Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wants former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to return all donations made by foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation.
“The Clinton Foundation collected tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments including donors who had business interests with the State Department while Clinton was secretary,” Mr. Cruz said in a statement. “She made decisions in that capacity that likely benefited the same people who were giving large donations to the foundation.”
“At the very least, these revelations present a clear conflict of interest. I call on Hillary Clinton to return the donations from foreign governments. Until she does, how can the American people trust her with another position of power?” said Mr. Cruz, who is running for president.
Mrs. Clinton resigned from the board of the foundation earlier this month as her presidential campaign geared up, but the foundation has received renewed attention in recent days in the wake of a New York Times report that it accepted more than $2 million from a businessman involved in a Russian uranium deal that required approval of the U.S. State Department.
The foundation has said it will continue to accept contributions from foreign governments, namely from Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as Mrs. Clinton runs for president.
Her campaign has vigorously pushed back against the report, as well as newly released excerpts from the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich” by conservative author Peter Schweizer.
The campaign said Mrs. Clinton herself was not involved in the State Department’s review of the deal and that the State Department was just one of nine agencies involved in the U.S. government’s review of the deal.
The campaign also said the donor in question, Ian Telfer, has said he never spoke to Mrs. Clinton about the deal and that a second donor named in the report, Frank Giustra, sold his stake in the company that stood to benefit three years before the deal happened.
But the $2.35 million donation was not disclosed as required by a memorandum of understanding with the Obama administration crafted to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, The Times reported.
Former Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III, who is also considering a presidential run, did Mr. Cruz one better, calling on Mrs. Clinton to drop out of the race entirely and saying that she should never have been the secretary of state given the interests of the Clinton Foundation.
“She is not qualified because of the need of the nation for a sense of integrity, for a sense of trust, and she can’t do that,” Mr. Gilmore told MSNBC.
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