Patterico's Pontifications

6/8/2015

Campaign Finance Warriors at New York Times Accepted Money from Hillary the Same Year They Endorsed Hillary

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:51 am



The New York Times editorial board has long advocated “campaign finance reform.” Its members have decried the Citizens United decision, advocated public financing of elections, and have repeatedly warned the country about the “damaging effects of unlimited spending by corporations and unions on elections” on our body politic, arguing that “unlimited independent expenditures can have a corrupting effect, without qualifying as quid-pro-quo bribery.”

So it is not without a certain irony that we learn today that the paper took cash from the Clintons the same year they endorsed Hillary:

A little-known private foundation controlled by Bill and Hillary Clinton donated $100,000 to the New York Times’ charitable fund in 2008, the same year the newspaper’s editorial page endorsed Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary, according to tax documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The Clinton Family Foundation, a separate entity from the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, has been the family’s vehicle for personal charitable giving since 2001.

It is funded directly by the Clintons and distributes more than $1 million a year to civic and educational causes.

According to a piece in The New Republic at the time, the editorial board was divided, with many wanting to endorse Obama — but they were overruled by Arthur Sulzberger Jr.:

According to Times sources, the paper almost didn’t back Clinton. The divisions within the Gray Lady’s editorial board mirrored the deep divide that has split Democrats in this tightly contested campaign. The 20-member board had initially leaned toward Obama, Times sources say. But in January, after the board had debated the endorsement in two separate sessions, Times chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. decided to favor Clinton.

Vanity Fair reported insiders’ allegations that were more specific:

Here’s the latest gossip: The Times editorial board was, apparently, planning to endorse Barack Obama in the New York primary; the Clinton campaign, getting wind of this, called upon one of its major financial supporters (and eager-beaver prospective Treasury secretary), the private-equity manager Steven Rattner, the best friend and principal adviser of Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Rattner is thought to have petitioned Sulzberger, and Sulzberger thereupon overruled his editorial board, which then backed Clinton.

Maybe the $100K check from the Clintons was what was needed to seal the deal.

Making matters worse, as a watchdog noted last year, the Neediest Cases charity has been remarkably non-transparent about placing its IRS Form 990s on Web sites for public review. Remember that the New York Times editorial board is the same group of folks who call for transparency in campaign financing, decrying “a torrent of unregulated and secretive money.” But their own secretive money is just fine, apparently.

In short, we have a newspaper 1) running funds that politicians can donate to, 2) keeping those donations secret, and then 3) deciding whether to endorse particular candidates.

Yup, nothing to see here, folks.

The folks at the New York Times clearly understand the corrupting influence that money can have on politicians. Are they saying that money can corrupt politicians, but not journalists?

43 Responses to “Campaign Finance Warriors at New York Times Accepted Money from Hillary the Same Year They Endorsed Hillary”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (3cc0c1)

  2. I would love to see certain reporters bank records as I am sure that with all this money floating around some of it finds its way to friendly reporters.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  3. Neediest *Cases* not Families

    what an interesting choice of words, that

    cases

    happyfeet (831175)

  4. there’s an update here to that post about the 990s, mostly to the effect that they hide the 990s behind a guidestar registration wall

    happyfeet (831175)

  5. I’d like to know more about the little-known private foundation controlled by Bill and Hillary Clinton . Why does the NYT have their own charity? What does it do that other chariities don’t do? I realize this is wrong of me, but when i hear of a large company having a charity like this i think “slush fund”.

    seeRpea (b2f97d)

  6. Is it possible to corrupt those working at the NYTimes ?

    Isn’t that a bit like making water wetter ?

    Alastor (30b768)

  7. #s 2 and 6… Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to Kevin M and Alastor. If corruption were a comodity, they’d be well on their way to cornering the market.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  8. It’s different when liberals do it. Their secret dirty money is clean.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  9. “Why does the NYT have their own charity? What does it do that other chariities don’t do? I realize this is wrong of me, but when i hear of a large company having a charity like this i think “slush fund”.”

    seeRpea – It is not all that unusual for corporations, especially private ones, to set up their own foundations for charitable giving.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  10. As George St. Stephanopoulos recently said, there’s no smoking gun.

    AZ Bob (7d2a2c)

  11. A lot of major metropolitan dailies do a 100 neediest cases project between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I think the Pulitzer papers started it. Since the newspapers involved are profit seeking entities.they set up nonprofit entities to avoid taxation on the donations.

    Charlie Davis (98ab9d)

  12. I’ve heard rumors that there are honest politicians. I’ve never heard a rumor that there was an honest journalist.

    htom (4ca1fa)

  13. Htom, your comment puts me in mind of this old poem by someone named Humbert Wolfe:

    You cannot hope to bribe or twist
    (Thank God!) the British journalist,
    But seeing what the man will do
    Unbribed, there’s no occasion to.

    Bud Norton (29550d)

  14. I was just about to post that rhyme!

    Milhouse (a0cc5c)

  15. Once again Libtards accuse everyone else of what they’re doing themselves!

    Mike Giles (ea55d1)

  16. Once again Libtards accuse everyone else of what they’re doing themselves!

    Of course they do. Here’s their thought process:

    1. Those damn Rethuglicans are doing _________. They deny it, and we can’t prove it, but really they are! I would if I were them.
    2. What they are doing is immoral, unethical and downright mean!
    3. We need to do it, too.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  17. Those who care about this are in the voting minority. The voting majority care about citizenship voter suppression and the fight against institutional racism. When hillary comes out for student loan forgiveness the election will be over!

    huma's house husband (0f465e)

  18. Good lord, Perry.

    JD (6a6c22)

  19. Shorter #17

    BLAAARERRRRRGRGHGH!

    humanity of perry's house slippers (26ac75)

  20. forgiving the rapey rape of the rights of U.S. illegal citisins and teh hurtful microagreshuns of teh meanspiruted Repubicuns so there.

    perrytoneitis (2601c0)

  21. Here’s their thought process:

    You’ve got that backwards.

    1. This thing we’re doing is really immoral, unethical, and shady.
    2. I’ll bet the Republicans are doing it too.
    3. We can’t prove they acted inappropriately, but we can imply the hell out of it.

    See, e.g. the “War on Women.”

    egd (1ad898)

  22. The majority that can, doo doo. The majority that can’t reeeetch.

    reversePerrystalsis (56556d)

  23. Perry please don’t attempt to string three sentences together. One is bad enough. Two are incomprehensible. But three are pitiful and make no sense whatsoever.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  24. 1. This thing we’re doing is really immoral, unethical, and shady.
    2. I’ll bet the Republicans are doing it too.
    3. We can’t prove they acted inappropriately, but we can imply the hell out of it.

    Generally they just assume Rs must be doing it too, and it genuinely never occurs to them that they don’t. I was struck by this during the senate hearings on Bill Clinton’s foreign fundraising, when they had Haley Barbour testifying and the Ds seemed astonished when he said Rs were careful not to do that because it was against the law. They were completely unprepared for such an answer, and their scripted attack went right off the rails.

    Another thought process that Clinton himself specialized in went like this:
    0. Assume for the purposes of this exercise that the blood alcohol limit for driving in this state is .08%.
    1. I’ve just been caught driving with 0.1%
    2. Call for the limit to be lowered to 0.05%, and explain why 0.08% is too high.
    3. Find a list of Rs who tested at 0.06%, and trumpet this information as if it exonerates me.

    Milhouse (a0cc5c)

  25. If there is anyone needier than the NY Times, I haven’t seen them. Maybe Newsweek and Time magazines. MSNBC is in there somewhere along with Air America.

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  26. The “neediest” might be Pinch and the fam. Straight inter-slush fund transfer?

    mojo (a3d457)

  27. Bill and Hillary left the WH in 2001. Hillary said in three different interviews given while flogging her book “Hard Choices” that she and Bill were broke and millions in debt at that time:

    In an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Clinton said:“We came out of the White House not only dead broke but in debt We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education.”

    Clinton explained that she and the former president had several million dollars in legal bills when they left the White House in 2001, reported The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker.
    “As I recall we were something like $12 million in debt,” Clinton told Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/hillary-clinton-on-being-rich-but-broke/2014/06/11/743bcc3e-f0c4-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html

    Now this story says:

    The Clinton Family Foundation, a separate entity from the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, has been the family’s vehicle for personal charitable giving since 2001.

    Any odds on the NYT committing some journalism and asking Hillary how and why she and Bill set up a special foundation for personal charitable giving when they were broke and $12m in debt?

    Walter Cronanty (f48cd5)

  28. Bill and Hillary left the WH in 2001. […] she and Bill were broke and millions in debt at that time […] the family’s vehicle for personal charitable giving since 2001.

    Any odds on the NYT committing some journalism and asking Hillary how and why she and Bill set up a special foundation for personal charitable giving when they were broke and $12m in debt?

    Surely the answer is obvious: They were broke and $12m in the hole in January 2001. For all we know they may have set up the foundation in December 2001. Surely 11 months is more than sufficient to become rich enough 🙂

    Milhouse (a0cc5c)

  29. This is not a bribe.

    As I understand “bribe,” it is a consideration given to change behavior, with a common understanding of corruption. That is not what took place in 2008, and not what is taking place here.

    NYT’s endorsement was a given in ’08, Obama was far from the cult figure he became upon nomination, and Hillary was the better qualified candidate if only for the experience of a front row seat to Bill’s problems in the job. And again now, for a mainstream Democratic organ, she is again the obvious choice.

    These aren’t bribes; they are gratuities.

    Estragon (ada867)

  30. NYT’s endorsement was a given in ’08,

    If you read the post then you know
    that it was not a given, that in fact the board wanted to endorse 0bama but Pinch overrode them.

    Milhouse (a0cc5c)

  31. NYT’s endorsement was a given in ’08,

    If you read the post then you knowthat it was not a given, that in fact the board wanted to endorse 0bama but Pinch overrode them.

    Milhouse (a0cc5c)

  32. R.I.P. Vincent Bugliosi, the L.A. Deputy District Attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson

    Icy (e1288f)

  33. Oh, I give up. This super-wide text-entry box that runs under the sidebar makes formatting difficult. How does anyone else deal with it?

    Milhouse (a0cc5c)

  34. CTRL- (minus sign) once or twice to shrink it; CTRL+ to re-enlarge it, Milhouse. (PC, Windows 7, Firefox)

    nk (dbc370)

  35. And again now, for a mainstream Democratic organ, she is again the obvious choice.

    Well, she certainly is a mainstream organ! Wanna know which one?

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  36. And don’t say “Democratic organ”. That’s redundant on a massive scale.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  37. happy,

    You’re right. I changed it to Neediest Cases.

    Patterico (3cc0c1)

  38. .

    Are they saying that money can corrupt politicians, but not journalists?

    .
    The lure of money cannot ‘corrupt’ you when you’ve always been for sale…

    .

    IGotBupkis, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d)

  39. R.I.P. Vincent Bugliosi, the L.A. Deputy District Attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson

    Wow. Even though he got whacked out on politics, I admired him as a prosecutor.

    Patterico (3cc0c1)

  40. A charity administered by the New York Times received a $100,000 check from the Clinton Family Foundation on July 24, 2008, months after the paper endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, according to a New York Times spokesperson.

    However, the check was a “replacement check” for one that had been sent in 2007 that the Times never received, the spokesperson said.

    “The Neediest Cases Fund received a $100,000 check from the Clinton Family Foundation on July 24, 2008,” Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said in an email to BuzzFeed News on Monday. “It was a replacement check for one dated June 22, 2007, that was apparently sent to an incorrect address and never received.”

    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/06/why_is_the_new_york_times_acting_so_guilty_over_the_clinton_family_foundation_donation_to_its_pet_charity.html#ixzz3ca5Rlju1
    Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

    Which shows that Clinton knows the moral fiber of their bribe’s target. {The Times) Can’t be trusted even by their own ideological brethren.

    papertiger (c2d6da)


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