Stephanopoulos regrets Clinton donations
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said Friday that he regretted charitable contributions he made to the Clinton Foundation.
“Those donations were a matter of public record, but I should have made additional disclosures on air when we covered the Foundation,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
{mosads}“And I now believe that directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake,” said Stephanopoulos, who served as an aide to former President Clinton before leaving the White House for a successful TV career.
“Even though I made them strictly to support work done to stop the spread of AIDS, help children and protect the environment in poor countries, I should have gone the extra mile to prevent even the appearance of a conflict,” he added.
Stephanopoulos first acknowledged on Thursday that he had donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation between 2012 and 2014.
The ABC anchor offered on Friday a public apology for his contributions.
“I apologize to all of you for failing to do that,” he said of not revealing his past donations.
Republicans cried foul on Thursday over Stephanopoulos’s relationship with Hillary Clinton, a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.
His donations to her family’s charitable organization, they argued, presented the potential for media bias, given Stephanopoulos’s visibility.
“It’s impossible to divorce yourself from that,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) of Stephanopoulos’s potential role in campaign coverage next election cycle.
“I just think it’s really, really hard, because he’s been there, so close to them, that there would be a conflict of interest if he tried to be a moderator of any sort,” Paul, himself a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, added.
An aide to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) additionally vowed the lawmaker would not appear on ABC until the news network pulled Stephanopoulos from all 2016 reporting
“I’m not letting my boss go on @ABC until @GStephanopoulos recuses himself from all 2016 coverage,” tweeted Conn Carroll, Lee’s communications director.
Stephanopoulos has since promised he will not moderate ABC’s GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire early next year, although he has said he will continue to be involved with the network’s political coverage.
Author Peter Schweizer additionally called on ABC to arrange a second interview with Stephanopoulos on his book Clinton Cash.
Stephanopoulos did not disclose his giving to the Clinton Foundation during a tense April 26 interview on ABC’s “This Week” with the author.
He also failed to mention the donations during follow-up broadcasts concerning the charitable organization.
Schweizer’s book, released earlier this month, alleges that the Clinton Foundation accepted donations from foreign contributors in exchange for political favors.
Clinton Cash accuses the former secretary of State of using her agency’s political power to aid benefactors abroad.