Hillary Clinton on foundation attacks: ‘I know there’s a lot of smoke, and there’s no fire’

Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally in Philadelphia, Aug. 16, 2016. (Mark Makela/Reuters)
Hillary Clinton at a rally in Philadelphia, Aug. 16, 2016. (Mark Makela/Reuters)

Hillary Clinton responded to the latest attacks and questions surrounding her campaign on Wednesday night, firing back at Donald Trump moments after the Republican nominee called her “a bigot.”

“He is taking a hate movement mainstream,” Clinton told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in a phone interview shortly after Trump made the remark at a rally in Mississippi. “He’s brought it into his campaign. He’s bringing it to our communities and our country, and someone who’s questioned the citizenship of the first African-American president, who has courted white supremacists, who’s been sued for housing discrimination against communities of color, who’s attacked a judge for his Mexican heritage, and promised a mass deportation force is someone who is very much peddling bigotry and prejudice and paranoia.”

The Democratic nominee also dismissed Trump’s call for an investigation of the Clinton Foundation, which has come under intense scrutiny amid conservatives’ allegations of pay-for-play politics while she was secretary of state. Recently released emails showed a foundation official reaching out to the State Department on behalf of donors.

“My work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces,” Clinton said. “I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right, to keep Americans safe and protect U.S. interests abroad. No wild political attack by Donald Trump is going to change that. And, in fact, the State Department has said itself that there is no evidence of any kind of impropriety at all.”

Clinton said the Clinton Foundation has been far more transparent than the real estate mogul’s business interests.

“The foundation is a charity,” Clinton said. “Neither my husband nor I have ever drawn a salary from it. You know more about the foundation than you know about anything concerning Donald Trump’s wealth, his business, his tax returns. I think it’s quite remarkable. His refusal to release his tax returns is even more concerning given the recent news that his businesses are hundred of millions of dollars in debt to big banks, including the state-owned bank of China, and business groups with ties to the Kremlin.”

Clinton’s comments came hours after her campaign slammed an Associated Press report that more than half the people outside government that she met with while she was secretary of state also donated to the Clinton Foundation. Clinton’s team and other critics said the report relied on “utterly flawed” data.

And Clinton continued the pushback against the AP article during her CNN interview.

“I know there’s a lot of smoke, and there’s no fire,” she told Cooper. “This AP report — put it in context — excludes nearly 2,000 meetings I had with world leaders, plus countless other meetings with U.S. government officials when I was secretary of state. It looked at a small portion of my time.

“It drew the conclusion and made the suggestion that my meetings with people like the late, great, Elie Wiesel, or Melinda Gates, or the Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus were somehow due to connections with the foundation instead of their status as highly respected global leaders,” Clinton continued. “That is absurd. These are people I was proud to meet with, who any secretary of state would have been proud to meet with, and hear about their work and their insight.”

Clinton also addressed the issue that continues to dog her campaign: her use of a private email server for official State Department business. Last week, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told People magazine that the Clinton campaign has been trying “pin” the email scandal on him after it was revealed that Clinton told the FBI that he advised her to use a private server.

“I want people to know that the decision to have a single email account was mine,” Clinton said. “I take responsibility for it. I’ve apologized for it. I would certainly do differently if I could, but obviously I’m grateful the Justice Department concluded there was no basis to pursue this matter further, and I believe the public will be, and is, considering my full record and experience as they consider their choice for president.”

Last month, FBI Director James Comey said the evidence suggested that Clinton and her aides had been reckless in handling classified information but recommended no charges be filed.

Earlier this week, the State Department said it was reviewing nearly 15,000 emails that were previously undisclosed from Clinton’s use of a private server as secretary. A judge ruled that the government provide a status update by Sept. 23 — three days before the first scheduled presidential debate.

But in a Monday appearance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Clinton insisted she’s not concerned about more of her emails being released.

“Jimmy, my emails are so boring,” she said. “And I’m embarrassed about that. They’re so boring. So we’ve already released, I don’t know, 30,000 plus, so what’s a few more?”