Bill Clinton admits donors to the Clinton Foundation may have expected favors

(Image credit: BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images)

published 19 September 2016

In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition, former President Bill Clinton may have admitted there's a reason his family's charity receives such scrutiny for "pay-for-play" allegations.

"It was natural for people who've been our political allies and personal friends to call and ask for things," Clinton told Inskeep in an interview broadcast Monday. "I trusted the State Department wouldn't do anything they shouldn't do." The Clinton family foundation was founded after President Clinton left office in 2001, and is holding its final Clinton Global Initiative meeting this week; Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, served as secretary of state under President Obama from 2009 to 2013.

The CGI meeting will be the foundation's last after the former president announced he would step away from the organization if his wife wins the presidency, in an effort to avoid allegations of improper conduct and influence-peddling. "It's hard … I've had this job longer than I ever had any job, and I've loved it," Clinton said. "We always say in response to our critics that nobody in my family ever took a penny out of this foundation, and [we] put millions of dollars in."