US Secretary of State nominee and incumbent Senator Hillary Clinton testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 13, 2009. (Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(…) “So the work of the foundation, the confidence that it has created with donors who know that it has an extremely low percentage that goes to any overhead, it has a very transparent way that it uses the money, were very persuasive to the transition team, that we had to work out something to keep the foundation in business while I did what I needed to do to be as transparent as possible.
So the kinds of concerns that were put forth were very carefully considered. And, you know, I do believe that the agreement provides the kind of transparency — under the Memorandum of Understanding, foreign government pledges will be submitted to the State Department for review. I don’t know who will be giving money. That will not influence; it will not be in the atmosphere. When the disclosure occurs, obviously it will be after the fact, so it will be hard to make an argument that it influenced anybody because we didn’t know about it. So I think that in the way the president-elect’s transition team saw it, the agreement that has been worked out is actually in the best interests of avoiding the appearance of conflict.” (Video and Transcript: CSpan, 1/13/2009)