Bill Clinton defends foundation: ‘No idea’ who was doing business with State Dept.

Bill Clinton defends foundation: ‘No idea’ who was doing business with State Dept.

 By David Sherfinski – The Washington Times - Friday, June 12, 2015

Former President Bill Clinton is continuing his defense of the Clinton Foundation this week, saying he had “no idea” who was doing business with the State Department while conceding that “you never know what people’s motives are.”

The charitable foundation founded by the former president has been under fire amid questions of contributions that flowed there during 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

Mr. Clinton said in an interview with CNN that no donors had ever asked him for anything.

“She was pretty busy those years,” Mr. Clinton said of Mrs. Clinton, his wife. “I never saw her study a list of my contributors, and I had no idea who was doing business before the State Department, but I will say this: She believed that part of the job of secretary of state was to advance America’s economic interests around the world.”

“If she hadn’t been doing this economic diplomacy work, nobody would have been doing it,” he said. “But I never thought about whether there was any overlap.”

“America’s always having to lobby for American-made airplanes,” Mr. Clinton said, mentioning that Boeing had donated money for Haiti.

“But I don’t think that they did it to make America, the government like ‘em better,” he said.

“You never know what people’s motives are, but in this case I’m pretty sure everybody gave to Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake,” he said.

Mr. Clinton also implied that such allegations swirling around the foundation and its donors were being driven by politics.

“Nobody even suggested it or talked about it or thought about it until the political season began,” he said.