Politics

RNC Chairman: How Does Hillary Take 3 A.M. Call From Governments Who Donated To Clinton Foundation?

Alex Pappas Political Reporter
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NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus took aim at Hillary Clinton on Thursday over the news that the Clinton Foundation took millions in donations from foreign governments while she served as secretary of state.

“I don’t know how Hillary Clinton is going to take a 3 A.M. call from a leader in Yemen or Algeria or Saudi Arabia when she was willing to have her foundation take potentially millions of dollars from those governments,” Priebus said, referencing Clinton’s famous 2008 ad during the Democratic presidential primaries when she argued she was best suited to answer a call at the White House during a crisis.

Priebus, speaking with a hoarse voice to a small group of reporters and bloggers inside a hotel suite at the Conservative Political Action Conference, said “there are a thousand stories to be written about how this money went from Algeria to the Clinton Global Initiative. And Hillary Clinton is in the middle of it.”

As The Washington Post reported, Clinton formally joined the foundation — later renamed the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation — after leaving the State Department. Yet questions questions still remain, Priebus said, about her involvement.

“The first thing is we have to start getting people excited about finding out the truth over which countries gave money, who authorized the money to go there, who did the negotiating,” Priebus said. “[M]ost of the time people don’t just wake up in the morning and say, ‘I’m going to write a check for $25,000 without talking to somebody.’”

“Somebody solicited the donation,” Priebus added. “Somebody made that donation happen. Somebody collected the check or gave wire transfer information to these other countries to make all of this happen.”

Speaking in a hotel suite overlooking the water at National Harbor for about 20 minutes, Priebus took questions a number of topics. Asked what it says about the Republican Party that neither House Speaker John Boehner or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are slated to appear before the conservative activists at CPAC this year, Priebus defended their absence, noting the debate over defunding President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.

“What it says is they’re over on Capitol Hill trying to figure out how they’re going to handle this funding issue,” Priebus said.

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