OPINION:
Bill and Hillary Clinton aren’t — and seem incapable of — drawing clear lines between their charity, the Clinton Foundation, personal wealth and public service.
On Wednesday, a memo written by Clinton crony Doug Band detailed how he would recruit corporate donors to the Clinton Foundation at his firm Teneo, and then would solicit private speeches and vacation time for Mr. Clinton from them as well. Mr. Band called the endeavor “Bill Clinton Inc.”
When Mrs. Clinton’s vice presidential candidate, Tim Kaine, was asked about the memo, leaked by WikiLeaks, he had no good answer. Speaking with a local reporter in Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Kaine even said Mr. Clinton was “entitled,” to his personal riches.
“He’s a president and is entitled. … Most presidents do very, very well when they leave office so there’s no difference between Bill Clinton and others in that regard,” Mr. Kaine told WBNS-TV Thursday.
But there is a difference in what Mr. Clinton did, mainly in the fact that other past presidents didn’t have a wife heading the State Department or with future presidential ambitions of her own.
After Mrs. Clinton joined the State Department, Mr. Clinton’s speech rates when up. Eleven of the 13 speeches where he made more than $500,000 were while his wife served as secretary of state. Before that, his going rate was dramatically less.
Moreover, Huma Abedin, one of Mrs. Clinton’s closest confidants, worked in her State Department, while working under Mr. Band at Teneo and also contracting at the Clinton Foundation.
Emails uncovered by Judicial Watch show what a cozy relationship Mrs. Abedin had with Mr. Band — where he would try to fast-track Clinton Foundation donors into getting meetings with the secretary.
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