Hillary Accepted Qatar Money Without Notifying Government, While She Was Head Of State Dept

Three weeks ago, when we first reported that Qatar had offered to pay the Clinton Foundation $1 million after a hacked Podesta email disclosed that the ambassador of Qatar “Would like to see WJC [William Jefferson Clinton] ‘for five minutes’ in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC’s birthday in 2011”, we said that in this particular case, the Clinton Foundation may also be in violation of State Department ethics codes.

As we said in early October, while this has been seen by critics of the Clinton Foundation as yet another instance of influence pandering and "pay-to-play", this time there may actually be consequences for the Clinton Foundation: according to the State Department, the previously undisclosed donation suggests there may be an ethics violation by the foundation, even though the State of Qatar is shown on the foundation's website as having given at least that amount. There is no date listed for the donation.

Underscoring the potential flagrant abuse of ethical guidelines if the Qatar payment is confirmed, Hillary Clinton promised the U.S. government that while she served as secretary of state the foundation would not accept new funding from foreign governments without seeking clearance from the State Department's ethics office. The agreement was designed to dispel concerns that U.S. foreign policy could be swayed by donations to the foundation.

Of course, US foreign policy could be very easily swayed if Hillary accepted money and simply did not report it the receipt of such money.

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