美国国家公共电台 NPR There's Really No Comparison Between The Trump And Clinton Foundations

There's Really No Comparison Between The Trump¹ And Clinton Foundations

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In the combative³ presidential election in this country, even the charitable works of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have come under fire. The Clinton Foundation and the Trump Foundation have similar sounding names, but beyond that, they have remarkably⁴ little in common. And those differences might reveal something about each of the presidential candidates. Here's NPR's Joel Rose.

JOEL ROSE, BYLINE⁵: Let's start with the difference in scale. The Clinton Foundation is huge and has hundreds of employees and a $90 million budget. The Trump foundation is fairly small. It has no full-time⁶ employees and a budget of $600,000. To charities experts, this is like comparing apples and oranges.

LARRY NOBLE: I think they're two very different types of charities.

ROSE: Larry Noble is a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington.

NOBLE: One of them is very professionally run and does a lot of work. The other one is - seems to be a little bit more loosely run and seems to be more focused on Donald Trump.

ROSE: Still, both foundations have become political targets in this election cycle. Here's Republican Mike Pence during the vice⁷ presidential debate earlier this month, arguing that the Clinton Foundation is basically a slush fund for its founders⁸.

(SOUNDBITE OF VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE)

MIKE PENCE: Less than 10 cents on the dollar in the Clinton Foundation has gone to charitable causes.

ROSE: But that statement is misleading, according to Larry Noble with the Campaign Legal Center.

NOBLE: It's based on a misunderstanding, either intentional⁹ or unintentional, of what type of charitable foundation it is.

ROSE: The Clinton Foundation is what's known as a public charity. That means it mostly raises money from other people and foundations, including a $100,000 gift from the Trump Foundation a few years ago. The Clinton Foundation spends that money on things like HIV and malaria¹⁰ prevention in Africa. It spends close to 90 cents of every dollar it gets on charitable causes and earns top marks from watchdog groups. But there's another criticism of the foundation, one that Trump himself has raised on the campaign trail.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DONALD TRUMP: Her foundation took in large payments from major corporations and wealthy individuals, foreign and domestic. And all the while, she was secretary of state.

ROSE: It's true that the Clinton Foundation accepts money from wealthy donors¹¹, both inside the U.S. and out. Emails between the staff at the Clinton Foundation and the State Department show some of those donors wanted access to Hillary Clinton and that she did take meetings with them as secretary of state. But there's no evidence that big donors got any special favors from the State Department. Still, Larry Noble at the Campaign Legal Center says appearances matter.

NOBLE: Because we're talking about government officials. And the concern is that, when they get a large contribution, it will influence the decision they make. Even if, as secretary of state, she did not concern herself at all with what big donors wanted, people will think that it, in fact, did influence her. And it undercuts the credibility of decisions.

ROSE: Noble and other charities experts have an entirely¹² different set of concerns about the Trump foundation - concerns that go beyond appearances. Pamela Mann is a former head of the charities bureau in the New York attorney general's office who is now in private practice.

PAMELA MANN: The Trump Foundation has engaged in documented flagrant acts of violation¹³. That's really different.

ROSE: The Trump foundation is organized as a private foundation. It was originally set up to give away Donald Trump's money, but Trump hasn't given any of his own money to the foundation since 2008. Instead, his foundation raises money from other donors, as it did at a fundraiser for veterans Trump held in January.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: We raised over $5 million in one day.

(APPLAUSE)

ROSE: But that got the Trump foundation in trouble because, technically¹⁴, it's not registered to accept donations in New York, where it's based. This month, the state's attorney general ordered the foundation to stop fundraising in the state. The Trump foundation broke IRS rules to when it made a contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2013. Trump's foundation has described that contribution as a mistake and says Trump paid a penalty to the IRS. But Pamela Mann, the former charity watchdog, is skeptical¹⁵.

MANN: It suggests that they're not deeply concerned with playing by the rules. It's unclear whether that's because they don't know what the rules are or they are willfully ignoring the rules.

ROSE: There are also questions about whether the Trump foundation has spent money on things it shouldn't have, including two paintings of Donald Trump and a Tim Tebow football helmet. And there are allegations that Trump never delivered on his promise to donate $10,000 to help victims of the September 11th attacks. New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who supports Hillary Clinton, says his office pored over audited¹⁶ financial records for two big charities in the year following the attacks.

SCOTT STRINGER: We found no evidence Mr. Trump contributed. It's possible he gave anonymously¹⁷ or in other ways. You'd have to ask him. Our review found that Mr. Trump did not, in fact, contribute to these groups.

ROSE: The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment. All this leads Larry Noble at the Campaign Legal Center to ask whether Donald Trump is really as generous as he claims to be.

NOBLE: It looks like he's trying to appear that he's very charitable. But if you pull back the curtain a little bit, it looks a lot greater than that. You know, it fits into a narrative¹⁸ of him using the charity for purposes of self-promotion.

ROSE: Of course, critics of the Clinton Foundation argue that Hillary Clinton used her family's foundation to promote her own political ambitions. And Larry Noble agrees, but he says there's an important difference.

NOBLE: In the Clinton Foundation, it's really hard to deny that they are doing good work. I do think it's fair to say they may have been somewhat tone-deaf to some of the things they were doing. And I think that that does play into a certain narrative - and it's a narrative she's had to deal with anyway - about trustworthiness.

ROSE: But Noble says it would be a mistake to treat the allegations against the Trump and Clinton foundations as equivalent. The two charities are about as different as the candidates themselves. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

3 combative   

adj.好战的；好斗的

参考例句：

• Mr. Obama has recently adopted a more combative tone.奥巴马总统近来采取了一种更有战斗性的语调。
• She believes that women are at least as combative as are.她相信女性至少和男性一样好斗。

4 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

7 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

8 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

9 intentional   

adj.故意的，有意（识）的

参考例句：

• Let me assure you that it was not intentional.我向你保证那不是故意的。
• His insult was intentional.他的侮辱是有意的。

10 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

11 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

13 violation   

n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯

参考例句：

• He roared that was a violation of the rules.他大声说，那是违反规则的。
• He was fined 200 dollars for violation of traffic regulation.他因违反交通规则被罚款200美元。

14 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。

15 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

16 audited   

v.审计，查账( audit的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The accounts have to be audited by a firm of external auditors. 这些账目必须由一家外聘审计员的公司来稽查。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• E. g. few if any charities collection publishes audited accounts. 例如很少义款收集有公布经过查核的帐目。 来自互联网

17 anonymously   

ad.用匿名的方式

参考例句：

• The manuscripts were submitted anonymously. 原稿是匿名送交的。
• Methods A self-administered questionnaire was used to survey 536 teachers anonymously. 方法采用自编“中小学教师职业压力问卷”对536名中小学教师进行无记名调查。

18 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。