Bill Clinton In Talks To Smooth Wife's Path To Cabinet
Former President Bill Clinton has offered to submit future charitable and business activities to strict ethics reviews if his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, were nominated as secretary of state, according to Democrats familiar with the deliberations. He has also agreed for the first time to disclose many of the previous donors to his efforts.
Mrs. Clinton is on a short list of names for secretary of state. A small team of aides to President-elect Barack Obama and the Clintons has been negotiating for the past two days in Washington, say people involved in the talks. The goal is to try to overcome concerns that the former president's global business and philanthropic activities could appear to pose conflicts of interest between the Obama administration's foreign policy and the private financial interests of the family of the country's top diplomat.
Under the emerging agreement, Mr. Clinton would disclose the identities of all new donors to his charitable foundation. He would also make public 'major' past contributors -- a term that has yet to be defined. The cloak of secrecy over the former president's foreign financial ties stirred widespread criticism when his wife was running for president.
Mr. Clinton would also seek clearance from two separate entities -- the White House counsel and the State Department's ethics chief -- on all donations to his charitable foundation, the William J. Clinton Foundation, which includes his presidential library and the Clinton Global Initiative. He would follow the same procedure before agreeing to any paid speeches, according to people close to the talks. Additionally, Mr. Clinton would step away from his foundation's daily operations -- all significant concessions for his wife, one person added.
'Bill Clinton will not be the obstacle to whether Hillary gets this job or not,' said one Democrat familiar with the situation. Another person added: 'He's willing to be as transparent as the Obama world wants.'
Mr. Clinton wouldn't return any money already collected from foreign political and business leaders, even if it has stirred controversy, according to one person close to the talks, largely because those funds have been spent on programs such as campaigns to alleviate AIDS and hunger.
Even with these discussions, it's unclear whether Mrs. Clinton will wind up as Mr. Obama's secretary of state. People involved in the vetting process say others being discussed include Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who both publicly sided with Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton during their bitter primary campaign fight.
At the same time, Sen. Clinton's aides say she hasn't decided to take the secretary of state job even if the vetting hurdles were cleared. |
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