Andrew Stiles of the Washington Free Beacon reports that “ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos donated $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, records show:”
The contribution is publicly available information, but the host had not previously disclosed it to ABC viewers, despite taking part in on-air discussions about the Clinton Foundation and its controversial relationship with foreign donors.
Stephanopoulos, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, confirmed the donation to POLITICO’s Dylan Byers after the Free Beacon contacted ABC News for comment. The host, who acknowledged making two donations of $25,000 between 2013 and 2014, issued a statement of apology for failing to disclose his contributions.
“It gets even worse, though,” Sean Davis writes at the Federalist,who writes that “The RNC Should Ban George Stephanopoulos From Participating In 2016 Debates:”
It wasn’t just that Stephanopoulos made the contributions while he was supposed to be objectively covering the Clinton family on behalf of a major broadcast news organization. It’s bigger than that. Just last month, Stephanopoulos interviewed Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, a blockbuster investigative expose of the Clinton Foundation’s finances. Not once did Stephanopoulos disclose his cash ties to the Clinton Foundation. Stephanopoulos, who we are supposed to believe is an objective journalist, deliberately chose to hide the fact that he was a Clinton Foundation donor.
“It was an honest mistake,” ABC News told Politico, in apparent attempt to suggest to its viewers that not only does ABC News not care about transparency in reporting, but that it’s also unaware of the actual meanings of the words “honest” and “mistake.”
How do you solve a problem like mens rea? Easy: by banning it from participating in any 2016 presidential debates. That’s a no-brainer. Under no circumstances should George Stephanopoulos be allowed by the Republican National Committee to set foot on any debate stage. By his actions, he has proven he cannot be trusted to be an objective, transparent, and accountable debate moderator. But it shouldn’t stop there.
ABC News, if it cares one whit about its reputation, should ban Stephanopoulos from doing any 2016 campaign coverage. It’s bad enough that he was once a Clinton White House staffer. But everyone went along with the charade that his political days were behind him and that he just wanted to be an objective reporter. That charade ends today.
But ABC doesn’t care about its reputation — Democrats won’t lose any sleep over this, and ABC doesn’t care about any viewers who aren’t Democrats. Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, was willing to have a showdown with tiny MSNBC over their inherent racism. Is he ready to go to war with one of the big three? Or will “the stupid party” remain that way?
Hi @Reince, you’re going to demand that this guy has absolutely nothing to do with any debates, right? https://t.co/WeticXqotI
— RB (@RBPundit) May 14, 2015
Found via Ace, who writes, “Every day these filthy motherf***ers do far worse than, say, the Tobacco Executives they all castigated. They behave exactly like shifty executives of a corrupt corporation, hiding the truth from the public, because that’s exactly what they are.”
At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey adds that Stephanopoulos never disclosed his donation when covering the Clintons in 2013, 2014 and as recently as two weeks ago:
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.”
As Ed writes, Stephanopoulos’s “interview” with Schweizer “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.”
And of course, Politico’s Glenn Thrush is ready to declare Stephanopoulosis as badass as Hillary herself:
@iowahawkblog I’ll just leave this here…. pic.twitter.com/FHQ5kwBThc
— EducatédHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) May 14, 2015
Oh and by the way, “Stephanopoulos says he gave $50,000, but is listed as a $50,001-$100K donor. Maybe just another foundation oopsie.”
Exit question from the man who invented the form: “How many other media donors does the Clinton slush fund have?”
Update: Hmmmmm…..
Hey @GStephanopoulos was the $50k hush money to keep video of you partying with Jeffery Epstein a secret? http://t.co/8NYN68KwtB
— Film Ladd (@FilmLadd) May 14, 2015
And while Stephanopoulos plays straight man here to Diane Sawyer, her quote and his participation in this moment from a few years ago sums it up nicely doesn’t it?
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