"Smile everybody. Another $100 million is on its
way and all our journo donors will keep it quiet."
Posted on 05/14/2015 7:19:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Remember when George Stephanopoulos declared during an interview with Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer that the book had found no “smoking gun” against the Clinton Foundation and the Clintons themselves? Guess what Stephanopoulos didn’t declare — his own financial contributions to an organization that Sunlight Foundation official Bill Allison said operates like “a slush fund for the Clintons.” Dylan Byers at Politico discovered a smoking gun aimed at the credibility of Stephanopoulos as a journalist:
ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos has given $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, charitable contributions that he did not publicly disclose while reporting on the Clintons or their non-profit organization, the On Media blog has learned.
In both 2013 and 2014, Stephanopoulos made a $25,000 donation to the 501 nonprofit founded by former president Bill Clinton, the Foundation’s records show. Stephanopoulos never disclosed this information to viewers, even when interviewing author Peter Schweizer last month about his book “Clinton Cash,” which alleges that donations to the Foundation may have influenced some of Hillary Clinton’s actions as Secretary of State.
Stephanopoulos apologized in a statement, saying that he considered the donations in the public record in the first place:
“I made charitable donations to the Foundation in support of the work they’re doing on global AIDS prevention and deforestation, causes I care about deeply,” he said. “I thought that my contributions were a matter of public record. However, in hindsight, I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on air during the recent news stories about the Foundation. I apologize.”
This apology is not just insufficient, but it magnifies the problem for ABC. First, no one will buy that having one’s name on a tax form buried in a file constitutes full disclosure for a journalist working on a story about an organization to which he has financial ties. It’s absurd. The entire point of journalism is to inform readers and viewers, not to play coy games about issues directly related to credibility.
Second and more important, Stephanopoulos’ statement shows why he never should have conducted the interview with Schweizer in the first place. Stephanopoulos was already suspect, given his connections to the Clinton White House in the 1990s, on any topic that delves into potential scandal in Clintonland. Here he admits that he went into that interview with the predetermined perspective that the foundation operates legitimately as a charity, a point which has come under heavy scrutiny by watchdog groups such as Charity Navigator. The “interview” was little more than a barely veiled attempt at spin control on behalf of the Clinton Foundation and the Clintons themselves, and now we know at least one reason why.
Byers reports that ABC News is standing by Stephanopoulos, but one wonders for how long. What would they do with another reporter who failed to disclose a serious financial relationship between themselves and a story, especially one with the political consequences as this one? Because if they truly don’t think that’s a serious problem, then the smoking gun in this case points not just to the credibility of Stephanopoulos but to ABC News, too.
Update: “Honest mistake,” says ABC News:
#Breaking: ABC News will NOT take punitive action against Stephanopoulos: “We accept his apology. It was an honest mistake."
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) May 14, 2015
Honest? Let’s recall the exchange between Stephanopoulos and Schweizer:
STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, the Clinton campaign says you haven’t produced a shred of evidence that there was any official action as secretary that — that supported the interests of donors.
SCHWEIZER: Well…
STEPHANOPOULOS: We’ve done investigative work here at ABC News, found no proof of any kind of direct action. And an independent government ethics expert, Bill Allison, of the Sunline Foundation (ph), wrote this. He said, “There’s no smoking gun, no evidence that she changed the policy based on donations to the foundation.”
No smoking gun.
Is there a smoking gun?
SCHWEIZER: Yes. The smoking gun is in the pattern of behavior. And here’s the analogy I would give you. It’s a little bit like insider trading. I wrote a book on Congressional insider trading a couple of years ago and talked with prosecutors.
Most people that engage in criminal insider trading don’t send an e-mail that says I’ve got inside information, buy this stock.
The way they look at it, they look at a pattern of stock trades. If the person has access to that information and they do a series of well-timed trades, that warrants investigation.
I think the same thing applies here.
By the way, what’s important to note is it was confirmed on Thursday, both by “The New York Times” and “The Wall Street Journal,” that there were multi-million dollar, non-disclosed donations that were made to the Clinton Foundation that were never disclosed by the Clintons.
This is a direct breach of an agreement they signed with the White House.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That — that is an issue for them, but it’s not a criminal — it’s nothing that would warrant a criminal investigation.
Gee, maybe that would have been a good time to add, “Just to be clear, I’ve donated $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation,” for the sake of honesty.
Disclose?
Honesty by ABC?
ROTFLOL.
our unbiased media.
In my opinion, this is far worse than what Brian Williams did.
No, this isn’t the fox guarding the chicken coop; its the chicken guarding its eggs.
ETHICS??
Democrats don’t need such a quaint, antiquated and outdated thing like ETHICS!!!
(Oh, and you’re a RASSISS!)
BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
.... “global AIDS prevention and deforestation, causes I care about deeply,” he said....
I call BS. The Clinton Foundation was a pay-to-play slush fund. George got something in return worth far more than $50,000.
This is a big story.
The public needs to be continually educated on the biases and institutional infiltration of the Left, particularly in media, academia and Hollywood.
I mean, they grew up in public schools and are well shaped to love socialism and Marx.
No wonder Christianity is decreasing in the USA. That is the goal.
Stephanopoli dutifully buzz-sawed any whisper of wrong-doing.....but the ABC'er never mentioned his Clinton Foundation donation to ABC viewers.....in violation of the ABC network's requirement of "full disclosure."
CONTACT ABC-NEWS HERE:
abcnews.go.com/Site/page/contact-abcnewscom-3068843
================================================
Nevertheless, it looks like the ABC veteran and Foundation donor has the party-line down pat.
The Clintons' cadre of puckered-up ***-kissers (lying-in-wait for federal jobs)---are spinning the explosive "Clinton Cash" revelations like crazy----blathering about "not a shred of evidence" of criminal wrongdoing.
Or as ABC's George Stephanopoulos helpfully parrotted, "There's no smoking gun."
The party-line (to save Hillary's ***) is that "it’s extremely difficult to identify a direct quid pro quo"....b/c while Hillary was Secy of State, foreign funny money was moving around from hand to hand with big money deals approved which she could say were going to be approved anyway.
And at the same time, all that foreign money was floating around, it was flowing into the "charitable Clinton Foundation"..... not into Hillary’s bank account (/snicker).
Stephanopoli never mentioned his Clinton Foundation donation to ABC-TV viewers.....in violation of the ABC network’s requirement of “full disclosure.”
CONTACT ABC-TV NEWS HERE:
abcnews.go.com/Site/page/contact-abcnewscom-3068843
"Smile everybody. Another $100 million is on its
way and all our journo donors will keep it quiet."
Stephanopoli’s failure to mention his Clinton Foundation donation to ABC-TV viewers is in violation of the ABC network’s requirement of “full disclosure.”
ABC-TV News is reportedly standing by Stephanopoulos.....but for how long? Because if they truly think it’s not a problem, then the “smoking gun” points not just to the credibility of Clinton donor George Stephanopoulos, but to ABC-TV News, as well.
CONTACT ABC-TV NEWS HERE:
abcnews.go.com/Site/page/contact-abcnewscom-3068843
Just doing what he has always done Steponallofus!
He should resign. What a corrupt sleazeball.
Pray America is waking
Remember when Stephanopolos asked Romney the birth control question
in the Republican debate in Jan 2012?
no one was talking about this issue at all. Santorum answered it correctly
(Griswold v. Connecticut 1967) but why even answer the question?
it was a plant.
steph is going to be the candy crowley of 2016. bank on it!
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