Facts about the Clinton Foundation

One of the biggest false attacks on the Clinton Foundation is that it doesn’t spend enough money on charity – that only 5, 10, or 20 percent of our money goes to charity. The fact is – over 75 percent of the Clinton Foundation’s spending goes to charitable programs.

The claim that the Clinton Foundation doesn’t spend money on charity is totally false, and it’s been disproven by Politifact, FactCheck, CNN, the Associated Press, Politico, NBC News, who have repeatedly debunked these claims false for years.

Despite numerous allegations, none of the Clintons have ever taken a salary from the Foundation or any money for personal use. The Clintons have contributed roughly $25 million to it, in contributions from their family foundation and speeches they gave on behalf of the Foundation. This has been affirmed by Politifact: “The Clintons don’t take a salary from this work, and they don’t receive any other direct monetary benefit.”

These claims were taken to the extreme when accusations were made that Foundation funds were used to pay for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. President Clinton personally stated that this was untrue, and the Washington Post fact checker found there was “no evidence” to suggest this was true.

Claims about Uranium One, which were first asserted in Peter Schweizer’s discredited book “Clinton Cash,” rest on the idea that Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, gave approval for a deal involving the company Uranium One in 2010 and 2011, which benefited Clinton Foundation donors. The facts are simple and well-established:

• Secretary Clinton was NOT involved in the State Department’s review of the Uranium One deal;
• The State Department was one of nine agencies that was tasked with reviewing the deal, including the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce, Energy, and Justice Departments, as well as representatives from the United States Trade Representative and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy — only the President had the authority to approve or reject the deal;
• The largest Clinton Foundation donor cited in these claims sold his stake in Uranium One several years before the deal.

These claims have been thoroughly debunked by a wide range of fact checkers, including Snopes, Politifact, FactCheck.org, Washington Post’s Fact Checker, Fox News, and NBC News.

For over four decades, President Clinton has worked to help the people of Haiti. The Clinton Foundation has worked in the country through the Haiti Action Network – which has generated 130 commitments in action that are worth more than $500 million.

In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, the Clinton Foundation worked to deploy resources on the ground. All money collected by the Clinton Foundation was immediately directed to help in the wake of the devastating earthquake. The Clinton Foundation did not take a penny for overhead or charge any administrative fee. The Washington Post and the former AP correspondent in Haiti have both examined claims that the Foundation stole money from Haiti and found them to be baseless.

For the past few years, fake news sites and right-wing conspiracy theorists have targeted the Clinton Foundation with a sustained disinformation and propaganda campaign. Here are some of the “stories” they have run, which fact checkers have found to be fabricated:

• FALSE: A Clinton Foundation cargo ship was stopped with weapons, drugs, and human refugees
• FALSE: The Clinton Foundation charged FEMA $7 for bottle of water in Texas after Hurricane Harvey
• FALSE: The Clinton Foundation distributed watered-down AIDS drugs
• FALSE: Clinton Foundation officials were arrested by the FBI this year
• FALSE: Hundreds of millions in cash were seized from a Clinton Foundation warehouse
• FALSE: The Clinton Foundation murdered a doctor who exposed corruption in Haiti
• FALSE: The Clinton Foundation murdered a New Jersey couple by blowing up their house
• FALSE: The Clinton Foundation was involved in the 2017 Mandalay Bay shooting
• FALSE: The Clinton Foundation murdered a Haitian official in 2017
• FALSE: The Clinton Foundation paid $375,000 to Khizr Khan during the 2016 campaign
• FALSE: The Clinton Foundation received millions in donations from El Chapo
• FALSE: The Clinton Foundation gave millions to Antifa
• FALSE: Clinton Foundation paid Bill Ayers, Glenn Beck, Bill Kristol, and ACORN for “voter suppression”
• FALSE: A Trump accuser has the same phone number as the Clinton Foundation

In fact, on several occasions, investigative journalists have looked into the Foundation’s actual work – helping people around the world – and come back with positive conclusions.

 

In 2016, after several days seeing the Clinton Foundation’s work and impact on the ground in rural Tanzania, Politifact reporter Jon Greenberg saw the impact of the Foundation’s work firsthand:

“Because of the foundation’s intervention, the 62-year-old Kipati upped his maize harvest from seven sacks to 20. And Kipati didn’t just boost his harvest, he got a better price at market. The extra money helped send his children to better schools, put a new roof on his house and plant a row of pine trees to sell as lumber a decade from now. About a five-hour walk away is the local grain trader. When the two parties meet, the grain trader has the upper hand. Everyone is selling now, and he knows these guys won’t be hauling the heavy crop back home if the price isn’t right. These are the sort of people the Clinton Foundation’s farming project in Tanzania aims to help. ‘We want to see them grow more on the same land, and for a better price,’ said Seleman Kaoneka, the program manager.”

In 2015, two investigative journalists with the New York Times spent several months examining the Clinton Foundation’s work in Africa, running an in-depth piece that concluded: “In Rwanda, a review of the foundation’s history shows that it has done vital, often pathbreaking work, particularly in health and rural development.”

In recent weeks, some have said that donations to the Clinton Foundation are down compared to previous years, which is proof of pay-for-play at the Foundation. This is false. There was a drop in revenue and expenses in 2017 that was largely attributable to the Clinton Foundation ending its annual meetings for the Clinton Global Initiative in 2016 – a change announced before the election.

Foundation CEO Kevin Thurm detailed the reason for this in a public letter: “As has been reported, after we announced in August of 2016 that the 2016 CGI Annual Meeting would be the final meeting, we anticipated a decline in both revenue and expenses for 2017, largely attributable to the absence of sponsorship and membership contributions for CGI.”

In 2017, many Republicans claimed that the Clinton Foundation had been shut down. As FactCheck.org pointed out at the time, “In reality, the Clinton Foundation is still very active.”

The Clinton Foundation is properly registered in all states where we solicit donations, as part of our commitment to good governance.

During the 2016 election, the Clinton Foundation was attacked for minor registration issues that had come up over a decade ago. These claims resurfaced in recent days. When these issues were first raised in 2016, a respected nonprofit expert said that they were “minor infractions equivalent to reporting someone was issued a traffic ticket for parking fifteen inches from the curb, instead of twelve as required by an ordinance.”