Hillary's presidential dream threatened

Revelations about millions of dollars donated by foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was serving as the US Secretary of State raised potentially perilous conflict-of-interest questions yesterday that risk dogging her if she decides to run for president later this year.

New financial disclosures by the charitable foundation, which was created by former President Bill Clinton after he left office, show that during her tenure as America's top diplomat large donations came in from an array of foreign nations, some of which, such as Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, had complicated relationships with the US.

Responding to inquiries from The Washington Post, the Foundation said that all the donations were governed by a 2008 agreement, put in place when hILLARY was seeking the Democratic nomination that year, and designed to curb all notion of countries giving in hope of favours in return. But it said one gift, from Algeria, fell beyond its scope and should have received special clearance by the State Department. That clearance was never sought.

Anything that compounds the impression of the Clinton clan acting like cash combine harvesters is certain to open hILLARY to attack if she proceeds with her now almost inevitable White House bid. She formally joined the board of the Foundation in 2013, after leaving the State Department. In the months since she has been earning speaking fees in her own right, sometimes $200,000 for an appearance.

The fees as well as her past close ties to big donors on Wall Street are inevitable obstacles to any attempt she may make to strike a populist tone as income inequality becomes a top theme of the impending race. The questions now being raised regarding the Foundation add a new dimension, however – how tightly were ethical rules applied in taking cash from foreign powers.