Washington: Foreign countries including Norway and Oman contributed to former president Bill Clinton's charity as Hillary Rodham Clinton served her first year as Secretary of State.
A donor list released on New Year's Day by the William J Clinton Foundation shows that in all, Norway has given USD 10 million to USD 25 million to the charity since its founding roughly a decade ago.
Oman gave USD 1 million to USD 5 million over the years. The list gave cumulative donation totals and didn't say how much each contributor gave last year.
Other donors included Donald Trump, professional golf's PGA Tour, multinational soft drink company Coca-Cola and singer Elton John's foundation.
The former president's foundation provided a donor list to a news agency yesterday morning under the heading ‘William J Clinton Foundation Publishes Names of 2009 Contributors on Foundation Website’ but later said the disclosure, which included many more foreign governments, covered donors dating back to the charity's inception, and that it wouldn't identify who gave in 2009.
The foundation changed course yesterday afternoon and updated the list to specify 2009 donors.
The Clintons agreed to annually disclose the names of donors to the foundation to address concerns about potential conflicts of interest between the former president's fundraising abroad and his wife's role in helping direct Obama administration foreign policy.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, January 02, 2010, 10:04