In the uproar over George Stephanopoulos’s hefty, long-undisclosed contributions to the Clinton Foundation, New York magazine blogger Jonathan Chait casts himself in a role similar to that of the child in the tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” who, after so many have admired their ruler’s supposedly magnificent outfit, points out that the monarch actually is wearing nothing at all.
“Everybody agrees this is terrible,” wrote Chait in a Thursday-afternoon post. “But …why? [Rand] Paul accuses Stephanopoulos of harboring a ‘conflict of interest.’ But donating money to a charitable foundation is not an interest…It’s true that some donors have an incentive to use the Foundation to get close to the Clintons in a way that might benefit their business interests…But none of those problems reflects poorly on Stephanopoulos.”
The Clinton Foundation, Chait remarked, “is, after all, a charity. It used to have non-partisan overtones…Stephanopoulos’s defense — that he just wanted to donate to the Foundation’s work on AIDS prevention and deforestation — seems 100 percent persuasive. He is the victim of the ethical taint of the Clintons’ poorly handled business dealings, combined with an underlying right-wing suspicion of the liberal media, but what his critics have yet to produce is a coherent case against him.”
From Chait’s post, which was headlined “George Stephanopoulos Gave to the Clinton Foundation. So What?” (bolding added):
Everybody agrees this is terrible. Stephanopoulos has apologized and ABC has accepted his apology. Republicans believe his gestures of abjection have not gone far enough…
But …why? [Rand] Paul accuses Stephanopoulos of harboring a “conflict of interest.” But donating money to a charitable foundation is not an interest. His money is gone regardless of what happens to Clinton’s presidential campaign. It’s true that some donors have an incentive to use the Foundation to get close to the Clintons in a way that might benefit their business interests. And yes, as I’ve argued, the Clintons have handled those conflict-of-interest problems really poorly. But none of those problems reflects poorly on Stephanopoulos. The mere fact that a donation might come with an ulterior motive does not taint all donations. If Stephanopoulos needed some angle to get in the room with the Clintons, donating to their foundation would not be the way to do it.
In the absence of a material conflict, is there some symbolic conflict? It is hard to imagine what. The Clinton Foundation has taken on nefarious connotations owing to conflict-of-interest problems that don’t implicate Stephanopoulos. But it is, after all, a charity. It used to have non-partisan overtones. In the heat of the 2012 election, Mitt Romney spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative. News Corporation Foundation and Donald Trump, for goodness sake, donated to it.
Stephanopoulos’s defense — that he just wanted to donate to the Foundation’s work on AIDS prevention and deforestation — seems 100 percent persuasive. He is the victim of the ethical taint of the Clintons’ poorly handled business dealings, combined with an underlying right-wing suspicion of the liberal media, but what his critics have yet to produce is a coherent case against him.
(Friday, 5/15, 4:45 p.m. Eastern time) On Friday afternoon, Chait updated his post (same link as above), not because he’s changed his position (he hasn’t) but to answer some of his critics. Excerpts:
A wave of critical media reporting has come out, and it has underscored my belief that there’s no real case against Stephanopoulos. There’s a justifiable stench emanating from the Clinton Foundation’s relationship with its donors and the disclosure problems surrounding it, and that stench has engulfed Stephanopoulos, but the specific problem with his donation remains unclear and unexplained…
There are lots of reasons why Stephanopoulos is in a defensive crouch. The Clinton Foundation is in a bad odor. He has spent his journalistic career (effectively) rebutting the presumption that he remains loyal to the president that made him famous. The best strategy for Stephanopoulos and ABC is to repent rather than mount a defense critics are in no mood to accept. But that doesn’t make him guilty.
