 2016 presidential nomination, on May 3 and asked him about the issue.
Sanders told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that he felt little outrage over the matter. “Between you and me, I don’t think it is the biggest deal in the world,” he said.
Stephanopoulos has close ties to the Clintons, having helped run Bill Clinton’s 1992 White House campaign and served as press secretary during his subsequent administration. He has since tried to establish himself as a mainstream on-air newsman at ABC.
The Clinton Foundation, mainly run by Bill Clinton, has been the subject of controversy for having accepted donations from foreign governments that had business before the State Department while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. The foundation did not disclose all of the donations it received.
