Donna Brazile, interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said Sunday that she doesn’t see impropriety in overlaps between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department under Hillary Clinton.
“I don’t see what the smoke is,” Ms. Brazile said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The cozy relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the agency when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state came under increased scrutiny last week, with emails showing foundation donors seeking meetings and special treatment and an Associated Press report that more than half of Mrs. Clinton scheduled, non-government meetings were with foundation donors.
Ms. Brazile said that the behavior isn’t unusual for Washington.
“I’ve been a government official. So, you know, this notion that, somehow or another, someone who is a supporter, someone who is a donor, somebody who’s an activist, saying ’I want access, I want to come into a room and I want to meet people,’ we often criminalize behavior that is normal,” she said. “I don’t see what the smoke is.”
Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, last week said of the AP report that “there’s a lot of smoke and there’s no fire.”
Concerns about potential conflicts of interested recently prompted the Clinton Foundation to announce that it would stop accepting foreign donations if Mrs. Clinton is elected president.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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