The Clintons gave $100,000 to a New York Times charity in 2008 — just before the paper endorsed Clinton for president


The Washington Free Beacon has revealed that the Clinton Family Foundation donated $100,000 to The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund in 2008. That year, the Times endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.
According to the Free Beacon, the Times was reportedly leaning toward endorsing Obama in 2008, rather than Clinton, but the board was overruled by Times chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. At the time, Vanity Fair reported that one of Clinton's financial backers lobbied Sulzberger for the Times' endorsement.
On January 25, 2008, the Times' editorial board wrote that Clinton was "more qualified" to be president than Obama and John Edwards.
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For the Times' part, a spokesperson told Politico that "the Free Beacon story is preposterous from start to finish." The Free Beacon notes, however, that the Clinton Family Foundation, which distributes more than $1 million a year to various causes, hasn't donated to the Neediest Cases Fund since its gift in 2008.
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Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.
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