According to Curtis Houck\’s blog at newsbusters.org, this is the first report ABC has done on the Clinton Foundation Scandal in 13 days (and NBC, which also did a story last night, had ignored it for the previous 12 days).
With a hat tip to Mr. Houck, this is ABC\’s verbatim transcript. The bold print is mine:
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Clinton Controversy]
DAVID MUIR: We\’re going to turn next here tonight to Hillary Clinton\’s run for president, and growing questions about foreign donations to her husband\’s foundation. Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea traveling overseas for the foundation, holding an event just tonight and our team right there in Morocco at the Clinton Foundation Summit. ABC\’s chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross tonight asking, where is the money coming from and who is paying?
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Clinton Foundation; Foreign Donations Raising Questions]
BRIAN ROSS: On the outskirts of Marrakech, Morocco, at a five star luxury golf resort, the Clinton Foundation and its privileged guests gathering over welcome cocktails and canapes, to help the world\’s underprivileged. In his opening remarks today, former President Bill Clinton brushed off criticism about the millions of dollars in foreign money the foundation received while his wife was secretary of state.
BILL CLINTON: I just work here, I don\’t know.
ROSS: Now that Hillary Clinton is on the presidential campaign trail, far from the luxury of Marrakech, the foundation says it has put limits on future foreign donations.
CLINTON: There\’s one set of rules that\’s for politics in America and another set for real life.
ROSS: The new rules include no more money from Morocco, but the foundation event is being hosted by a controversial government-owned Moroccan mining company, the OCP Group, which gave $1 million. Human rights groups say the company\’s phosphate mines in nearby Western Sahara, promoted in corporate videos, violate U.N. provisions that to protect the people who live there.
RFK CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS\’s DAVID MCKEAN: Any time the human rights of a population are systemically suppressed in this type of way it\’s a serious concern.
ROSS: The company denies the allegations, but it is spending lots of money to gain influence in Washington, according to Michael Isikoff of our partner, Yahoo! News.
YAHOO NEWS\’s MICHAEL ISIKOFF: It spent over $1.3 million since 2012 to lobby its case before the State Department and other federal agencies.
ROSS: Tonight, another lavish event for the Clinton Foundation’s supporters, held in great secrecy with no reporters allowed inside.
MUIR: And Brian is with us here tonight. We\’ve seen Chelsea Clinton out with her father. She\’s defending the foundation tonight.
ROSS: That\’s right. She\’s now taken an active role in the foundation, telling supporters the foundation continues to do good work despite all the criticisms and continuing questions about its finances, David.
MUIR: Brian Ross tonight. Brian, thanks.
A luxury hotel, far, far, from the reach of anyone The Clinton Foundation would ever help, in a country The Clinton Foundation has just been shamed into not accepting money from, hosted by a company that is spreading money around by the millions as it fights charges of human rights violations….which the Clinton Foundation supposedly is fighting.
How fascinating. And oh, so Clinton.
Will ABC – and NBC and CBS and the New York Times, Washington Post, et al – be on top of this?
Put another way, will they treat it the way they would have if this foundation were created by, say, the Koch brothers?
Or does this go down the usual Clinton Media Memory Hole?
Personally, while history has given me a lot of reasons to assume it\’s Clinton Media Memory Hole time…I don\’t see how it can happen here. This is too big, it is too dirty, and – most importantly – it is too easy for alternative media to investigate, for mainstream Bill/Hill lovers to ignore.
I guess we\’ll find out soon enough.
