Speaking with Megyn Kelly on Thursday’s Kelly File, Fox News Channel’s MediaBuzz host Howard Kurtz slammed ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos for committing an “unthinkable” blunder in making previously disclosed donations totaling $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation that’s “so severe that it really threatens to undo” his record over “his 18 years at ABC News.” When asked by Kelly just “how bad is” this scandal, Kurtz began by reminding viewers that it’s “[s]uch a bombshell that George Stephanopoulos has now had to withdraw as ABC's moderator in the Republican presidential debate next year.”
Clinton Foundation
By Tim Graham | May 15, 2015 | 11:55 AM EDT
The Wall Street Journal reported on the Stephanopoulos scandal on Friday, and found another national TV anchor in the database. “Judy Woodruff, the co-anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour, gave $250 in 2010 to the foundation’s aid efforts for victims of the Haiti earthquake.” She was a senior correspondent then, before Jim Lehrer retired.
Woodruff initially recalled the donation as being for $1,000, but based the $250 amount as the one on her 2010 tax return. Woodruff tried to make it sound bipartisan:
Blogger: In Donation Flap, Stephanopoulos Victim of Clintons’ Bungling and ‘Right-Wing Suspicion of the Liberal Media’
By Tom Johnson | May 15, 2015 | 10:38 AM EDT In the uproar over George Stephanopoulos’s hefty, long-undisclosed contributions to the Clinton Foundation, New York magazine blogger Jonathan Chait casts himself in a role similar to that of the child in the tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” who, after so many have admired their ruler’s supposedly magnificent outfit, points out that the monarch actually is wearing nothing at all.
“Everybody agrees this is terrible,” wrote Chait in a Thursday post. “But…why? [Rand] Paul accuses Stephanopoulos of harboring a ‘conflict of interest.’ But donating money to a charitable foundation is not an interest…It’s true that some donors have an incentive to use the Foundation to get close to the Clintons in a way that might benefit their business interests…But none of those problems reflects poorly on Stephanopoulos.”
The Clinton Foundation, Chait remarked, “is, after all, a charity. It used to have non-partisan overtones…Stephanopoulos’s defense — that he just wanted to donate to the Foundation’s work on AIDS prevention and deforestation — seems 100 percent persuasive. He is the victim of the ethical taint of the Clintons’ poorly handled business dealings, combined with an underlying right-wing suspicion of the liberal media, but what his critics have yet to produce is a coherent case against him.”
By Scott Whitlock | May 15, 2015 | 9:40 AM EDT
Even as he apologized on Friday for donating $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation, George Stephanopoulos tried to spin the contributions as innocent, swearing, "I have made substantial donations to dozens of charities, including the Clinton Global Foundation... I made them strictly to support work done to stop the spread of AIDS, help children and protect the environment in poor countries."
By Scott Whitlock | May 15, 2015 | 8:06 AM EDT
After coming under heavy criticism for donating $75,000 to the foundation of Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Stephanopoulos on Friday made an on-air apology. Addressing the revelation that he failed to inform viewers or his bosses at ABC, Stephanopoulos conceded on Good Morning America, "I should have made additional disclosures on air when we covered the foundation and I now believe directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake."
By Curtis Houck | May 14, 2015 | 10:54 PM EDT
On the heels of the news Thursday that former Clinton aide and ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos gave a previously-undisclosed $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC joined MSNBC in making no on-air mention of the newest scandal facing the foundation. As of Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. Eastern, the scandal was mentioned on ten different Fox News Channel (FNC) shows and only once on CNN, but not a single mention on MSNBC.
By Matthew Balan | May 14, 2015 | 5:46 PM EDT
On Thursday's CNN Newsroom, Brian Stelter asserted that George Stephanopoulos is "one of the biggest stars on all of television," as he reported on the ABC anchor's $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation. Stelter later claimed that Stephanopoulos has "done a lot to earn people's respect and trust. He's one of the most well-respected anchors at ABC." During his report, the correspondent never mentioned the recently-revealed issues surrounding the Clinton Foundation.
By Curtis Houck | May 14, 2015 | 5:35 PM EDT
As uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon Thursday afternoon, Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook interned for ABC News chief anchor and former Bill Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos during his tenure at Columbia University and even thanked Mook in his 1999 book All Too Human. In addition to praising Mook in his book, Stephanopoulos had some rather kind words for Mook on the April 12 edition of ABC’s This Week, gushing that he was "laying down in the law" in wanting to prevent infighting within the Clinton camp.
By Scott Whitlock | May 14, 2015 | 4:05 PM EDT
On Thursday it was revealed that former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos donated $75,000 to the foundation of Bill and Hillary Clinton. In a conflict of interest, the same Stephanopoulos grilled the author of a new book questioning the finances of the Clinton Foundation. (He also failed to report the donations to his bosses at ABC or his audience.)
By Matthew Balan | May 14, 2015 | 2:53 PM EDT
ABC's George Stephanopoulos acknowledged his tens of thousands of dollars of donations to the Clinton Foundation in a Thursday interview with Politico's Dylan Byers. Byers reported that "Stephanopoulos...said that, contrary to earlier reports, he has given a total of $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation." The Good Morning America anchor also announced that "he will not moderate the ABC News-sponsored Republican primary debate in February after failing to disclose those contributions."
By Kyle Drennen | May 14, 2015 | 2:38 PM EDT
Talking to Bloomberg Politics correspondent Joshua Green on Wednesday, Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer said he was "really quite stunned" by the revelation that ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos gave $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Schweizer called it a "massive breach of ethical standards" for the Bill Clinton operative turned journalist.
By NB Staff | May 14, 2015 | 1:16 PM EDT
Appearing on FBN’s Varney and Co. on Thursday, MRC’s Tim Graham blasted ABC’s George Stephanopoulos for failing to disclose a $50,000 donation he made to the Clinton Foundation between 2013-2014 while repeatedly promoting the foundation's charitable work.