For somebody who left office in 2001 with what to an ordinary human would seem a staggering personal debt, ex-President William J. Clinton has done all right, both for himself and for his Clinton Foundation.
He and his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, successfully resisted requests and demands to see the donor lists of his foundation in recent years. But apparently as part of a transparency agreement between the Clintons and President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team as a condition of the senator’s impending appointment as secretary of State, the ex-president released 2,922 pages of foundation donor names today.
It reads like a “Who are they?” file of the globe’s rich people and governments.
The records were released to lay bare any financial entanglements that could affect Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as the next secretary of state.
Saudi Arabia, Norway and other foreign governments gave at least $46 million, and donors with ties to India delivered millions more. Corporate donors included the Blackwater security firm, at risk of losing its lucrative government contract to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, and Web company Yahoo, involved in disputes over surrendering Internet information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of dissidents there.
Other high-profile Clinton donors don’t suggest inevitable collisions between U.S. policies and their giving. Celebrities Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Paul Newman, Carly Simon and Chevy Chase all gave. Sports figures included New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Formula One driver Michael Schumacher and owners of the Indiana Pacers basketball team.
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