Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went online Wednesday to ask her followers to make a generous donation to the Clinton Foundation. Within seconds, social media users had torn her solicitation into sarcasm-laden shreds.
“If you’re able to give, I hope you’ll consider supporting the life-changing work of the @ClintonFdn,” tweeted the failed 2016 Democratic Party presidential nominee. She retweeted a social media message from her eponymous foundation that read:
Thanks for being part of our community in 2021. Together, we’re working to:
- Confront the climate crisis
- Improve public health
- Expand economic opportunity
- Inspire citizen engagement & service
Join us and the Clinton family will triple your impact.
If you’re able to give, I hope you’ll consider supporting the life-changing work of the @ClintonFdn. https://t.co/DUZHJS2AOH
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 29, 2021
Twitter users appeared to have little generosity left for the Clintons’ foundation, which has long operated under an ethical cloud that it served as an influence-peddling organization shaking down foreign powers in a pay-to-play scam.
“Is this a joke?” demanded one reader.
“Cattle futures not what they used to be?” asked one Twitter user.
“Does Chelsea need a new house or something?” queried another.
“Only if it goes to the families of those lost in Benghazi,” stipulated another online commenter.
Others echoed some of Clinton’s more controversial statements. “Donate? What difference — at this point — would it make?” asked one. “Donate? Like with a cloth?”
One user simply tweeted a side-by-side photo contrasting a starving Haitian girl with Chelsea Clinton at her tony wedding ceremony.
— Toก้้้้้้้้y Maroni (@xTonyMaroni) December 29, 2021
The Clinton Foundation appears in dire need of funds, as donations dried up following Hillary Clinton’s loss to President Donald Trump in 2016. As The Daily Wire’s Ben Zeisloft reported:
According to the group’s most recent financial report, contributions fell from $29.6 million in 2019 to $16.3 million in 2020 — a 45% decline amid COVID-19 and the lockdown-induced recession. In 2016, when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran for President, the group raised $62.9 million, indicating an overall 74% donation decline in a four-year period.
The foundation’s 2020 haul represents a 93% drop in overall donations to the Clinton Foundation from its high of $249 million in 2009, when President Barack Obama named Hillary Clinton as secretary of State.
“Money was pouring in when Hillary Clinton was a senior official and a candidate for president. The fact that foundation donors received special access to the Secretary of State isn’t surprising,” Scott Amey of the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) told The Daily Caller.
Many observers considered the foundation’s opaque, non-traditional structure an ethics concern — particularly after Clinton belatedly shed light on the foundation’s activities. “Under scrutiny as the 2016 presidential election heated up, the foundation amended six years of tax returns for the 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 fiscal years,” reported OpenSecrets.org. “Changes included reporting previously undisclosed contributions and grants from foreign governments, updating reporting for revenue from speeches, listing related entities and changing the donors reported in the Form 990 Schedule B.” The foundation’s questionable financial actions reportedly elicited a federal investigation in 2020, as Hank Berrien reported at The Daily Wire:
U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was assigned to lead the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, “has sought documents and interviews about how federal law enforcement officials handled an investigation around the same time into allegations of political corruption at the Clinton Foundation, according to people familiar with the matter,” the [New York] Times reported.
Expenses have outpaced donations for years: The Clinton Foundation operated at a net loss of more than $4.3 million in 2020. But Clinton’s Twitter followers seem content to let the foundation’s finances continue to dwindle.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.