A spokesman for the Clinton Foundation Tweeted, late Sunday, that the organization will not give back a six-figure donation from Harvey Weinstein, claiming the money had already been spent.
According to the Clinton Foundation website, the Hollywood mogul, now accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape — a horrifying series of events spanning three decades — donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Foundation’s “Clinton Global Initiative,” making him one of the Foundation’s largest individual donors.
But, even after public pressure, urging politicians and organizations to either return Weinstein’s checks or re-donate the money to charities who help women affected by domestic violence and sexual abuse, the Clinton Foundation spokesman Craig Minassian says the Foundation is hanging on to cash.
Suggesting @ClintonFdn return funds from our 330,000+ donors ignores the fact that donations have been used to help people across the world. https://t.co/dBXNZwAkWS
— Craig Minassian (@MinassianMedia) October 14, 2017
In a sense, that might be true, but a great deal of Clinton Foundation cash goes to help that desperate, charitable cause, the Clinton family. The Foundation, and its sister organization, the Clinton Global Initiative, have reportedly been, by turns, cash clearinghouses, poorly managed tax shelters, aid organizations that have difficulty delivering actual aid, a way of keeping Chelsea Clinton and her husband afloat for years, and, perhaps most infamously, a wedding savings account.
But even that isn’t preventing the Clinton Foundation from either digging deep into its own pockets to return fungible assets to Weinstein’s account, or setting aside the quarter million or so, and earmarking it for a special project, somehow related to Weinstein’s troubles — maybe a domestic violence shelter in Europe, or an aid organization dedicated to protecting the victims of Hollywood directors (since there seem to be so many).
But Hillary Clinton’s namesake foundation is operating, instead, remarkably like Hillary Clinton: pretending that the assets are buried so deep that it’s no longer possible to quantify or separate them from their assets at large.
Maybe they should try just a little bit harder.