President-elect Donald Trump will encourage foreign governments to investigate the Clinton Foundation’s finances, according to a Sunday report by the New York Post.
The proposed action follows only days after a rapid-fire series of announcements from many major Western foreign capitals that they are reducing their contributions to the Clinton Foundation, or investigating the charity’s money trail in their countries.
The Australian government confirmed Friday it is not renewing its several partnerships with the Clinton Foundation, according to Australian news sources.
The Norwegian government also announced a 90 percent cut in contributions to the Clinton Foundation shortly after Hillary Clinton’s presidential election defeat, as first reported by The Daily Caller.
The Commonwealth of Australia and the Kingdom of Norway have each contributed up to $25 million, according to the Clinton Foundation’s website.
In France, federal comptrollers reportedly have begun an investigation into millions of dollars of government money that ended up at the Clinton Foundation, according to a document reviewed by The Post.
Financial pullbacks by such large Western foreign governments suggest their support was based more upon Clinton’s potential influence as president of the US, rather than on the merits of the foundation’s work.
Sources close to the Trump transition team told the Post the new president will ask U.S. ambassadors to raise the Clinton Foundation’s financial transactions with foreign governments, and suggest they probe their financial dealings.
Trump previously said he will not press charges against his former presidential rival over her use of a private email server or over alleged corrupt practices by the Clinton Foundation. The FBI has had a multiple-city investigation of the Clinton Foundation since last February.
However, the U.S. government may still probe a number of special Clinton Foundation projects, including its massive infusion of funds into Haiti and Columbia, according to the Post.
Overall, the Australian government has given up to $460 million to the Clinton Foundation and to its affiliated AIDS project, the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been accused of participating in a “pay to play” scheme with the Clinton Foundation.
After Gillard lost her prime ministerial post in a June 2013 confidence vote with Labor Party leaders, she became chairwoman of the Clinton Global Partnership for Education in February 2014.
“Lo and behold, she became chairman in 2014 and has been actively promoting Clinton as president ever since,” wrote London Daily Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine Oct. 29, 2016.
(via: Daily Caller)
