March 15, 2015

The Clinton Foundation came under media scrutiny when it was reported that it had received donations from middle east countries. Critics immediately claimed that Hillary was being paid off to use her influence as SOS. That was just one topic Chris Ruddy, a major player in the Clinton conspiracy days, who is the CEO of the right wing Newsmax Media addressed on CNN's Reliable Sources. As the years have gone by, he's become more sympathetic to the Clintons and told Brian Stelter that all the attacks the foundation has received were bogus and he admires the work the Clinton Foundation has done over the years.

RUDDY: Well, it's a long story. I was very close friends with Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York. He introduced me to Bill Clinton and I really started to warm with Bill Clinton after he left the presidency, when I started really seeing what his foundation was doing and the work he was doing as a post -president.

He really reinvented the job of being a post-president. And I think, and I'm still a very big supporter of their foundation -- It's now the Bill, Hillary, Chelsea Foundation. And they are doing amazing work.

I have always found it to be very, very nonpartisan. They have extremely competent people. And there's always some sort of insinuation that there's something political or something malevolent, and I just find those things to be totally bogus.

STELTER: So you don't think the recent scrutiny by journalists about Middle Eastern contributions to the foundation is something that's legitimate and actually something that is going to affect her?

RUDDY: Well, I think it's really good that the president, the former president, went out and used his brand, his name, his reputation to raise money all over the world, not just from places in the Middle East but private corporations in the United States, wealthy individuals all over the world.

That money -- and nobody really disputes this -- has gone to really good purposes for health care in the third world, poverty alleviation, a sustainable development.

So look at the result. I wouldn't worry about -- I think it's great that Arab countries or other countries want to donate to that foundation. And nobody has ever really -- all this insinuation, again, no one has ever proved or said, indicated there was some benefit or that somehow Secretary of State Clinton did something to favor one of those donors. There's no evidence of that whatsoever.

If there was, I think it should be investigated.

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