The most corrupt couple in American politics is making a comeback.
In a statement on Friday, former President Bill Clinton said the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) will be reactivated to address the many challenges facing the world today, from climate change to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Cooperation and coordination has never been more urgent than it is now,” wrote the former president. “The COVID-19 pandemic has ripped the cover off of longstanding inequities and vulnerabilities across our global community. The existential threat of climate change grows every day.”
“Democracy is under assault around the world, most glaringly in Ukraine where Russia has launched an unjustified and unprovoked invasion that has put millions of lives in grave danger,” he continued. “The number of displaced people and refugees worldwide is higher than it has ever been—more than one in 95 of all people alive on the planet today has been forced to flee their home—and rising.”
A subset of the corrupt Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative “convenes global and emerging leaders to create and implement solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges,” according to its website. It ended in 2016 as failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton launched her campaign, fearing it could create a conflict of interest.
As the Washington Examiner noted in its 2016 profile of the initiative, “the group’s most recent philanthropic portfolio indicates fewer than half of the thousands of commitments made since 2005 have ever been completed. The charity’s financial structure has also raised eyebrows, since most direct contributions go toward the annual meeting or salaries rather than philanthropy.”