MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski emceed an event in 2011 that was keynoted by former President Bill Clinton and was attended by many Clinton Foundation donors, according to a new report.
The event, as described Tuesday by the International Business Times, was for the Kuwait-America Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based charity that promotes U.S. relations with Kuwait.
The report, by I.B. Times’ David Sirota and Andrew Perez, attempted to connect foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation to preferential treatment by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is now a Democratic presidential candidate. It said former President Bill Clinton was paid handsomely to deliver a speech, and that some of the countries had donated to the Clinton Foundation.
“In 2011, for example, the former president was paid $175,000 by the Kuwait America Foundation to be the guest of honor and keynote speaker at its annual awards gala, which was held at the home of the Kuwaiti ambassador,” the report says.
“The gala was emceed by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe show. Boeing was listed as a sponsor of the event, as were the embassies of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar — the latter two of which had donated to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.”
There is no record of Scarborough or Brzezinski having donated to the Clinton Foundation, which is currently the subject of controversy because of donations made while Hillary Clinton was in the government that had the potential to affect her foreign policy decisions.
The former president did, however, grant at least two interviews to the “Morning Joe” co-hosts after the Kuwait America Foundation event, one in September and one in November.
The reemergence of Scarborough and Brzezinski’s role at the event comes after ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos fell under scrutiny for having donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Stephanopoulos subsequently recused himself from moderating ABC News’s Republican presidential primary debate scheduled for early 2016.
Andrew Perez, one of the I.B. Times reporters, declined to say whether Scarborough and Brzezinski’s role at the event in 2011 raised any potential conflict of interests for MSNBC or “Morning Joe’s” coverage of the 2016 election.
“We are just reporting out the story and other people can make their own judgments,” he said.
A spokeswoman for MSNBC did not return a request for comment.
