Democrat pundit: The Clintons 'take no salary,' get 'no personal benefit' from foundation
By Lauren Carroll on Thursday, September 1st, 2016 at 4:08 p.m.
Clinton says family foundation work will continue Inform
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Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said Aug. 26 that the Clinton Foundation would continue if she's elected to the presidency, despite concerns over possible conflicts of interest. (Inform video)
Some Republicans have presented the embattled Clinton Foundation as serving one purpose: "lining the pockets of Bill and Hillary Clinton," as GOP Chair Reince Priebus put it.
Responding to such criticisms, Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen said the Clintons "take no personal benefit" from the foundation. She also pointed out the legitimate charitable work the foundation carries out, such as its programs addressing AIDS in Africa and storm recovery in Haiti.
"The Clinton Foundation is a charity where President and Secretary Clinton and their daughter, they take no salary, they get no money from it, they take no personal benefit from it," Rosen said on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show Aug. 24. That’s a pretty wide gulf between the assertion that the foundation is just a front for the Clintons to make oodles of money and claims that they don’t get any personal benefit. It made us wonder: What exactly do the Clintons get out of the foundation?
Bill Clinton is currently a member of the foundation’s board of directors, while Chelsea Clinton is vice chair. Hillary Clinton was a board member between leaving the State Department in 2013 through the launch of her presidential campaign in 2015. In the most recent year for which tax forms are available, 2014, the foundation reported that Chelsea Clinton worked 35 hours per week for the foundation and other related organizations, Bill Clinton worked 25 hours per work, and Hillary Clinton worked 20 hours per week.
The Clintons don’t take a salary from this work, and they don’t receive any other direct monetary benefit. Other Clinton Foundation leaders take home six-figure salaries, according to tax documents.
The Clinton Foundation is a public charity that, as we have reported, allocates about 80-90 percent of its expenditures to charitable programs, while the rest goes to fundraising and overhead.
(A quick aside: There’s some confusion over how much the Clinton Foundation spends on charitable programming primarily because the word "foundation" is in the name. Typically, a private foundation’s primary activity is grantmaking, giving money to charities who actually do the work. But the Clinton Foundation operates as a public charity in that they run many of their programs themselves. The Clintons also have a traditional private foundation, the Clinton Family Foundation.)
So the Clintons don’t receive compensation from the foundation. However, you can make a case that they have received some indirect personal benefits. This is not to say that any of these benefits are unethical or improper.
Experts on nonprofit ethics told us these are pretty standard, and they haven’t seen anything reported about the Clinton Foundation that proves corruption. Still, it’s worth reviewing the limited types of benefits that the Clintons do get.
Public relations
The most obvious, outward-facing benefit for the Clintons is notoriety and media attention. The organization got off the ground in 2001, the year Bill Clinton left the White House. During the periods when he or Hillary were not in or running for office, the foundation kept the family in the public eye — and more often for good reasons, rather than scandalous ones (at least up until the past year or so, when Clinton launched her 2016 campaign and the foundation faced more intense scrutiny).
Throughout its existence, the Clinton Foundation has received attention for its work to make AIDS medication more accessible in Africa, efforts to combat climate change, establishing a business mentoring program, writing school food guidelines, and more. Every fall, Bill Clinton and his family receive a spate of press as the stars of the annual Clinton Global Initiative, a networking conference for wealthy philanthropic donors. Chelsea Clinton has embraced her role as a public face of the organization.
"It does continue to draw attention to the work they do as family and individuals throughout the world," said Ann Skeet, director of leadership ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. "At a minimum, it is good public relations."
When the Internal Revenue Service evaluates charities applying for tax-exempt status, which the foundation has, it wants to ensure that the organization is set up to provide a public benefit rather than serve private financial desires, Skeet said. There’s nothing improper about the Clintons taking advantage of their public image in this role, as long as it goes toward that public benefit.
Another big benefit: The Clintons’ role as high-dollar fundraisers for the foundation also enabled them to maintain relationships with wealthy and powerful individuals, including many who are also involved in the Democratic Party. There are some crossover big money donors, such as Fred Eychaner, Haim Saban and Daniel Abraham. (Republicans have been involved in the foundation, too; Mitt Romney spoke at the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative amid his run for the White House.)
The Clintons have also received some indirect monetary benefits from their charitable work, though none of this money came from the foundation’s coffers. Bill Clinton wrote a book in 2007 called Giving, for which he received an advance of about $5 million, according to the New York Times. The book was about charitable work and so is, in part, based on his work with the Clinton Foundation.
Similarly, he has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars delivering numerous speeches where he talks about his Clinton Foundation work. For example, Samsung Electronics paid Bill Clinton $450,000 to deliver the keynote address at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, during which he talked about how technology has affected his work in the developing world through the Clinton Foundation. Samsung has also donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the foundation.
Experts also pointed out that the Clintons have donated to their own charity, and those donations would be tax-deductible. Bill and Hillary Clinton have donated millions to their private philanthropy, the Clinton Family Foundation, which has in turn given between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. Chelsea Clinton herself has donated between $25,000 and $50,000.
And foundation tax documents stipulate that the Clintons, "due to extraordinary security and other requirements," often need to travel first class or via charter plane. A spokesperson said that in some cases, when the Clintons travel on foundation business, the foundation pays for their travel service directly. At least one campaign ad has been made lampooning Hillary Clinton’s travel on private jets.
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Poster Comment:
Charitable work in Haiti? That is a laugh. The Clinton Foundation accepted millions in donations and little of it found its way to Haiti. Most of it was eaten up by "administrative" costs.