Former President Bill Clinton defended his namesake foundation Wednesday, insisting that the allegations in the book “Clinton Cash” are baseless and “won’t fly.”
“There’s just no evidence,” Clinton said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Even the guy that wrote the book apparently had to admit under questioning that we didn’t have a shred of evidence for this, we just sort of thought we would throw it out there and see if it flies, and it won’t fly.”
“Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer, who alleges in his book that foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation influenced Hillary Clinton’s decisions as Secretary of State, has conceded that he has “no direct evidence” to support his claims, but insisted “the smoking gun is in the pattern of behavior.”
The Clinton Foundation admitted that some foreign donations were not correctly reported in tax filings, but the former president chalked that up to inadvertent mistakes.
“That was just an accident. People re-file their taxes all the time,” Clinton said Wednesday.
Clinton insisted that the foundation’s taxes had been properly filed in the past, which he said “shows you really there was no deliberate attempt.”
“There would be no benefit to the foundation from doing that,” he added. “I still believe in transparency and I trust the American people and I — I think it’ll be fine.”
Asked how the Clinton Foundation would operate if his wife becomes president, Clinton said he would “do whatever I was asked to do.”
He conceded that the foundation would first need to reexamine whether the restrictions that existed when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state were sufficient.
“We’ll have to cross that bridge,” he said.
The allegations surrounding foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state coupled with her exclusive use of personal email housed on a private server during that tenure have mired the lead up to and first weeks of Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Recent polls have shown Clinton taking a hit among Americans who view her as less trustworthy than before the swarm of allegations of unethical behavior.