Here’s Everything That’s Wrong With The AP’s Story On The Clinton Foundation (TWEET)

The Associated Press recently published a story postulating that Hillary Clinton must be corrupt because she had meetings with people who gave donations to her foundation while she was Secretary of State. The AP claimed that “more than half” of the people Clinton met with while she headed the State Department gave to her foundation.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/768166957728358400

As many have pointed out, there are a few big problems with the AP’s claims. Let’s break them down one by one.

1. The AP Only Included Non-Government Officials In Its Calculation

When AP says “more than half” in its tweet, it is talking about half of 154 people. Only 154. Does anyone think it’s strange to claim that the Secretary of State only had meetings with 154 people over the course of four years?

Well, it is. That’s because the AP is excluding all government officials—domestic and foreign—from that number. Hillary Clinton met with over 1700 world leaders during her four year term, and none of those leaders are included in the AP’s analysis. Clinton has also met with countless U.S. government officials, none of which are included either.

2. Clinton Had Legitimate Reasons To Meet With Those Donors

The AP’s story highlights meetings with people whom Secretary Clinton would have had legitimate reasons to meet with. One particular example is Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi Economist and Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Yunus won the Nobel because he pioneered the idea of micro-loans for poor business owners. Yunus has also won the World Food Prize and the International Simon Bolivar Prize.

Why on earth would the U.S. Secretary of State want to meet with a person who has won awards for uplifting poor people around the globe?

According to the AP:

“[Yunis] met with Clinton three times and talked with her by phone during a period when Bangladeshi government authorities investigated his oversight of a nonprofit bank and ultimately pressured him to resign from the bank’s board. Throughout the process, he pleaded for help in messages routed to Clinton, and she ordered aides to find ways to assist him.”

How dare the Secretary of State help an award-winning humanitarian continue to do humanitarian work in developing countries. Have you ever heard of anything so scandalous?

The AP also recounts a meeting between Clinton and Nancy Mahon, a senior Vice President at Eseteé Lauder. Soon after this meeting, the State Department announced it would partner with MAC AIDS, a charity run by Esteé Lauder, to raise money for AIDS education and prevention. The initiative would also work to combat gender-based violence in South Africa.

How dare the Secretary of State work with a charity to prevent AIDS and gender-based violence. It’s not like 1 million people are dying of AIDS every year.

3. Nothing Improper Was Done With The Donations

Both Yunis and Mahon were among the 85 people who met with Clinton while she was Secretary of State and donated money to the Clinton foundation. But the AP’s story begs the question: What exactly is so bad about donating money to a charitable foundation?

Isn’t it possible that Yunis, Mahon, and all the other donors share mutual goals with the Clinton Foundation and gave donations to accomplish those goals? After all, the Clinton Foundation has worked to increase the income of small farmers in Malawi, a goal which closely relates to Yunis’ work of advancing business owners in poverty.

The AP points out that all these people gave money to the Clinton Foundation, but it fails to provide any evidence that anything other than charitable work was done with the money. If the funds went to helping disadvantaged people, where exactly is the scandal?

Perhaps AP should spend more time covering Donald Trump’s illegal solicitation of campaign donations from foreign officials, or the fact that he quintupled the rent he’s charging his own campaign.

Image via lorie shaull, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.