Solomon strikes again

February 27, 2007

The Washington Post ran a 1,300-word front-page expose today detailing a family foundation the Clintons created to donate generously to charities for several years. The tone of the article suggested that there’s a real controversy here, so I read the piece to gauge its seriousness. It lacked a certain something — namely any suggestion of possible wrongdoing.

And then I noticed the byline: “By John Solomon.” Of course.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former president Bill Clinton have operated a family charity since 2001, but she failed to list it on annual Senate financial disclosure reports on five occasions.

The Ethics in Government Act requires members of Congress to disclose positions they hold with any outside entity, including nonprofit foundations. Hillary Clinton has served her family foundation as treasurer and secretary since it was established in December 2001, but none of her ethics reports since then have disclosed that fact. […]

Clinton’s spokesman said her failure to report the existence of the family foundation and the senator’s position as an officer was an oversight. Her office immediately amended her Senate ethics reports to add that information late yesterday after receiving inquiries from The Washington Post.

“The details of the Clintons’ charitable family foundation and Senator Clinton’s role in it have always been publicly available, but, in an oversight that leaders of both parties have made, it was inadvertently omitted from her Senate filing, which has been corrected,” Hillary Clinton’s press secretary, Philippe Reines, said yesterday.

That’s it; that’s the whole controversy. The Clintons had an outlet through which they donated to charity, the information was publicly available, but a clerical error omitted the donations from Sen. Clinton’s disclosure forms. Then her office corrected the forms.

This is literally front-page news, why?

Did Bill, Hillary, or Chelsea accept any money through this family foundation? No. Have they accepted any special favors in return for donations? No. Is there any evidence that they intentionally tried to conceal their publicly-available donations? No.

But what about the failure to disclose? Yes, that’s obviously a paperwork error, but it’s entirely meaningless. It’s one thing not to disclosure money a lawmaker earned, but in this case, we’re talking about money a lawmaker donated to charity.

As Jonathan Chait put it:

My second thought, “OK, it’s John Solomon, but there has to be more to this story than failing to list charitable contributions.” So I read the story. And that’s all there is! The scandal is that Clinton failed to disclose some of the money she donated to charity. Not money she earned, money she gave away.

I mean, maybe — maybe — that’s a one-paragraph item somewhere in the back. But this is a major front page story. And the story doesn’t even try to explain why this is a matter of public concern. […]

What exactly is the angle here? “Clinton Office Behind on Paperwork”? “Clinton More Generous Than She Admits”?

It’s so weak, Michelle Malkin highlighted the article in a post, but apparently couldn’t think of anything specific to criticize.

Has the Post fired its editors? Wouldn’t someone on staff read the article first and ask, “Where’s the news in all of this?” And isn’t there anyone who thought this might not be a story appropriate for the front page of one of the nation’s premier news outlets?

And exactly how many news-less front-page stories will John Solomon publish before the Post starts to scrutinize his shoddy work more closely?

Q: Has the Post fired its editors?

A: No, the Post hasn’t fired it’s editors, they just hate the Clintons as much as John Solomon apparently does.

Q: And exactly how many news-less front-page stories will John Solomon publish before the Post starts to scrutinize his shoddy work more closely?

A: As many as he wants.

This has been another example of simple answers to simple questions.

  • This a perfect story to Spotlight. Click on the “Spotlight” link near the headline of this post and send a msg to the folks at the Washington Post!

  • From Malkin:

    WaPo gives the last word to a former FEC official:

    Kent Cooper, who retired after two decades overseeing the FEC’s public disclosure office, said congressional ethics committees have not enforced the ethics disclosure requirements forcefully. As a result, he said, candidates “know there is no great consequences, and so the habit has developed that people dismiss an omission as a clerical error, when in fact it is a crucial piece of the puzzle about a member’s finances that is being hidden.”

    That quote is so clearly out of context (he is speaking generally, probably about income, and not specifically about Hillary) and meant to leave the reader with the conclusion that there’s some cover-up here.

    Shameful.

  • And exactly how many news-less front-page stories will John Solomon publish before the Post starts to scrutinize his shoddy work more closely?

    Plenty, except in the unlikely event that the story features a member of the Republic party.

  • the disclosure requirements can’t be that difficult to interpret and understand for someone who is a powerful senator. if they can’t find someone who can make sure they meet the requirements, perhaps there is something amiss. it seems like time and again, there is the excuse, “oh, we forgot” or “oh, we didn’t know it meant that”. so, while it isn’t the big issue that the wp wants to make it, i think it’s a bigger issue than CB is making it. get with the program, people. you make up the rules, learn to follow them.

  • Oh well, at least they finally un-buried this one:

    Majority in Poll Favor Deadline for Iraq Pullout

    With Congress preparing for renewed debate over President Bush’s Iraq policies, a majority of Americans now support setting a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from the war-torn nation and support putting new conditions on the military that could limit the number of personnel available for duty there, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

    Opposition to Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq remained strong. Two in three Americans registered their disapproval, with 56 percent saying they strongly object. The House recently passed a nonbinding resolution opposing the new deployments, but Republicans have blocked consideration of such a measure in the Senate…

    And didn’t the ombudsman at WaPo take Solomon to the cleaners last time he hacked up a huge hairball? Maybe I’m confusing this guy with one of the other professional hacks in the Malstream media.

  • I agree with just bill; failing to mention this in an ethical disclosure once might be an honest mistake, but five times is a deliberate omission, and I’m sure that Senator Clinton’s office is sufficiently sophisticated to understand the reporting requirements.

  • The reports are a matter of public record, and there appears to be nothing untoward within the framework of the foundation, or with the donations or with the charities to which the donations were made.

    Solomon is an irritant whose presence is bothersome, but who is ultimately unable to do any serious damage.

    I would suggest that people check the by-line and pass if it’s Solomon. Given some of the Post’s other bone-headed editorial decisions, I’m more and more convinced this has to do with cranking up ad revenue than anything else.

  • Bill – my guess is that whoever filled these forms out did what I do for my tax forms for my small business – pull out last years and fill them out exactly the same away. My guess – the first time the form was filled out, someone didn’t think about the money that Senator Clinton gave away to charity and that mistake was mindlessly repeated in the following years.

  • Didnt the Obbudsman rip him for the trumped up Edwards story…yet here we are again with him getting a front page story with an even worse trumped up story…

    Liberal media ….go figure…

  • With all the important events happening in this country this is important to write about…to run on the front page of the WP?? Why do the editors allow this petty, insignificant tripe to even take up space in their paper? What do they owe Solomon? He does nothing for them. I mean there are many great journalist out there that could be a big asset to the WP so why this gutter snoop. If Hillary spit on the sidewalk in front of the Senate headquarters we’d get…”Clinton Behavior Demoralizes America’s Instituitions..Demonstrates Her Disgust With the Senate.” Solomon makes the WP look bad. If his article is on the front page then you know it’s an issue of the Post that really has nothing to say. They must have just needed to take up blank space.

  • If you really think that someone can’t make a mistake on a government form several times running, I’m guessing your job doesn’t involve paperwork. Personally, if I had to fill out my own tax returns, by now I’d be commenting from jail.

  • Imagine what good Solomon could do if he trained his critical eye and sharp pen on the actual wrongdoing perpetrated by the right. Instead he shoots spitballs at Hillary.

    Ohioan – thanks for the link. Best line in that post — “Malkin is the field general for a squad of bitter pro-war dead-enders who lash out online against anyone who dares speak the truth about the war.” Spot on.

  • #3 – Good point. Does beg the question, who is Kent Cooper?

    From memory… When the Harry Reid non-story kicked off last year, guess who John Solomon turned to:

    “This is very, very clear,” Cooper said. “Whether you make a profit or a loss you’ve got to put that transaction down so the public, voters, can see exactly what kind of money is moving to or from a member of Congress.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/11/D8KMO6NG0.html

    Of course, the “transaction” Cooper was referring to was the transfer of property Reid already owned to a LLC. So basically a non-transaction. So once again, Cooper made a generically correct statement that had no relevance to the matter at hand.

    No wonder Solomon’s happy to go back to him time and again.

  • I agree with just bill; failing to mention this in an ethical disclosure once might be an honest mistake, but five times is a deliberate omission, and I’m sure that Senator Clinton’s office is sufficiently sophisticated to understand the reporting requirements.

    Comment by James Dillon — 2/27/2007 @ 12:10 pm

    Funny thing, though – I haven’t seen any reports about the deliberate omissions from the previous four years. Only now, when her presidential intentions have been announced, does anyone mention it.

    Another funny thing – how come the people reading the reports conveniently omitted looking at them until Hilary starts running for Prez? Why haven’t we heard about this at any time during the four years it has been going on already?

    Finally*, I wonder if there are any Republican’ts who have also forgotten to list their charitable contributions? I also wonder if any Republican’ts have engaged in any actual fraud and non-disclosure of taxable monies. Well – not really. I just wonder if we’ll ever hear about them…

    * – crowd screams with enjoyment

  • Ed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Solomon just keeps pulling semi-applicable quotes from Cooper that he collected some time ago. He gets Cooper to explain disclosure procedures once and just goes back and pulls quotes for each new smear job.

    No need to even call the guy back.

    None of these quotes are ever specific to the target of the “exposé” nor are they even usually specific to the topic or alleged infraction.

    Solomon = hack.

  • All of that said, when you are big-time politician, especially one who knows full well that they are going to run for President, you need to have somebody on staff who’s sole job is to make sure this shit is in order. Every i dotted, every t crossed.

    This is a non-story, but Clinton has no excuse either. Get your shit together.

  • If you really think that someone can’t make a mistake on a government form several times running, I’m guessing your job doesn’t involve paperwork. Personally, if I had to fill out my own tax returns, by now I’d be commenting from jail.
    I’m not entirely sure if this was directed at my previous comment, but if so, my job as a federal law clerk involves a momentous amount of paperwork. It also involves dealing with enough competent attorneys–and I think it safe to assume that Ms. Clinton’s attorneys and other advisors are competent– to know that a mistake of this magnitude doesn’t get made five years in a row accidentally.

    To return to your tax example, you might make an honest mistake in preparing your tax return, if your accountant or tax lawyer does it, year after year, it’s no longer an honest mistake. It’s fraud.

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