Democratic Credibility Diminished By Clinton Global Initiative's Shuttering

Democratic Credibility Diminished By Clinton Global Initiative’s Shuttering

After Election Day, Congressional Democrats love nothing more than to talk about conflicts of interest. Yet the re-emergence into the news of the Clinton Global Initiative, is the perfect reminder of the historic hypocrisy they showed by supporting failed candidate Hillary Clinton. Last week, the Clinton Foundation filed paper work that officially closed CGI. Yet […]

January 17, 2017

After Election Day, Congressional Democrats love nothing more than to talk about conflicts of interest. Yet the re-emergence into the news of the Clinton Global Initiative, is the perfect reminder of the historic hypocrisy they showed by supporting failed candidate Hillary Clinton.

Last week, the Clinton Foundation filed paper work that officially closed CGI. Yet as National Review points out, the rationale for closing CGI before the election is no longer there with Clinton’s loss:

“Before the election, when Hillary Clinton’s victory in the presidential race appeared likely, the Clinton Foundation declared that it would wind down the initiative no matter how the election turned out. At the time, those plans made sense: It would be unseemly to say the least if a corporate- and foreign-government-funded networking event was directly connected to the sitting president. But there was never much official explanation of why CGI would need to shut down in the case of a Clinton defeat. After all, the world didn’t run out of poor people or sick people on November 8.”

The only rationale for closing CGI now would be that corporations and foreign governments would have no reason to donate to CGI now that the Clintons were finished in politics. The facts bare that conclusion out already, as the governments of Australia and Norway have slashed their giving to the Clinton Foundation in the wake of Clinton’s lose:

“But after the election, some of the foundation’s donors acted as if the causes CGI supported were no longer worthy. The Australian government said it did not intend to continue its donations to the Clinton Foundation; it had given $88 million over ten years. After dramatically increasing its yearly donation in 2014 and 2015, the government of Norway chose to reduce its donation by 87 percent after the election.”

Australia and Norway’s decisions further clarify that the real purpose of CGI was influence-peddling and donor maintenance. While Democrats love to talk about such issues now, their silence in the wake of the Clintons’ years of selling access shows their talk now is just politics.