Only the Clintons seem blind to foundation's conflicts: Our view

The foundation that Bill Clinton created after leaving the White House in 2001 has many things to commend it. It addresses AIDS, global poverty, childhood obesity and other areas that don't always get the attention they deserve. It also leverages Clinton's many contacts overseas.

Had Clinton been a typical former president, interested only in remaining active and cementing his legacy, the Clinton Foundation would a big success.

As it is, the foundation is a mess. With Hillary Clinton running for president twice and serving as secretary of State in between, it was bound to be viewed as a way for foreign donors to get close to the Clintons — a danger the foundation appears to have discounted.

Much like the Clintons themselves, the foundation has seemed intent on playing by its own rules, and is highly defensive when confronted on its errors.

Its efforts at limiting influence-seekers have been, at best, weak. Earlier this year, the foundation admitted that it had accepted $500,000 from the government of Algeria, violating an agreement struck with the Obama administration to accept gifts only from governments that had a record of giving before Clinton's tenure at the State Department.

More recently, the foundation admitted errors in not listing thousands of contributions on tax forms. One came from Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra, who has many issues before the U.S. government and has given the foundation millions.

In 2005, Giustra won a lucrative mining concession in Kazakhstan shortly after visiting there with Bill Clinton. Then, in 2013, he won approval from the U.S. government to sell his company to the Russian government, giving Vladimir Putin vast uranium resources around the world, including 20% of U.S output.

There is no evidence of a quid pro quo for the Giustra contributions, or from any other source. And Hillary Clinton was not involved in the decision to allow the Russian purchase.

Even so, the appearance of impropriety is hard to avoid. So is the likelihood that some of the donors think they are getting something for their money — if not a favorable ruling on something immediate, at least gratitude or recognition from the Clintons that could open doors later.

The only people who don't seem to recognize this are the Clintons themselves. In an interview with NBC on Monday, Bill Clinton dismissed this type of criticism as "a deliberate attempt to take the foundation down."

As Hillary Clinton begins her second quest for the White House, the foundation has once again decided to limit governmental contributions, this time to a handful of Western democratic nations. Given the problems it has had in following its own rules, this might not be enough.

If she really wants to be president, she needs to put the foundation's work on ice during her campaign. That would eliminate the appearance of a back channel to the corridors of power. It would also help establish whether the foundation's donors are more interested in addressing social problems, or cozying up to the Clintons.

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