Clinton Controversies Drag On as Next Phase of Campaign Begins

Questions on Clinton foundation, e-mails, Benghazi committee to linger through summer.

By Margaret Talev

Hillary Clinton is facing a convergence of controversies and questions, old and new, that are likely to drag through the Democratic nominating convention into the general election and offer Republicans a ready-made framework for attacks.

A Wall Street Journal report this week is bringing renewed scrutiny of the Clinton Global Initiative, founded by her husband, and raising questions about whether Clinton would be able to disengage from the tangled personal and business ties of former President Bill Clinton and the family's foundation. A Republican-led House committee is aiming to release its report on the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in July, as both party conventions are getting underway. The FBI, meanwhile, is working to conclude an investigation into her use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.

"This kind of stuff isn't going away any time soon, and I hope the campaign is going to move aggressively to deal with it in the most transparent way possible," said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former top communications adviser to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

Clinton's style typically is to hunker down for as long as it takes for storms to pass, a stark contrast to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. While he faces a challenge in trying to unify his party and defends his shifting stances on topics from foreign policy to taxes, Trump responds by sitting for back-to-back television interviews, staying on the offensive no matter the controversy.

Clinton, who's been in the national spotlight since her husband was elected president in 1992, has been under little pressure to respond to questions about the foundation, the FBI investigation or Benghazi in the Democratic nomination race. Her challenger, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has said explicitly that he's not interested in raising those issues. That suggests both campaigns read Democratic voter sentiment as set on Clinton's long public history and, barring a new revelation, the controversies won't change many minds.

But in making the case for his own candidacy, Sanders has argued that that Republicans won't be reticent about tackling the e-mail investigation or the Clinton foundation, and persistently highlights surveys showing him outperforming Clinton against Trump.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-05-13/clinton-enters-next-phase-of-campaign-dragging-controversies-with-her