New State Department E-mails on Clinton Foundation; Mike Pence Concerned Regarding Foreign Donations to Clinton Foundation
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again, everyone, and thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. CNN has obtained a new batch of State Department e-mails that reveal the type of correspondence the State Department may have had with donors of the Clinton Foundation. A Clinton Foundation official requested some top donors be invited to a lunch event and asked if one donor could be seated next to Joe Biden. CNN's Dianne Gallagher has been digging in on all of this kind of information. So, what have you uncovered?</s>DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So far, this does shed a little bit more light on at least what's the relationship is between the state department under then Secretary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. These e-mails were obtained by conservative groups Citizens United, as part of the public records lawsuit. They shared them with CNN and if anything, these e-mails are definitely sure to continue fanning the flames of controversy. There are some parts where a Clinton Foundation executive at that time, Doug Band, sent e-mails to top Clinton aid Huma Abedin, requesting if these people that he put on a list could maybe get invitations to a state department luncheon with the president of China back in 2011. On that list were the Western Union CEO, Hikmet Ersek, his representatives that he did not receive an invitation there, then UBS President of Wealth Management, Bob McCann, and also Rockefeller President, Judith Rodin. Now, Fred, the company is that each of those executives work for, are pretty big donors to the Clinton Foundation. Again, at least Ersek never even receive an invitation according to him, but this is something that, of course, Donald Trump has been calling out on the campaign trail. The Clinton campaign though, saying that the Citizens United is a right-wing group that's been going after the Clintons for decades now. And Citizens United, of course, has been looking into to face that and trying to do legal stuff with this for the past two years, getting these e-mails.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Dianne Gallagher, thanks so much from Washington. We look forward some more. I appreciate it. And Vice Presidential Candidate Mike Pence is particularly concerned about any foreign donations made to the Clinton Foundation. Pence telling CNN's Jake Tapper in a CNN exclusive interview that he thinks an independent special prosecutor should open an investigation. Listen.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: What is the point exactly you're trying to make about the Clinton Foundation and can you point to any actual evidence that as secretary of state, she actually changed a policy because of this access that donors allegedly have?</s>GOV. MIKE PENCE (R-IN), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, it's a fair question, but access is also very valuable. And this week, we learned from the Associated Press that more than half of the individual meetings that secretary of state granted during her tenure with to ...</s>TAPPER: Not including government officials or foreign officials?</s>PENCE: Of course not.</s>TAPPER: Yeah.</s>PENCE: These are individual meetings ...</s>TAPPER: Yeah.</s>PENCE: ... she has discretion over. More than half of those meetings were granted to individuals who contributed tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. Look, you know, this has been unfurling in front of American people, particularly over the last few weeks. This week, we'd found out 15,000 e-mails she didn't turnover. We also learned from congressional investigation that these so-called e-mails on wedding plans and yoga that she eradicated with some high- tech software called BleachBit, which completely eliminates the capacity, in most cases, to recover them. But, you know, the simple fact is, this is becoming more and more clear, through direct evidence in these e-mails that State Department officials under Secretary of State Clinton were extending access and special favors to major donors of the Clinton Foundation.</s>TAPPER: Can you point to any favors, though?</s>PENCE: Foreign donors of the Clinton Foundation and major corporations. And your viewers should be reminded here, that foreign donors cannot contribute to presidential campaigns.</s>TAPPER: Sure.</s>PENCE: And so this becomes a conduit for people to gain access. And gaining access is a favor, Jake. But ...</s>TAPPER: Mr. Trump's foundation gave $100,000 or so to the Clinton Foundation. Was he trying to gain an access? Was he trying to gain a favor?</s>PENCE: I think Donald Trump made it very clear through the course of his career. He's supported a broad range of initiatives and policies. Just this last week, he contributed $100,000 to a little church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The didn't do it publically, you people found out about it. But when we were down there visiting families a little more than a week ago, he was impressed with the work of that church was doing ...</s>TAPPER: Why did he give money to Clinton Foundation...</s>PENCE: ... was doing and he's just very quietly in the car said, "I'm going to send $100,000".</s>TAPPER: But you're not comparing that to Mr. Trump's foundation giving money to the Clinton Foundation?</s>PENCE: Well, I'm just saying, Donald Trump -- I know we want to make Donald Trump the issue on the every issue.</s>TAPPER: No, you're making - you're talking about the Clinton Foundation. I'm talking about the Clinton Foundation.</s>PENCE: I'm talking about foreign donors and corporate donors to the Clinton Foundation with the Associated Press this week, was able to confirm were more than half of the meetings, private meetings the secretary of state granted during her tenure. And then, we found out this week, remarkably, and this just, I think is incredibly troubling to the American people. We found out the State Department now, even though they've been ordered to do it, will not provide the balance of her calendar until after the election. You know, this is an example of pay-to-play politics. The American people are sick and tired of. And it's what Donald Trump and I are going to bring to a crashing end when he becomes president.</s>TAPPER: But you can't point to any policy change? You said the access is the important thing?</s>PENCE: Well, I think that's the reason why we need to have an independent special prosecutor in this case.</s>TAPPER: You're talking ...</s>PENCE: The FBI, you know, a couple of months ago, the FBI wanted to initiate a public corruption investigation into the Clinton Foundation. And senior officials at the Obama Justice Department shut it down.</s>TAPPER: They said they looked into it a year before and there wasn't enough there?</s>PENCE: Well, we heard it was reported publicly. The FBI thought about opening a public (inaudible).</s>TAPPER: Yeah, CNN broke the story.</s>PENCE: And I commend you for that. But my point is that now, this is exactly what the independent special prosecutor statured is for.</s>TAPPER: OK.</s>PENCE: The administration should appoint a special prosecutor. And frankly, one other thing on this, for the Clintons to say that if she's elected president, they would recognize a conflict of interest in the Clinton Foundation and so would be stepping away from it, former President Clinton. If it would be a conflict of interest when she's president of the United States, why wasn't raising money from foreign donors, a conflict of interest when she was secretary of state of the United States of America?</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Coming up, we'll hear more from Jake's interview with Trump's running mate, Mike Pence. What he has to say about Trump's reaction to the shooting death of Dwyane Wade's cousin and the violence in Chicago.