Bill Clinton at Center of Limegate Scandal

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A couple of years ago Bill Clinton gave a one-hour speech to the perfume industry’s trade association. Afterward he stuck around to take a few questions:

In an answer to a question after the speech, Mr. Clinton said he didn’t wear cologne, prompting audible gasps in the room, according to Women’s Wear Daily.

Now that’s some fine investigative reporting. It comes in the middle of a story about how Bill Clinton made money from the speech, and then, a while later, cunningly allowed a fragrance supplier to contribute a bunch of money to the Clinton Foundation in Haiti to set up a project that helps Haitian farmers plant lime trees (apparently limes are a key ingredient for perfumes). It’s honestly not clear what the problem is with this, and author James Grimaldi admits that Clinton “has given so many speeches to companies and groups in recent years, and the Clinton Foundation has collected donations from so many corporations and organizations, that this kind of overlap seems almost inevitable.” Nevertheless, he concludes that this incident “represents the kind of overlapping of private and charitable interests that has become a political liability for his wife as she runs for office.”

Okey doke.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. The deadline’s almost here. Please help us reach our $150k membership goal by May 31.

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