GW Law Prof: ‘The Public Interest Would Be Served’ By Appointing a Special Counsel for the Clinton Foundation

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Kelly File,” Constitutional law attorney and George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley stated that “the public interest would be served” by appointing a special counsel into the Clinton Foundation, and that no one can objectively look into the Associated Press’ report into the Clinton Foundation “and not believe that there is a serious problem here.”

Turley said, “I don’t think anyone can objectively look at the Associated Press report and not believe that there is a serious problem here. I mean, you have a great number of people that have business with the State Department giving money to the foundation, some pretty [disreputable] people doing so, and gaining what appears to be special access. And then you have this revolving door, or dual role in one case, of someone who might have been employed by the foundation and State Department at the same time, which, by the way, is colossally stupid, to have anyone in that role. But all of that creates a foundation for these allegations of, to — whether you have a pay to play scenario, and I think that it deserves investigation.”

He added, “The Department of Justice has a rather dismal record, and I’m not just speaking about the Obama administration, during the Bush administration, in the last few decades, they have had a terrible record in terms of applying laws evenly to high-ranking people as they do to ordinary people. … And so, they have little credibility with some people when it comes to very powerful individuals.”

Turley concluded that while an investigation into the Clinton Foundation would “very likely” extend beyond Election Day, “you would have some serious conflicts there, if in fact the next president is Hillary Clinton. That would tend to favor a special counsel. But more importantly, any investigation into the foundation, and people at the FBI clearly indicated that they wanted to investigate aspects of the foundation, but any investigation is going to involve high-ranking officials, and also foreign interests that are very important to the United States. I think the appearance alone says that the public interest would be served with the appointment of a special counsel.” Although, he added that the odds of this happening are “not high.”

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