Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said it appears Hillary Clinton “was bribed” as secretary of state based on a New York Times report that raised questions about the Clinton Foundation’s fundraising practices.
“There is every appearance that Hillary Clinton was bribed to grease the sale of, what, 20 percent of America’s uranium production to Russia, and then it was covered up by lying about a meeting at her home with the principals, and by erasing emails,” Romney said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show on Thursday. “And you know, I presume we might know for sure whether there was or was not bribery if she hadn’t wiped out thousands of emails. But this is a very, very serious series of facts, and it looks like bribery.”
The comments from the former Massachusetts governor were in response to a New York Times article that suggested Clinton helped donors to her foundation secure a business deal that needed U.S. approval.
The Clinton campaign and allies have attacked the accuracy of the report, saying Clinton was not involved in the State Department review and that Frank Giustra, the donor reported to have benefitted from the deal, sold his stake in the company before Clinton became secretary of state.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said the report is “utterly baseless” and posted a long retort to the Times’ reporting on Medium.
Romney said the explanations are “blah, blah, blah.”
“There has been no evidence presented that suggests that somehow donations to the Clinton Foundation had any impact on decisions made by Secretary Clinton or anyone else in the State Department,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday.
-- Andrew Rafferty