Questions raised over Arab cash to Clinton charity ahead of presidential bid
Experts suggest donations could be used to gain favour with probable presidential candidate
Four oil-rich Arab nations, all with histories of philanthropy to United Nations and Middle Eastern causes, have donated vastly more money to the Clinton Foundation than they have to most other private charities involved in the kinds of global work championed by the Clintons.
Since 2001, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates gave as much as US$40 million to the Clinton Foundation. In contrast, six similar non-governmental global charities collected no money from those same four Middle Eastern countries; the International Committee of the Red Cross was given US$6.82 million.
The existence of foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation has been well-documented. What hasn't been revealed, however, is the disparity in donations by these four nations, all of which have been criticised by the State Department over the years for a spate of issues ranging from the mistreatment of women to stoking ethnic discord in the flammable Middle East.
Moreover, the level of Arab support for the Clinton Foundation, which occurred during the time Hillary Rodham Clinton was a US senator, was seeking the Democratic nomination for president against Barack Obama and was serving as secretary of state, fuels questions about the reasons for the donations. Were they solely to support the foundation's causes, or were they designed to curry favour with the ex-president and with a potential future president?
"I think the people who know something about politics understand the wink and a nod that's going on here: Give to Bill and become a friend of Hillary... There's kind of a political shakedown going on here."
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton, said that "it's simply wrong to assert or even suggest" that donations to the foundation have influenced her foreign policy positions.
Former president Bill Clinton has defended his organisation's receipt of foreign donations as doing "more good than harm".
His wife's quest for the Democratic presidential nomination is under siege from many quarters. Republicans in Congress are investigating her use of a private email server to conduct State Department business and the subsequent "unilateral" destruction of her emails.
Clinton Foundation spokesman Craig Minassian said: "Like many global charities, the Clinton Foundation receives support from individuals, private sector organisations, non-governmental organisations and governments around the world because our programmes are improving the lives of people around the world. Among the more than 300,000 contributors to the Clinton Foundation are countries that have also given billions of dollars in humanitarian aid and support to other charities."
To be sure, wealthy Arab nations have given billions of dollars to United Nations and World Health Organisation programmes to aid victims of poverty, wars and calamities from earthquakes to deadly epidemics. According to the United Nations' Financial Tracking Service, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have donated more than US$5 billion to humanitarian causes, including tens of millions of dollars to Middle East chapters of the Red Crescent Society, since 2001.
