CLINTON SAYS ACCIDENTALLY TOOK $500,000 FROM ALGERIA DURING KEY ARMS NEGOTIATION WITH STATE DEPARTMENT
Bill Clinton is claiming his foundation “accidentally” accepted money from foreign governments who were negotiating with his wife while she was Secretary of State – a definite no-no.
The Clinton Foundation received $500,000 from Algeria in 2010 while the country was lobbying the State Department for an increase in weapons export authorization.
The International Business Times says that:
http://www.ibtimes.com/bill-clinton-says-he-will-stop-paid-speeches-if-hillary-clinton-elected-president-1961307
“some of those export authorizations were for weapons classified as “toxicological agents, including chemical agents [and] biological agents.”
“[Critics] said, ‘Oh you got $500,000 from Algeria at very same time they were lobbying the State Department,’” Clinton said. “Those two facts are accurate but if you put them back-to-back they are incredibly misleading. Here’s why: I never considered that the Algerians gave me the money.”
Huh?
Clinton said that at the time of the donation, “We put out the word that if anyone wanted to send me money I would forward it on quickly to Haiti where it would do most good and would take zero overhead.” The sequence of the money and the lobbying, he asserted, “was just an accident. To me it was like a pass-through. I didn’t even think about it.”
Clinton did say he does not fault those who raise questions about the donations.
“I don’t blame whoever saw that [Algeria story] reported for asking the question about it, because they would have no way of knowing the context,” he said.
As IBTimes has reported, Algeria is one of six countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation and received weapons deals from Hillary Clinton’s State Department at the same time the department was criticising its record on human rights.
