'Pretty outrageous': Clinton campaign manager hits back at criticism of Clinton Foundation
Hillary Clinton's campaign manager fired back on Wednesday at an Associated Press report claiming that over half the people outside government who met with Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state also donated to her family's foundation.
Robby Mook said on "Morning Joe" that contrary to Tuesday's AP report, Clinton had hundreds of meetings with people who were not donors to the Clinton Foundation, a network of associated nonprofits dedicated to providing health resources to underprivileged areas and fighting climate change among other goals.
"She was Secretary of State. She was meeting with foreign officials and government officials constantly. So to pull all of them out of the equation, cherry pick a handful of meetings, is pretty outrageous," Mook said of the AP report.
Mook pointed out that many of the donors who met with Clinton were also experts in their field such as public health philanthropist Melinda Gates and Nobel Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus.
"At every juncture the foundation set up the highest possible standards to prevent any conflict of interest, and the State Department itself has said there's no conflict of interest," Mook said.
Still, over the past week, many of Clinton's political opponents have said that the scope of donations raises questions about the influence of donors on official State Department actions.
Speaking at a rally in Texas on Tuesday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump slammed the Clintons for alleged "pay for play," claiming that the foundation was set up to profit from the Clintons work in public office, thought the charity was established in 2001.
"It is impossible to figure out where the Clinton Foundation ends and the State Department begins. It is now abundantly clear that the Clintons' set up a business to profit from public office. They sold access and specific actions by and to them for money," Trump said.