Clinton Foundation Donations Take $36 Million Plunge This Year
Donors have left the Clinton Foundation in the dust one year after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to President Donald Trump, according to the organization’s latest federal tax filings.
The filings, obtained by the New York Post on Saturday, showed that contributions to the foundation took a $36 million nosedive over the past year—reported contributions fell from $62,912,331 in 2016 to $26,566,825 in 2017.
The $36 million drop in donations comes as House Republicans plan to hold hearings in December on the results of a Justice Department probe into the Clinton Foundation—one month before Democrats assume control of the House.
Donations to the foundation have tanked over the past few years as the organization had tried to fend off allegations that Hillary Clinton used the foundation to engage in pay-to-play schemes with foreign governments.
In 2015, donations plummeted by 37 percent amid allegations that Clinton, the former 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, used the charity to solicit millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments and corporations in exchange for giving these entities favorable treatment while she served as Secretary of State.
Right before Hillary Clinton announced her intent to run for the White House, the New York Times published a piece explaining how she, as Secretary of State, approved a sale which allowed 20 percent of U.S. uranium to be transferred to the Russian government.
Although the Clinton State Department was one out of eight Obama administration agencies to look over the deal, Hillary Clinton was the only head of an Obama administration agency whose foundation directly benefited from the sale.
The New York Times reported that Clinton’s family foundation— the Clinton Foundation— received $145 million in contributions from donors involved in the sale.
Breitbart News Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer exposed this deal—known as the Uranium One deal— and other deals between Clinton Foundation donors and the State Department in his book Clinton Cash, which prompted a flood of media coverage of the foundation’s dealings on both sides of the ideological spectrum.
The non-profit organization’s donations and revenue gained from both Bill and Hillary Clinton’s speaking engagements tanked when Schweizer’s revelations went public and Clinton lost her election.
The foundation reported $3.6 million in revenue from the Clintons’ speeches in 2015, but reported making just under $300,000 from those speaking engagements in 2017, according to the tax filings.
The filings show that the Clinton Foundation did not report any earnings from the Clintons’ speaking engagements in 2016 when Hillary Clinton ran for president.
Clinton Foundation executives brushed off the foundation’s revenue dip due to organizational restructuring, even as the foundation had to lay off 22 staffers and shut down the Clinton Global Initiative.
“We anticipated a decline in both revenue and expenses for 2017, largely attributable to the absence of sponsorship and membership contributions for CGI,” a spokesman for the Clinton Foundation told the Post.
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