{"id":779,"date":"2015-05-04T08:23:14","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T12:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/press.nbcnews.com\/?p=779"},"modified":"2015-05-04T08:23:14","modified_gmt":"2015-05-04T12:23:14","slug":"nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/","title":{"rendered":"NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON DEFENDS FOUNDATION: IT HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING \u2018KNOWINGLY INAPPROPRIATE\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Pres. Clinton won\u2019t stop giving high priced speeches: \u201cI gotta pay our bills.&#8221;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>If Hillary is elected, Pres. Clinton is still undecided if he\u2019ll step down from the foundation: \u201cWe\u2019ll cross that bridge when we come to it.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>MAY 4, 2015 &#8212; In an NBC News exclusive, President Bill Clinton vigorously defends foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation telling Cynthia McFadden: \u201cThere is no doubt in my mind that we have never done anything knowingly inappropriate in terms of taking money to influence any kind of American government policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his first interview since the launch of wife Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign, President Clinton also pushes back against critics of his six-figure speeches, saying, \u201cI gotta pay our bills. And I also give a lot of it to the foundation every year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>President Clinton spoke with McFadden in Kenya during his annual trip visiting Clinton Foundation projects, which focus on economic growth and empowerment, climate change, empowering women and girls, global health and conservation.<\/p>\n<p>McFadden\u2019s interview aired this morning on TODAY and additional portions will air tonight on \u201cNBC Nightly News.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Video from TODAY is online here:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/on.today.com\/1Qewq2U\">http:\/\/on.today.com\/1Qewq2U<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The NBCNews.com story is copied below and available here: <a href=\"http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1I7Qrp2\">http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1I7Qrp2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Excerpts of the interview may be used subject to the following restrictions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mandatory credit to NBC News on first reference.<\/li>\n<li>The onscreen \u201cNBC News Exclusive\u201d credit must be clearly visible and unobstructed at all times in any image, video clip, or other form of media.<\/li>\n<li>Embedded web video must stream from the NBCNews.com media player with the unobstructed credit as described above.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p># # #<\/p>\n<p><strong>MANDATORY CREDIT: NBC NEWS \/ CYNTHIA MCFADDEN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Clinton Defends His Foundation&#8217;s Foreign Money<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By Cynthia McFadden and Jake Whitman, NBC News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bill Clinton says he has no regrets about taking millions in foreign cash for his foundation \u2014 even though the donations have caused a political headache for Hillary Clinton as she tries to follow him into the Oval Office.<\/p>\n<p>In an exclusive interview with NBC News&#8217; Cynthia McFadden, the former president said his charity has never done anything &#8220;knowingly inappropriate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Under pressure, the foundation recently announced it will only accept contributions from six Western governments going forward, but Clinton says that&#8217;s no acknowledgment the old policy \u2014 under which Saudi Arabia gave between $10 million and $25 million, for instance \u2014 was a mistake.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Absolutely not,&#8221; Clinton told NBC News during his current tour of Africa to visit a wide variety of the foundation&#8217;s projects.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s an acknowledgement that we&#8217;re going to come as close as we can during her presidential campaign to following the rules we followed when she became secretary of state.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 42nd president says he is &#8220;proud&#8221; of his foundation&#8217;s work.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There has never been anything like the Clinton Global Initiative,&#8221; he said, &#8220;where you&#8217;ve raised over $100 billion worth of stuff that helped 43 million people in 180 countries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He was talking about good works like the &#8220;Wings to Fly&#8221; program that has helped 10,000 poor kids in Kenya attend high school.<\/p>\n<p>The program has been a whopping success, with 94 percent of the kids graduating and 98 percent of them going on to college.<\/p>\n<p>The foundation is involved in a vast array of projects, from a vaccination center In Tanzania to an elephant research center in the Samburu District of Kenya.<\/p>\n<p>While in Tanzania, he and 20 of the foundation&#8217;s big donors also visited the Anchor Farm Project which is expected to produce huge yields of maize and soy and to help locals learn new agricultural techniques. They connected with a group called &#8220;Solar Sisters&#8221; that empowers women by selling environmentally friendly products such as solar lights and cook stoves.<\/p>\n<p>They are headed Monday to Liberia \u2014 where they helped the government combat HIV\/AIDS and coordinated delivery of medical equipment and supplies during the Ebola epidemic \u2014 to see several survivors.<\/p>\n<p>In Nairobi, he and his daughter Chelsea personally helped fit a group of children with hearing aids in support of the Starkey Hearing Foundation, which went from providing 50,000 of the devices a year to 175,000 with assistance from Clinton&#8217;s group.<\/p>\n<p>As he walked between the white tents set up at the Savelberg Retreat Center, he addressed the controversy that&#8217;s been making headlines 7,000 miles away.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is no doubt in my mind that we have never done anything knowingly inappropriate in terms of taking money to influence any kind of American government policy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That just hasn&#8217;t happened.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s unclear if the new ban on foreign money, along with an agreement to update donor lists more frequently, will quiet insinuations that overseas contributions to the foundation \u2014 accounting for more than half of those who gave $5 million or more \u2014 bought access to the woman who may become the next president of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>But Bill Clinton says he&#8217;s not worried about the criticism, brushing it off as &#8220;political.&#8221; He quoted his wife as telling him: &#8220;No one has ever tried to influence me by helping you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He claimed there has been a &#8220;very concerted effort to bring the foundation down&#8221; and said he might even step down as its head if his wife is elected.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I might if I were asked to do something in the public interest that I had an obligation to do. Or I might take less of an executive role,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But we&#8217;ll cross that bridge when we come to it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One thing he won&#8217;t stop doing: giving high-priced speeches, even though he acknowledges being a wealthy man these days, reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I gotta pay our bills,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And I also give a lot of it to the foundation every year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The fees \u2014 $500,000 or more for 11 speeches while his wife was Secretary of State \u2014 are justified, he insisted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I spend a couple of hours a day just doing the research. People like to hear me speak,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do our best to vet them,&#8221; he said of the groups that pay for his talks. &#8220;And I have turned down a lot of them. If I think there&#8217;s something wrong with it, I don&#8217;t take it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He also says he has turned down donations to the foundation \u2014 though he won&#8217;t say from where.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Since I turned it down, I don&#8217;t need to talk about it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve got over 300,000 donors and 90 percent of them have given $100 or less.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the interview, Clinton repeatedly turned to the question of transparency, declaring that his foundation discloses more about the source of its donations than those of other ex-presidents.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about a series of tax forms on which the foundation did not list any contributions under a section for donations from foreign governments \u2014 rolling the sum into overall revenue, instead of breaking it out \u2014 Clinton said it was an innocent mistake.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The guy that filled out the forms made an error,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Now that is a bigger problem, according to the press, than the other people running for president willing to take dark money, secret money, secret from beginning to end.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The problem, he said, is not that the Clintons don&#8217;t have to play by the rules that apply to everyone else \u2014 it&#8217;s that the family is held to a higher standard.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People should draw their own conclusions. I&#8217;m not in politics,&#8221; the former president said. &#8220;All I&#8217;m saying is the idea that there&#8217;s one set of rules for us and another set for everybody else is true.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The people who have attacked the foundation have practiced selective nondisclosure,&#8221; he added, &#8220;I really trust the American people to figure it out. I always have. And so far, I haven&#8217;t been disappointed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If he was troubled by the criticism at home it was not evident as he patiently posed for pictures, shook hands and talked at every stop with dozens &#8211; sometimes hundreds &#8211; of people. He was clearly touched by the kids who often welcomed him with songs written just for his visit.<\/p>\n<p>Clinton said all the work \u2014 the long hours and often rough travel \u2014 is worth it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The lives we save and the impact we&#8217;ve had,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I&#8217;m proud of it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>For more information contact<\/strong>:<br \/>\nMaggie Steenland<br \/>\nNBC News<br \/>\n212-664-7874<a href=\"mailto:meghan.pianta@nbcuni.com\"><br \/>\nmaggie.steenland@nbcuni.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>ABOUT NBC NEWS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>NBC News is a global leader in news across all broadcast and digital platforms. Its leading and award-winning television news broadcasts include NBC Nightly News, TODAY, Meet the Press and Dateline, as well as primetime specials and breaking news reports. The rapidly-growing NBC News Digital Group, along with the well-established NBC News Radio with 750 stations nationwide, provide continuous content to consumers wherever they are, whenever they want it. NBC News also operates Peacock Productions, an award-winning in-house production company, and the NBC NewsChannel affiliate news service. NBC News is part of the NBCUniversal News Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast Corporation.<\/p>\n<p>NBC News is a division of NBCUniversal, one of the world\u2019s leading media and entertainment companies. For more corporate information, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcuniversal.com\">www.nbcuniversal.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pres. Clinton won\u2019t stop giving high priced speeches: \u201cI gotta pay our bills.&#8221; If Hillary is elected, Pres. Clinton is still undecided if he\u2019ll step down from the foundation: \u201cWe\u2019ll cross that bridge when we come to it.\u201d MAY 4, 2015 &#8212; In an NBC News exclusive, President Bill Clinton vigorously defends foreign donations to [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/\">Read More&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> from NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON DEFENDS FOUNDATION: IT HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING \u2018KNOWINGLY INAPPROPRIATE\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[18,4],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbc-news","tag-exclusive","tag-feature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON DEFENDS FOUNDATION: IT HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING \u2018KNOWINGLY INAPPROPRIATE\u2019 - NBC News Press Releases<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON DEFENDS FOUNDATION: IT HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING \u2018KNOWINGLY INAPPROPRIATE\u2019 - NBC News Press Releases\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pres. 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Clinton won\u2019t stop giving high priced speeches: \u201cI gotta pay our bills.&#8221; If Hillary is elected, Pres. Clinton is still undecided if he\u2019ll step down from the foundation: \u201cWe\u2019ll cross that bridge when we come to it.\u201d MAY 4, 2015 &#8212; In an NBC News exclusive, President Bill Clinton vigorously defends foreign donations to [...]Read More... from NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON DEFENDS FOUNDATION: IT HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING \u2018KNOWINGLY INAPPROPRIATE\u2019","og_url":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/","og_site_name":"NBC News Press Releases","article_published_time":"2015-05-04T12:23:14+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1920,"height":1080,"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/01\/NBC-News-PR-site1.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Sarah Coffey","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@NBCNewsPR","twitter_site":"@NBCNewsPR","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sarah Coffey","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/"},"author":{"name":"Sarah Coffey","@id":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/#\/schema\/person\/ba615b709c853838a8f6739d02071335"},"headline":"NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON DEFENDS FOUNDATION: IT HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING \u2018KNOWINGLY INAPPROPRIATE\u2019","datePublished":"2015-05-04T12:23:14+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/"},"wordCount":1540,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/01\/NBC-News-PR-site1.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","keywords":["exclusive","feature"],"articleSection":["NBC News"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/","url":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2015\/05\/04\/nbc-news-exclusive-president-bill-clinton-defends-foundation-it-has-never-done-anything-knowingly-inappropriate\/","name":"NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON DEFENDS FOUNDATION: IT HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING \u2018KNOWINGLY INAPPROPRIATE\u2019 - 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