East Oregonian : E.O., August 24, 2016, Page Page 7A, Image 7

NATION/WORLD
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Clinton donors got face time with her at State
WASHINGTON (AP) —
More than half the people
outside the government who
met with Hillary Clinton
while she was secretary of
state gave money — either
personally or through groups
— to the Clinton Foundation.
It’s an extraordinary propor-
tion indicating her possible
ethics challenges if elected
president.
Donors who were granted
time with Clinton included
an internationally known
economist who asked for
her help as the Bangladesh
government pressured him to
resign from a nonprofit bank
he ran; a Wall Street execu-
tive who sought Clinton’s
help with a visa problem; and
Estee Lauder executives who
were listed as meeting with
Clinton while her department
worked with the firm’s
charity to counter violence in
South Africa.
They are among at least
85 of 154 people with private
interests who either met or
had phone conversations
scheduled with Clinton and
also gave to her family’s char-
ities, according to a review of
State Department calendars
released so far to The Asso-
ciated Press. Combined, the
85 donors contributed as
much as $156 million. The
154 does not include U.S.
federal employees or foreign
government representatives.
The AP’s findings repre-
sent the first systematic effort
to calculate the scope of
the intersecting interests of
Clinton foundation donors
and people who met with
Clinton or spoke to her by
phone about their needs.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File
In this Aug. 16 file photo, Democratic presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton speaks in Philadelphia.
The meetings between
the Democratic presidential
nominee and foundation
donors do not appear to
violate legal agreements
Clinton and former president
Bill Clinton signed before she
joined the State Department
in 2009. But the frequency
of the overlaps shows the
intermingling of access and
donations, and fuels percep-
tions that giving the founda-
tion money was a price of
admission for face time with
Clinton. Her calendars and
emails released as recently as
this week describe scores of
contacts she and her top aides
had with foundation donors.
Clinton’s campaign said
the AP analysis was flawed
because it did not include in
its calculations meetings with
foreign diplomats or U.S.
government officials, and
the meetings AP examined
covered only the first half of
Clinton’s tenure as secretary
of state.
“It is outrageous to misrep-
resent Secretary Clinton’s
basis for meeting with these
individuals,”
spokesman
Brian Fallon said. He called
it “a distorted portrayal of
how often she crossed paths
with individuals connected
to charitable donations to the
Clinton Foundation.”
Donald Trump’s vice
presidential candidate, Mike
Pence, said Tuesday the
overlaps identified by AP
were “further evidence of
the pay-to-play politics at her
State Department” and called
for a special prosecutor to
investigate.
Last week, the Clinton
Foundation
moved
to
head off ethics concerns
about future donations by
announcing changes planned
if she is elected. Those
planned changes would
not affect more than 6,000
donors who have already
provided the Clinton charity
with more than $2 billion in
funding since 2000.
“There’s a lot of poten-
tial conflicts and a lot of
potential problems,” said
Douglas White, an expert
on nonprofits at Columbia
University. “The point is, she
can’t just walk away from
these 6,000 donors.”
Muhammad Yunus, a
Bangladeshi
economist
who won the 2006 Nobel
Peace Prize for pioneering
low-interest “microcredit”
for poor business owners,
met with Clinton three times
and talked with her by phone
during a period when Bangla-
deshi government authorities
investigated his oversight
of a nonprofit bank and
ultimately pressured him to
resign from the bank’s board.
Throughout the process, he
pleaded for help in messages
routed to Clinton, and she
ordered aides to assist him.
Grameen America, the
bank’s nonprofit U.S. flag-
ship, which Yunus chairs,
has given between $100,000
and $250,000 to the foun-
dation — a figure that bank
spokeswoman Becky Asch
said reflects the institution’s
annual fees to attend CGI
meetings. Another Grameen
arm chaired by Yunus,
Grameen Research, has
donated between $25,000
and $50,000.
And in June 2011,
Clinton met with Nancy
Mahon of MAC AIDS, the
charitable arm of MAC
Cosmetics, which is owned
by Estee Lauder. The
meeting occurred before an
announcement about a State
Department partnership with
MAC AIDS to raise money
to finance AIDS education
and prevention.
The MAC AIDS fund
donated between $5 million
and $10 million to the
Clinton Foundation and
several million more through
the Clinton Global Initiative.
East Oregonian
Page 7A
BRIEFLY
Trump aides covertly fought
freeing of Ukraine prisoner
WASHINGTON (AP) — For more than three years,
lobbyist Jim Slattery worked in Washington to secure the
release in Ukraine of the imprisoned political rival of the
country’s then-president. He said the work was sometimes
harder than expected.
“I had a sense that there were people working on
the other side,” he said, “but they were doing it pretty
secretively.”
Slattery’s hunch was right. His unknown opponent:
The consulting firm run by Donald Trump’s former
campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his deputy Rick
Gates, now the campaign’s liaison to the Republican
National Committee.
Manafort resigned last week, shortly after disclosures
by The Associated Press about his firm’s covert lobbying
on behalf of Ukraine’s pro-Russian government.
Prisoner not seen publicly since
2002 at Gitmo hearing
WASHINGTON (AP) — The first high-profile
al-Qaida terror suspect captured after the attacks of Sept.
11, 2001 appeared Tuesday at a U.S. government hearing
called to determine whether he should remain in detention
at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian not seen publicly since
his capture by the CIA in 2002, sat expressionless during
the brief hearing. Zubaydah was also the first to vanish
into the CIA’s secret “black site” prison network and was
subjected to “enhanced interrogation.”
The U.S. contended that Zubaydah, 45, was one of
the most senior figures in al-Qaida when he was captured
in Pakistan. It has since dropped that claim. Zubaydah’s
lawyers deny he was a member of al-Qaida.
Feds want to ban swimming
with Hawaii dolphins
HONOLULU (AP) — Federal regulators are proposing
to ban swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, a move that
could imperil one of the Aloha State’s most popular tourist
activities and the industry that has sprung up around it.
The National Marine Fisheries Service says spinner
dolphins — the playful nocturnal species that humans in
Hawaii routinely frolic with — are being deprived of rest
during the day and becoming stressed out.
The proposed rule could shut down or greatly disrupt
the industry as it now operates.