Free Republic

No action will be taken over the Swiss government’s half-a-million-franc donation to the Clinton Foundation, a parliamentary commission has decided. The donation to the foundation set up by former US President Bill Clinton and his wife, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was made between 2011 and 2013 but only surfaced in the press last week. The money was donated by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (DEZA), part of the Swiss foreign office, to support a project aimed at reducing infant and maternal mortality in Liberia. …

The Swiss foreign ministry is in the spotlight for donating nearly 500,000 francs to the Clinton Foundation in 2011, when Switzerland and the US were locked in a dispute over tax evasion. The donation, revealed by the Schweiz am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday, was made by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (DEZA), which is overseen by the Swiss foreign ministry. […] At the time, the US and Switzerland were embroiled in a dispute over banking secrecy after allegations that Swiss banks were helping US clients to dodge taxes. The US was pressuring Switzerland to force banks to hand...