A Break in the Assange Saga; New York Times, 8/17/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; A Break in the Assange Saga:

"Whether or not Sweden decides to formally charge Mr. Assange after questioning him, he may still be reluctant to abandon the Ecuadorean Embassy. But at least the focus of this curious saga will move closer to the serious legal, ethical and security issues at its core."

A porous ethical wall between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department; Washington Post, 8/14/16

Editorial Board, Washington Post; A porous ethical wall between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department:

"Though it is an exaggeration to claim that Ms. Clinton ran her agency as a pay-to-play operation, the latest unearthed emails from the Clinton State Department nevertheless reveal that the ethical wall she was supposed to have built between herself and her family’s organization was not impermeable enough...

Offering access, even just for sharing information, is providing a favor...

As political scandals go, this is middling, at best.

But it suggests that some donors to the Clinton Foundation may have seen their gifts as means to buy access — and it points to much bigger potential problems. Should Ms. Clinton win in November, she will bring to the Oval Office a web of connections and potential conflicts of interest, developed over decades in private, public and, in the case of her family’s philanthropic work, quasi-public activities. As secretary, she pledged to keep her official world and her family’s foundation separate, and she failed to keep them separate enough. Such sloppiness would not be acceptable in the White House."

Ethicists: Clinton team violated ‘spirit’ of pledge; Politico, 8/11/16

Katy O'Donnell, Politico; Ethicists: Clinton team violated ‘spirit’ of pledge:

"Ethicists tended to agree that while there may be no evidence of a deliberate violation of Clinton’s pledge, the emails underscored the blurry lines between the globe-spanning charity and Clinton’s work as the nation’s top diplomat.

“The Clinton Foundation was taking money from anybody who would give it, and the biggest contributions were from people who had business before the State Department,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen.

“They didn’t follow the pledge. … I don’t think anyone in the foundation sought to deliberately violate the pledge, I just don’t think they cared about it,” he added."