While Maureen Dowd Smears Clinton Foundation, Colleague Nicholas Kristof Works With It

Dowd/KristofNew York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has attempted to scandalize the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation in two consecutive columns, even as colleague Nicholas Kristof prepares to participate in the Clintons' charitable events for the sixth straight year.

Dowd's attacks on the Clinton Foundation are the latest salvo in her decades-long anti-Clinton campaign.

In her July 19 column, Dowd baselessly criticized the “foundation dishabille” as part of the “percussive drama” that supposedly surrounds the Clintons. Dowd devoted her July 12 column to lashing out at Chelsea Clinton for giving paid speeches and donating the fees to the Clinton Foundation, an activity which Dowd described as somehow “unseemly.”

The Clinton Foundation's website says its mission is “to improve global health, strengthen economies, promote health and wellness, and protect the environment.” But Dowd baselessly smeared the Foundation as a phony organization intended solely to benefit the Clinton family, claiming that Chelsea Clinton was “joining her parents in cashing in to help feed the rapacious, gaping maw of Clinton Inc.” by giving her speaking fees to the Clinton Foundation rather than donating the proceeds to “some independent charity not designed to burnish the Clinton name as her mother ramps up to return to the White House and as she herself drops a handkerchief about getting into politics.”

Dowd's criticism raises questions about The New York Times' position on the Foundation given Dowd colleague Nicholas Kristof's involvement in Clinton charitable events through the Clinton Global Initiative. Founded by President Clinton in 2005 and merged into the broader Clinton Foundation last year, CGI brings together global leaders from the public, nonprofit, and private sectors to help solve pressing international issues.   

Kristof has participated in CGI's annual meeting in each of the last five years, either by delivering remarks or moderating panels. In a 2010 “CGI Stories” video, Kristof praised the group, saying, “There has been a bit of a change in how global poverty and global health is perceived and I think what's happening at CGI both reflects that and also helps shape it.” 

In an interview with Media Matters, Kristof said CGI events give him “a chance to meet people who converge from around the world” that are focused on issues that interest him, such as global women's rights, development, and education. He said that he plans to attend the group's annual meeting in September if he is invited. He declined to comment on Dowd's work.

The Times also declined to comment on the tension between Dowd's campaign to scandalize the foundation and Kristof's continued relationship with it.

The paper's Ethical Journalism handbook suggests that the paper has not institutionally adopted Dowd's critique. It states that Times journalists “must consult with the standards editor or the deputy editorial page editor” before addressing “groups that might figure in coverage they provide, edit, package or supervise, especially if the setting might suggest a close relationship to the sponsoring group.” It also bars them from accepting “invitations to speak where their function is to attract customers to an event primarily intended as profit-making.”

Joe Strupp and Olivia Kittel contributed reporting.