By DON VAN NATTA JR. and JO BECKER
Published: November 17, 2008
Over the weekend, former President Bill Clinton enthusiastically endorsed the prospect that his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, might join the Obama administration as secretary of state. “If he decided to ask her and they did it together,” the former president said, “I think she’ll be really great as a secretary of state.”
Mr. Clinton delivered those remarks at an international economic symposium in Kuwait City sponsored by the National Bank of Kuwait, which said the former president would “share with a select audience his perspective on the issues likely to shape the future prospects of the region.”
It is precisely that kind of paid speech, which Mr. Clinton delivered 54 times last year for a total of $10.1 million in fees, that has complicated the vetting process that Mrs. Clinton is undergoing by the Obama transition team. “Whatever happens or doesn’t happen is between Obama and her,” Mr. Clinton said.
That may be, but Mr. Clinton’s postpresidential life as a globe-trotting philanthropist, business consultant and speech-giver poses the highest hurdle for Mrs. Clinton to overcome if President-elect Barack Obama chooses to nominate her as secretary of state, according to aides of the Clintons and Mr. Obama.
The Obama transition team is focused on the wide array of Mr. Clinton’s postpresidential activities, some details of which have not been made public. This list includes the identity of most of the donors to his foundation, the source of some of his speaking fees — he has earned as much as $425,000 for a one-hour speech — and his work for the billionaire investor Ronald W. Burkle.
The vetting of Mr. Clinton’s myriad philanthropic and business dealings is “complicated, and it may be the complications that are causing hesitation on both sides,” said Abner J. Mikva, one of Mr. Obama’s closest supporters and a White House counsel during the Clinton administration. “There would have to be full disclosure as to who all were contributors to his library and foundation. I think they’d have to be made public.”
While aides to the president-elect declined Monday to discuss what sort of requirements would make it possible for Mrs. Clinton to serve as secretary of state, they said Mr. Obama would not formally offer her the job unless he was satisfied that there would be no conflicts posed by Mr. Clinton’s activities abroad.
moreUpdated to add:
The transition communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, says Obama adviser Abner Mikva didn't speak for the campaign in a
Times story that went online this evening, in which Mikva appeared to set an almost impossibly high bar for approving Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
“There would have to be full disclosure as to who all were contributors to his library and foundation. I think they’d have to be made public," said Mikva.
That contradicts suggests from other's familiar with the process that the chief focus of negotiations is Clinton's activities with his foundation going forward -- not vetting of his past.
“It’s not just what he does or says — it’s the fact that the foundation is involved with foreign countries, some of which might well be in conflict with U.S. policy,” Mikva told the Times. “It’s more than a legal problem — there are ethical problems and appearance problems.”
A Democrat who saw the quotes suggested Mikva's words were Obama's way of walking back the suggestion that Senator Clinton could serve as secretary of state.
But Pfeiffer, asked if Mikva spoke for the campaign, responded, "no."
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