Hillary Clinton dodges questions about family foundation

KEENE, New Hampshire, USA – US Democrat Hillary Clinton, on the 2016 presidential campaign trail Monday, April 20, faced unsettling new accusations of financial conflicts of interest involving her family’s philanthropic foundation, including some in a new book.

“We will be subjected to all kinds of distractions and attacks,” Clinton told a small group of reporters when asked directly about allegations in the book, “Clinton Cash,” which will be published May 5.

“I’m ready for that. I know that comes unfortunately with the territory,” she said after touring a small family business in New Hampshire, which crucially holds the first state-wide vote in the primary process that begins early next year.

“I don’t know what they’d talk about if I weren’t in the race,” she said of Republicans, whose main 2016 challengers also descended on New Hampshire this past weekend in early efforts to woo voters.

“But I am in the race, and hopefully we’ll get on to the issues, and I look forward to that.”

Clinton has spoken only rarely with the media since hitting the campaign trail last week in Iowa, opting instead for small, intimate roundtables at coffee shops, community colleges and small businesses, with just a handful of reporters on hand.

Her first campaign rally and speech is expected in May.

But Republicans on Monday were seizing on a report that the new book authored by Peter Schweizer will detail incriminating findings related to foreign contributions to the foundation founded by former president Bill Clinton in 2001.

Several donations from foreign governments, apparently made to the foundation during Hillary Clinton’s 2009-2013 tenure as secretary of state, are put under the microscope in the book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable US policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” the daily quotes Schweizer as writing.

He also reportedly writes that the hundreds of major Clinton transactions with foreign governments have added “millions” of dollars to the family’s personal fortune.

Democratic groups have preemptively labeled Schweizer, a former speech-writing consultant to former president George W. Bush and advisor to 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, as an activist penning a conservative hit job on Clinton. – Rappler.com