Hillary Clinton, you’re being watched.
The prominent charity watchdog group Charity Navigator has put the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation on its “watch list” along with two dozen other suspect charities, like Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.
Charity Navigator, which evaluates and rates charities on a 0-to-4 star scale, refused to rate the Clinton Foundation because the organization has an “atypical business model” and does not meet the “criteria” of the watchdog group.
Charities like the Clinton Foundation are placed on the watch list when Charity Navigator becomes aware “of conduct that may affect a donor’s decision to support that charity.”
According to the watchdog’s profile of the Clinton Foundation, the charity landed on the list for multiple reasons, such as the reports about the foundation’s acceptance of mass donations from foreign sources and the Clintons’ decision to appoint Donna Shalala — the former HHS secretary under President Bill Clinton — as the charity’s new CEO.
The negative reports surrounding the Clinton Foundation’s foreign donations — which will be the subject of much scrutiny in the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash” — have grown so prevalent that the charity’s acting CEO acknowledged the controversy in a blog post Sunday.
“We made mistakes, as many organizations of our size do, but we are acting quickly to remedy them, and have taken steps to ensure they don’t happen in the future,” wrote acting CEO Maura Pally. “We are committed to operating the Foundation responsibly and effectively to continue the life-changing work that this philanthropy is doing every day.”
Of course, Pally touted the foundation’s “commitment to transparency,” dismissing scrutiny of the charity’s potential conflicts of interest.
However, as the New York Post points out, the charity’s financial practices are nevertheless questionable. Though the Clinton Foundation accepted grants and pledges totaling over $140 million in 2013, it only spent $9 million on direct aid to countries.
