Zero Hedge: Government Watchdog Calls Clinton Foundation A Slush Fund

[amborin]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-28/government-watchdog-calls-clinton-foundation-slush-fund


snip

ill Allison, a senior fellow at nonpartisan, nonprofit government watchdog group the Sunlight Foundation, is quoted saying:

It seems like the Clinton Foundation operates as a slush fund for the Clintons.

In case you’re wondering what might prompt Mr. Allison to make such a claim, it’s not just the recent pay-to-play scandals that have emerged. It appears that based on Clinton Foundation tax filings, very little of the charity’s donations are going to, well, charity. In fact, this so called “charity” is so shady, a charity watchdog recently put it on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits...

snip

The Clinton Foundation’s finances are so messy that the nation’s most influential charity watchdog put it on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits last month.

The Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.

The group spent the bulk of its windfall on administration, travel, and salaries and bonuses, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.

On its 2013 tax forms, the most recent available, the foundation claimed it spent $30 million on payroll and employee benefits; $8.7 million in rent and office expenses; $9.2 million on “conferences, conventions and meetings”; $8 million on fundraising; and nearly $8.5 million on travel. None of the Clintons is on the payroll, but they do enjoy first-class flights paid for by the foundation.
Charity Navigator, which rates nonprofits, recently refused to rate the Clinton Foundation because its “atypical business model .?.?. doesn’t meet our criteria.”

Charity Navigator put the foundation on its “watch list,” which warns potential donors about investing in problematic charities.

sni

When anyone contributes to the Clinton Foundation, it actually goes toward fat salaries, administrative bloat, and lavish travel.

Between 2009 and 2012, the Clinton Foundation raised over $500 million dollars according to a review of IRS documents by The Federalist (2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008). A measly 15 percent of that, or $75 million, went towards programmatic grants. More than $25 million went to fund travel expenses. Nearly $110 million went toward employee salaries and benefits. And a whopping $290 million during that period — nearly 60 percent of all money raised — was classified merely as “other expenses.” Official IRS forms do not list cigar or dry-cleaning expenses as a specific line item. The Clinton Foundation may well be saving lives, but it seems odd that the costs of so many life-saving activities would be classified by the organization itself as just random, miscellaneous expenses.

snip

Clinton Foundation claimed that 88 percent of its expenditures went “directly to [the foundation’s] life-changing work.”

There’s only one problem: that claim is demonstrably false. And it is false not according to some partisan spin on the numbers, but because the organization’s own tax filings contradict the claim.

In order for the 88 percent claim to be even remotely close to the truth, the words “directly” and “life-changing” have to mean something other than “directly” and “life-changing.” For example, the Clinton Foundation spent nearly $8.5 million–10 percent of all 2013 expenditures–on travel. Do plane tickets and hotel accommodations directly change lives? Nearly $4.8 million–5.6 percent of all expenditures–was spent on office supplies. Are ink cartridges and staplers “life-changing” commodities?

[arcane1]

1. I suspect this is true of most of these rich peoples' "foundations".

Donate money to themselves and then get tax breaks on it. Not a bad gig!

[larkrake]

5. Without a doubt, laundering money

[CorporatistNation]

12. Does The "Foundation" Do Dry Cleaning As Well?

So much dirty $... to be laundered... Must be nice....

[RufusTFirefly]

14. No, but I hear they "wipe" things

You know, like with a cloth.

[840high]

15. ...!100++++

[amborin]

17. LOL!

[virtualobserver]

2. Trump will have a field day with this stuff....when he isn't talking about Bill at "orgy island"

If someone wrote a book and an uninspiring political character had this many vulnerabilities, people would dismiss the book as unrealistic....over the top.

[99th_Monkey]

7. Good point

I don't think House of Cards even would "go there"

[Fresh_Start]

3. Charity navigator removed the Clinton Foundation from the watch list last december

I see that this article is more than a year old
https://philanthropy.com/article/Charity-Navigator-Removes/234700

[larkrake]

9. Borochaff, of Charity, I wonder is he recieved a very large donation

Thats how the Clintons pay-to-play

[speaktruthtopower]

4. The CF is destined to be a lightning rod for the duration of the campaign..

and any commentary needs to be filtered for political bias.

I'd ask who works there and what are they doing when they travel.

[AzDar]

6. So slushy...

[Ferd Berfel]

8. It's about time somebody did

And if the HIllarians think that THIS little tidbit isn't going to get spread all over the place (some where around, oh. OCTOBER ) are delusional and they will be very SURPRISED. - see what I did there......?

[Doctor_J]

10. Burlington!!!11!1!!

[radical noodle]

11. Apparently they do not understand how the Clinton Foundation works

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/06/where-does-clinton-foundation-money-go/

Asked for backup, the CARLY for America super PAC noted that the Clinton Foundation’s latest IRS Form 990 shows total revenue of nearly $149 million in 2013, and total charitable grant disbursements of nearly $9 million (see page 10). That comes to roughly 6 percent of the budget going to grants. And besides those grants, the super PAC said, “there really isn’t anything that can be categorized as charitable.”
That just isn’t so. The Clinton Foundation does most of its charitable work itself.
Katherina Rosqueta, the founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, described the Clinton Foundation as an “operating foundation.”
“There is an important distinction between an operating foundation vs. a non-operating foundation,” Rosqueta told us via email. “An operating foundation implements programs so money it raises is not designed to be used exclusively for grant-making purposes. When most people hear ‘foundation’, they think exclusively of a grant-making entity. In either case, the key is to understand how well the foundation uses money — whether to implement programs or to grant out to nonprofits — [to achieve] the intended social impact (e.g., improving education, creating livelihoods, improving health, etc.).”

Please read the whole piece. There is much more there.

[randome]

13. Holy shit! They imply that only the grants are the Foundation's expenditures!

Notice, too, how they say they quote someone but don't put any quote marks around the statement.

Regardless of who thinks what, anyone with a modicum of objectivity should see this article as a blatant hit piece.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[radical noodle]

16. We really should stop perpetuating these right wing myths

The Clinton Foundation has done a phenomenal amount of good here and throughout the world. That should be what we want wealthy people to do; but instead we bash them for it.

It's a terrible injustice to allow people who obviously know little about how the foundation works to evaluate it. In addition, ZeroHedge is a sensationalist, conspiracy theory and disaster pushing libertarian website.