Are the Clintons More Transparent Than the Bushes?

When it comes to their foundations’ donors, Bill and Hillary are more open than George W. Bush or his father.

Robert F. Bukaty/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


When the recent controversy about the Clinton family foundation first emerged—thanks to Clinton Cash, the book by conservative author Peter Schweizer—all-but-announced Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush declared that Hillary Clinton is “going to be held accountable like all of us…That’s part of the process.” But Bush declined to slam Clinton or comment on Schweizer’s admittedly unproven allegations that she took official action as secretary of state to benefit foreign donors to the foundation. He said, “I don’t ‘go off’ on Hillary Clinton.” And he explained that there would be time later to get into partisan sniping. But there was perhaps another reason for his reticence: The Bush family foundations are less transparent about their donors than the Clinton Foundation.

Nonprofits are not compelled to reveal their funders, and most treat their financial sources as top-secret information. But the Clinton Foundation does release the names of all its donors and the general amount of each donation (though it has acknowledged screwing up on occasion). It first made public its contributors in late 2008 after then president-elect Barack Obama tapped Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state. The need for openness was obvious: A foreign government, a corporation, or wealthy individuals donating to the foundation could have an interest in a decision or action made by a secretary of state. And the public had a right to know if any potential conflicts of interest were at hand. (The overlap between the foundation’s funding, the Clintons’ personal finances, Bill’s global hobnobbing with foreign leaders and CEOs, and Hillary’s official actions as secretary of state certainly deserved scrutiny.) But the foundation’s nearly 3,000-page list of contributors was not searchable, and the foundation only supplied the names of the donors, not addresses or any other identifying information. The specific amounts of contributions were not provided, only the range (say, $5 to $10 million, or more than $25 million). Still, this was much more transparency than what is practiced by most foundations. As Tom Watson recently wrote at Forbes.com, “In truth, the Clinton Foundation is among the most forthcoming of major charities and nonprofit foundations—especially those headed by public figures.”

It’s certainly more transparent than the foundations that George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush established to fund their presidential libraries and other activities. The George W. Bush Foundation raised $361.8 million between 2010 and 2013, according to its latest tax filing. But it does not have a policy of full disclosure for its donors. According to Hannah Abney, the communications director for the George W. Bush Presidential Center, the names of the foundation’s major donors are etched into three “donor walls” in the Dallas-based Bush Center at Southern Methodist University, and the “Freedom Registry,” located at the entrance to the George W. Bush museum and library, lists donors who have contributed more than $20. No specific donation amounts are noted, and there’s a catch: Any donor who wishes to remain anonymous is not named. Moreover, the only way to see the list of nonanonymous donors is to visit the actual museum and look at the walls and the registry. The George W. Bush Foundation does not make its list available in any other form or in any other place.

In an email, Abney noted that some donors could be identified by perusing newspaper articles, and she sent a link to a 2013 Dallas Morning News story that reported on a handful of donors to the foundation, including casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait, which each have particular agendas. This article, though, was hardly a complete list.

The George Bush Presidential Library Foundation, which was set up in 1991 to fund the museum and library for former President George H.W. Bush at Texas A&M University, raises less than $3 million a year these days and, as of 2013, had $47 million in assets. Its website provides no information regarding donors, and Kristin King, the foundation’s director of communications, did not respond to repeated calls and emails requesting information about its donor disclosure policies. An internet search turned up no instances of this foundation releasing the names of its backers.

The Clinton Foundation may well be in a different position than the Bush foundations, given that it has received large donations from governments, corporations, and billionaires with agendas while Hillary Clinton was a Cabinet official or a presidential candidate. But the foundation funding George H.W. Bush’s library and museum was accepting donations during his son’s presidency—when some contributors, no doubt, had a powerful interest in decisions rendered by the Bush administration. And the foundation that support’s George W. Bush’s library and center is pocketing tens of millions of dollars a year, while W’s brother is seeking to become the third Bush to win the White House. Anyone who wanted to gain favor with the Bush clan while George W. Bush was president could have anonymously donated an unlimited amount of money to his father’s foundation, and now that Jeb Bush is in the hunt, anyone looking to fashion a relationship with the Bushes can contribute millions to either of these Bush foundations and keep that connection a secret.

With the Clinton Foundation accepting large checks from powerful players around the world, the Clintons have cooked up a situation that is rife with possible conflicts of interest. At least, it’s been easy for critics to point to potential problems. And they can do that partly because the foundation has a policy of disclosing all donors and posts their names on its website. (It lists nearly 300,000 contributors who gave less than $250.) The Bush foundations don’t go that far—and that may be fortunate for Jeb Bush.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate