Halt pay-for-access in DC

Charlotte Observer: If you believe public officials’ doors should be equally open to all, you can’t be happy with the news that Clinton Foundation donors comprised more than half of the private citizens Hillary Clinton met with while secretary of state.

There’s no evidence of pay-for-play, as Donald Trump keeps insisting. It appears no laws were broken or ethics rules compromised. And yet, giving 85 of 154 private audiences to donors to your family’s charity sure smells like pay-for-access, if not pay-for-play.

As bad as that looks, though, it’s legally OK. If it weren’t, ethical shadows might dog the entire Congress. Our leaders won’t admit it, but pay-for- access goes on in Washington, D.C., all day every day. And yet, Congress just can’t seem to pass effective campaign finance reform to squelch the impact of big money on our politics.

REMOVE NAME FROM CHARITY

Still, that’s no excuse for Clinton. When you seek the highest office, you should uphold the highest of standards.

Bill Clinton should step down now. The family should wall itself off from the foundation immediately, and take its name off the charity, as it should have when she was secretary of state.

In the meantime, D.C. partisans who are shocked to find possible pay-for- access in their midst should pass legislation strengthening safeguards against it.