Arkansas paper slams Clinton's ethics
A newspaper from Arkansas, where Hillary Clinton served as first lady for 12 years, slammed the Democratic nominee for “getting away with ethical shortcuts.”
On Wednesday, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial board published a piece focused on questions raised by donations to the Clinton Foundation and the recent announcements that the charity will stop accepting foreign contributions, among other things, if Clinton becomes president.
The editorial board described the announcement as “convenient.”
“But why wait till now to announce these supposed reforms? Weren't they just as much an ongoing conflict of interest when Hillary Rodham Clinton was 'only' secretary of state? And why wait to announce that they won't go into effect until just after election day? Which means donors could rush to give the Foundation big money just before November's election, when it would matter most.”
“Those of us who watched her rise here in Arkansas will know she's been getting away with ethical shortcuts for a long, long time and the lower she sinks, the higher she rises in the esteem of her fans — or just of those who have benefited from her largesse,” the board writes about Clinton.
The newspaper leans conservative and has been critical of the Clintons in the past.
Clinton has faced increased scrutiny over her relationship with donors to her family’s charity while she was secretary of State. However, the Clinton campaign has maintained that nothing she did was wrong.
“People donated to this foundation because of the work that this foundation was doing around the world, no one is contesting that,” Clinton’s chief strategist Joel Benenson said on CNN Tuesday. Benenson was addressing an Associated Press report that over half of the private interests who were scheduled to meet or have calls with Clinton when she was secretary of State were also Clinton Foundation donors.
“So is it wrong for a secretary of State to meet with people who are committed to causes of saving lives around the world when the Department of State is doing that same work? I don’t think so,” he added.