Giuliani: I would indict Clinton Foundation as 'racketeering enterprise'
Giuliani: I would indict Clinton Foundation as 'racketeering enterprise'
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani suggested Sunday that the Clinton Foundation should be indicted on racketeering charges.
“If I was attorney general, I would indict the Clinton Foundation as a racketeering enterprise,” Giuliani, who served as U.S. attorney in New York and as associate attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, told “Fox News Sunday.”
Giuliani, who is emerging as the most ardent, high-profile backer of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, argued that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton “did favors to people who gave to the Clinton Foundation” during and after she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
Clinton stepped down from the nonprofit foundation’s board when she launched her presidential campaign in 2015, when she also stopped fundraising for the foundation and giving paid speeches.
The foundation has faced allegations of engaging in a “pay-to-play” operation since Clinton began her candidacy.
And last week, the State Department had to answer fresh questions amid newly-released documents, about plans after Clinton left the agency to potentially buy land for a U.S. Embassy in Lagos from a Lebanese-Nigerian company with ties to Gilbert Chagoury, who donated more than $1 million to the foundation. (The story was first reported by Fox News.)
"She did favors for those very people who gave money to the Clinton Foundation," said Giuliani. “In my definition that was bribery.”
Clinton has also felt the heat -- from critics and fellow Democrats -- to distance herself and her campaign from the foundation.
If she is elected president, the foundation will no longer accept foreign donations, husband and former President Bill Clinton said last week.
“With Hillary Clinton being elected president, which we hope it will be, they clearly need to change the way they do business," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said on “Fox News Sunday.” "They’ve indicated they will."
Giuliani, who was criticized for failing last week at a Trump rally to make note of the 9/11 terror strikes when saying radical Islamic terrorists had no successful attacks on the United States in the eight years before President Obama took office, also on Sunday dismissed comments from people related to the foundation about not it being under federal investigation.
“That's the biggest bunch of garbage I've ever heard," he said. "They are under, I believe, investigation. And if they're not, the Justice Department should be ashamed of themselves."
Giuliani, who continues to strongly back Trump while fellow Republicans have sought to distance themselves from the billionaire businessman, said Trump had an “excellent week,” highlighting Trump’s promise of “extreme vetting” for people asking to come into the country from Syria and other terror hotspots.
“It’s going to be pretty tough to get in, and it should be,” he said.
Giuliani also dismissed assertions that Trump appears too far behind Clinton to win the presidential race.
“Really, he’s not that far behind,” Giuliani said. “He’s within striking range in key states. He’s not a typical … candidate. This is an insider-outsider campaign. [Clinton] is the consummate, corrupt Washington insider."
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