Former President Bill Clinton says allegations in a newly released book documenting foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation while former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in office, “won’t fly” and that “you just have to learn to deal with” the fact that “there’s one set of rules for politics in America and another set for real life.”
Mo Ibrahim, a billionaire donor to the Clinton Foundation, lamented the American news media’s recent coverage of the foundation during the opening session of a Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Morocco.
“What is wrong if Saudi Arabia [gives] money for a farm in Africa?” he asked, Politico reported. “What’s the big deal? Is that not a good thing to do?”
“I just work here — I don’t know,” Mr. Clinton said later. “Look, there’s one set of rules for politics in America and another set for real life, and you just have to learn to deal with it.”
As Mrs. Clinton gets her 2016 presidential campaign under way, her team has been forced to push back against suggested connections in the book “Clinton Cash” by conservative author Peter Schweizer between donations made to the Clinton Foundation while Mrs. Clinton was serving as secretary of state.
In an interview with CNN, Mr. Clinton said allegations in the book “won’t fly.”
SEE ALSO: Bill Clinton: ‘There’s one set of rules for us and another set for everybody else’
“There’s just no evidence,” Mr. Clinton said. “Even the guy that wrote the book apparently had to admit under questioning that he didn’t have a shred of evidence for this, we just sort of thought we would throw it out there and see if it flies, and it won’t fly.”
Mr. Schweizer conceded during a recent appearance on ABC’s “This Week” that he had no direct evidence Mrs. Clinton, for example, had intervened in a uranium deal that involved a donor to the foundation — a deal, Mrs. Clinton’s team points out, that got approval from nine separate government agencies.
“But it warrants further investigation because, again … this is part of the broader pattern,” Mr. Schweizer said. “You either have to come to the conclusion that these are all coincidences, or something else is afoot.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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