Charity watchdog puts Clinton Foundation on 'watch list'
Charity Navaigator functions as a guide to the reliability of nonprofit organizations, to inform donors. Isabel Vincent of the New York Post reports on the questions being raised by it over the Clinton Foundation.
Charity Navigator, which rates nonprofits, recently refused to rate the Clinton Foundation because its “atypical business model . . . doesn’t meet our criteria.”
Charity Navigator put the foundation on its “watch list,” which warns potential donors about investing in problematic charities. The 23 charities on the list include the Rev. Al Sharpton’s troubled National Action Network, which is cited for failing to pay payroll taxes for several years.
It is not the only watchdog alarmed at the Foundation’s practices:
“It seems like the Clinton Foundation operates as a slush fund for the Clintons,” said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog group once run by leading progressive Democrat and Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout.
Another danger sign:
In July 2013, Eric Braverman, a friend of Chelsea Clinton from when they both worked at McKinsey & Co., took over as CEO of the Clinton Foundation. He took home nearly $275,000 in salary, benefits and a housing allowance from the nonprofit for just five months’ work in 2013, tax filings show. Less than a year later, his salary increased to $395,000, according to a report in Politico.
Braverman abruptly left the foundation earlier this year, after a falling-out with the old Clinton guard over reforms he wanted to impose at the charity, Politico reported. Last month, Donna Shalala, a former secretary of health and human services under President Clinton, was hired to replace Braverman.
Mr. Braverman ought to prepare himself for subpoenas.