In ‘Citizen,’ Bill Clinton Gives His Side Of The Story

BY JONATHAN ALTER, WASHINGTON POST

“I couldn’t sleep for two years after the [2016] election. I was so angry, I wasn’t fit to be around,” Bill Clinton writes with rare self-awareness in his new memoir. “I apologize to all those who endured my outbursts of rage which lasted for years and bothered or bored people who thought it pointless to rehash things that couldn’t be changed.”

“Citizen” subordinates the rage to reason, and the rehash includes many ingredients that have been ignored or intentionally distorted by critics on both the left and right. We hear his side of the story on such topics as the controversial crime and welfare bills, the Wall Street deregulation of the 1990s and the Clinton Foundation, which has been dogged by questions. Although the book is full of humble and not-so-humble brags, the authentic Clinton comes through: smart, charming and — most of the time — convincing. This is the most unvarnished view we will probably get of a former president, now 78, who doesn’t care if you think he’s too wonky about his good deeds and too defensive when trying to set the record straight.

It’s not surprising that Clinton is still furious at former FBI director James B. Comey for insisting during the 2016 campaign that Hillary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in handling her emails and for briefly announcing a new investigation of her just before the election. He makes a good case that the New York Times embarrassed itself by getting in bed with a right-wing muckraker (author Peter Schweizer) and grossly over-covering the emails story. Clinton argues persuasively that a combination of Comey, the Times and Russian meddling cost Hillary her six-point lead in late October and gave the world President Donald Trump.

But 2016 is only one of many things that still tick Clinton off. He’s annoyed that he was pressed on NBC News to apologize personally — instead of generally — to Monica Lewinsky (whose good works he praises); eager to confirm that he never visited Jeffrey Epstein’s island and, contrary to rumors, never ditched his Secret Service detail or staff when traveling on Epstein’s plane in 2002 and 2003; and scathing about Republicans changing their tunes after hiding behind their desks on Jan. 6, 2021. “Trump asked them the question we’ve all heard in bad jokes,” he writes. “‘Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?’ Those who looked to Trump and said, ‘You, Master,’ lived to fight another day.”

But mostly the former president focuses on the positive. In his first interview after leaving office in 2001, he told me that he planned to use his “convening power” to make a better world. And he has. Even when he fails, he’s determined to “get caught trying,” his apt description of his postpresidential approach.

But where Jimmy Carter is lionized for his post-presidency, Clinton has been more often maligned. That’s partly because, unlike Carter, he has done well financially (thanks to paid speeches) while doing good, and partly because of debunked charges that the Clinton Global Initiative was just a cover for using Hillary’s position as the early 2008 front-runner and, later, as secretary of state to rake in cash. The messy distractions have obscured Clinton’s talent for forging partnerships that save and improve millions of lives.

This inspiring story began after a 2001 earthquake killed some 20,000 people in India, the first of several natural disasters that brought out the best in Clinton. He helped establish the American India Foundation, which built houses, schools and hospitals, created job training programs and became a template for his role as a kind of global coordinator in chief. After both the 2004 Christmastime tsunami in South Asia and, just months later, Hurricane Katrina in the United States, Clinton joined with former president George H.W. Bush in spearheading U.N. relief efforts. The two men, who had squared off in the 1992 election, formed an unusual bond.

In 2010, a huge earthquake killed some 200,000 people and destroyed much of Haiti, where the Clintons had gone on their honeymoon 35 years earlier. As president, Clinton almost invaded it. After the quake, still fascinated by the place, Clinton made 38 trips there. Despite corruption, cronyism and government incapacity there, he’s proud of what he and others accomplished: “Donald Trump was wrong; there are no ‘s__hole’ countries.” And Clinton hasn’t forgotten about the Trump campaign incorrectly claiming that he and Hillary were somehow involved in the suicide of a former Haitian government official.

Clinton’s discursive style reads in places like a warmhearted Wikipedia. But the brief digressions — on things such as the problems of the Puerto Rican electric utility system and the caloric content of beverage options in high school cafeterias — are usually welcome. Although we don’t get much irony — and never have with Clinton — it’s fun to hear how Stephen Colbert taught him to use social media, and sad to read that he cried for a half-hour after hearing of the death of Paul Farmer, the renowned humanitarian physician who helped build a hospital in Rwanda, where Clinton worked hard to atone for sitting on his hands during the genocide there when he was president.

Clinton’s greatest achievement since leaving the White House has been his successful effort to reduce the extremely high cost of antiretroviral AIDS medications, which eventually turned HIV from a death sentence into a chronic disease. Under the leadership of Clinton and Ira Magaziner, the Clinton Health Access Initiative worked with drug companies and some 125 countries to push the generic price of treatment down to 37 cents a day, setting the stage for foundations and government programs to begin pouring big money into saving millions of lives. Soon, the Clintons took what they learned and applied it to other health policy and environmental challenges.

Clinton didn’t invent the idea of requiring attendees at fancy nonprofit conferences to make specific commitments instead of just yakking. But, starting in 2005, he used that structure to help change global philanthropy. I remember being struck by how few reporters joined me in covering the Clinton Global Initiative, which takes place in New York every September. Some in the press were suspicious of conflicts of interest, particularly when Russian oligarchs began posing as philanthropists, an episode Clinton skips in the book. But CGI was more than on the level. Clinton reports that more than 3,600 commitments (on such things as water purification packets, micro-lending and clean cookstoves) improved the lives of roughly 500 million people in 180 countries.

Jonathan Alter is the author of “American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial—and My Own.”

Clinton's Impeachment Was Dignified

President Donald Trump greets former President Bill Clinton at the Inaugural Luncheon in January 2017. Image: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty

BY KARL ROVE

There are always tensions between the House and the Senate, even when the same party controls both chambers. Each views the other, and its rules, procedures and attitudes, with some disdain. But the normal friction between the bodies has increased since the House began its effort to impeach President Trump.

There was intense partisan wrangling in the House during its brief Intelligence Committee hearings, the Judiciary Committee’s rapid-fire action, and the single day of floor debate on its impeachment measure. Congress is already at Defcon 2, and that could escalate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi now insists she won’t send the impeachment articles to the Senate until its majority leader, Mitch McConnell, agrees to her conditions for Mr. Trump’s trial. She’s threatening to raise the acrimony to a new level.

This is no normal back-and-forth about versions of a bill Congress is considering. Mrs. Pelosi is venturing into treacherous constitutional territory. Article I gives the House “the sole power of impeachment” and the Senate “the sole power to try all impeachments.” By attempting to prevent the process from proceeding unless Mr. McConnell acquiesces to her demands for additional witnesses and documents, Mrs. Pelosi is attempting to intrude on the Senate’s constitutional prerogatives and create a role for herself in the trial that the Founders didn’t intend.

Mrs. Pelosi presumes to be the arbiter of whether the Senate has a “fair process.” She told reporters: “So far, we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us.” This is more than an invitation to Mr. McConnell to hear her out—it’s a demand that he clear his plans with her before proceeding. She imagines herself as Ulysses S. Grant at Fort Donelson in February 1862, and while Mr. McConnell is a Kentuckian like Simon Bolivar Buckner, his position is stronger than that of the surrounded Confederate general—strong enough to beat back Mrs. Pelosi’s demand of unconditional surrender.

Mr. McConnell, the wiliest Majority Leader since Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1950s, won’t capitulate. He occupies the high ground of precedent, saying the Senate should proceed as it did with President Clinton. The Senate adopted rules for his trial by a 100-0 vote with the support of freshman Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), now minority leader.

Mr. McConnell is aided by the perception that Mrs. Pelosi has made Mr. Schumer look like her puppet. That’s never a good thing for any senator, even if the representative in question is the speaker.

Mrs. Pelosi’s approach is also creating more political difficulties for Democrats. The House acted hastily compared with previous impeachments, as its leaders claimed the president’s removal was urgently needed. Mrs. Pelosi herself opened the House debate on the impeachment resolution last week by calling the president “an ongoing threat to our national security.”

Suddenly, however, Mrs. Pelosi wants to hurry up and wait. She’s content to let this national security “threat” linger in the Oval Office until she gets her way. And while impeachment has spun up activists in both parties, ordinary Americans, especially swing voters who will decide the 2020 contest, appear to be losing interest. It’s not only because of the holidays. Washington is always infected with some amount of tomfoolery, but Mrs. Pelosi and the Democratic impeachment tactics have heavily taxed the tolerance of everyday Americans.

The speaker’s spin squad has worked overtime to sell her as an adroit leader. She’s made some wise moves, like replacing the hapless Jerry Nadler with the ambitious Adam Schiff as the chief Democratic inquisitor. She’s also mostly struck the right tone, saying, “This is a very sad time for our country . . . we must be somber, we must be prayerful.” However, Mrs. Pelosi’s hand has been often forced by the Democratic Party’s left-wing base, driven so much by such hatred for the president that it doesn’t care if the impeachment process is debased in the pursuit of removing him from office.

Zealotry comes at a cost. Impeachment has already overpowered the messages of the Democratic presidential campaigns as the Iowa caucuses approach. Some Democrats are now pushing the ludicrous idea that Mrs. Pelosi should hand Mr. McConnell the impeachment resolution as the president arrives at the Capitol Feb. 4 to deliver his State of the Union address.

Americans deserve a dignified conclusion to impeachment, as the Senate gave them with Mr. Clinton in 1999. Impeachment always inflicts trauma on the nation. We can accept that. What the country shouldn’t accept is a continuation of this Democrat-led circus.

Mr. Rove helped organize the political-action committee American Crossroads and is author of “The Triumph of William McKinley” (Simon & Schuster, 2015).

SOURCE: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

AP Explains: What A Trump Impeachment Trial Might Look Like

In this Feb. 15, 1974, a facsimile of a ticket used during the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson is photographed in Washington. As House Democrats quickly move forward with impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, much remains unknown about how a Senate trial would proceed, including what the charges would be. (AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi, File)

BY MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — As House Democrats quickly move forward with impeachment proceedings, the likelihood grows that Donald Trump will become the third president to face a Senate trial to determine whether he should be removed from office.

The examples of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton , who were both acquitted, offer insight into the process that Trump would face. Still, much remains unknown about how a trial would proceed, including what the charges would be. It’s also unknown whether witnesses would be called and whether parts of the proceedings would be conducted behind closed doors. Republicans who control the Senate will have a big say on both of those issues.

This 1865-1880 photo made available by the Library of Congress shows a damaged glass negative of President Andrew Johnson. As House Democrats quickly move forward with impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, much remains unknown about how a Senate trial would a proceed, including what the charges would be.. (Brady-Handy photograph collection/Library of Congress via AP)

A look at what’s known about the impeachment trial:

IMPEACHMENT IN THE HOUSE

Formal articles of impeachment probably would be developed and approved by the House Judiciary Committee and then sent on to the full, Democratic-led House for a vote.

Not all proposed articles are certain to be adopted, even if Democrats control the process. The Republican-led House approved two and rejected two for Clinton. (In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee adopted three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon and rejected two others. Nixon resigned before the full House voted.)

ON TO THE SENATE
If impeachment articles are adopted, the House will appoint members to serve as managers who will prosecute the case in the Senate. For Clinton’s trial, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee made the case against the president. One House manager was Lindsey Graham, now a senator from South Carolina.

Twenty years ago, the House managers walked silently across the Capitol to the Senate, where the sergeant-at-arms escorted them to the well of the chamber and Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., then the House Judiciary Committee chairman, read the impeachment articles aloud. When he finished, Hyde said, “That concludes the exposition of the articles of impeachment against William Jefferson Clinton. The managers request that the Senate take order for the trial.”

It’s not clear whom Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would appoint as managers, but one lawmaker who’s not on the Judiciary Committee seems a good bet: Adam Schiff of California, a former prosecutor who has been leading the impeachment inquiry as House Intelligence Committee chairman.

After impeachment articles are read, Chief Justice John Roberts would be sworn in to preside over the trial. Roberts in turn would swear in the 100 senators. Last time, they also signed an oath book and kept commemorative pens the Senate produced for the historic moment, though with an unfortunate misspelling: “Untied States Senator.”

THE PRELIMINARIES
The Senate has rules for impeachment trials, but some key questions, such as the length of the proceeding, are likely to be decided in negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. McConnell noted recently that their predecessors as leaders, Republican Trent Lott and Democrat Tom Daschle, hammered out agreements for Clinton’s impeachment trial.

One important issue to be resolved is who, if anyone, will be called as witnesses.

In Clinton’s trial, the House Republican managers sought to call witnesses. Democrats strenuously objected that this would drag out the trial. In the end, there were only three witnesses and no live testimony in the Senate: Monica Lewinsky, White House aide Sidney Blumenthal and Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan. All were questioned in private by both sides with a senator of each party present to keep order and resolve disputes. Excerpts of their videotaped depositions were shown at the trial.

HOW WILL THE TRIAL WORK?

In some respects, a Senate impeachment trial resembles a typical courtroom proceeding with a judge presiding and an unusually large jury of 100 senators. But there are important differences.

For one, it takes a vote of two-thirds of those present (67 out of 100 if everyone is there) to convict and remove the president from office. For another, while senators are jurors, they also set the rules for the trial, may ask questions and can be witnesses.

While courtroom jurors are screened for possible biases, voters already have selected the jury in elections that gave Republicans a Senate majority, with 53 seats. The GOP could insist on rules benefiting Trump, including limiting witnesses against him, though it would take just three Republicans to foil a party-line effort.

Even if all Democrats vote to convict Trump, the Democratic House managers still need to win over more than one-third of Republican senators for a conviction — a formidable task. By comparison, in the Clinton trial, Republican managers couldn’t win over a single Democrat and several Republicans voted to acquit.

To make their case, the managers are likely to give opening and closing arguments that could last for several days and respond to senators’ questions that also could be time-consuming. They also might question any witnesses. Trump’s defense team would have equal time to rebut the charges. Each step, as well as the time it takes to reach agreement on the rules, takes days, if not weeks.

COULD TRUMP TAKE PART?

Yes, but that would be unprecedented. Senate rules call on the person impeached, or a representative, to answer the charges. The Clinton legal team that handled those chores in 1999 included his top White House lawyers, but also Dale Bumpers, a former Democratic senator from Arkansas who was at ease in the chamber in which he served for nearly a quarter-century.

HOW LONG?

The Senate will determine the length of the trial. In theory, it could be cut off almost at the outset if a majority of the Senate votes to dismiss the charges. McConnell has suggested that is not likely, despite the Republicans 53-47 majority.

In Clinton’s trial, Lott, R-Miss., and Daschle, D-S.D., allowed Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia to move for dismissal a couple of weeks after the proceeding began, but it failed basically along party lines.

Clinton’s trial began on Jan.7, 1999. Each side had 24 hours to make opening arguments and an additional three hours for closing arguments.

Three weeks after the trial began, senators agreed that they would hold a final vote no later than Feb. 12. President Johnson’s impeachment trial lasted just over two months.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE
The chief justice presides over an impeachment trial of the president because the Constitution says so. The Founding Fathers took the vice president, who also is the president of the Senate, out of the equation, because the vice president would become president if the Senate convicts.

Roberts would decide questions of evidence and procedure that are not spelled out in Senate rules. But unlike in a courtroom where the judge’s ruling is final, the Senate can override Roberts’ decisions by a majority vote. When senators have questions for lawyers or witnesses, they submit them to the chief justice, who does the asking.

In the Clinton trial, Chief Justice William Rehnquist stayed above the political fray. There’s no reason to think Roberts would approach his role differently.

Rehnquist balanced his job at the court with his duties across the street at the Capitol, though the court was not in session for most of Clinton’s trial. On one day, when the court heard arguments and the trial was in session, Rehnquist ducked out about 10 minutes early during arguments over electoral districts in North Carolina. Walter Dellinger, an attorney arguing the case, said the lawyers were notified that Rehnquist would leave early, but nothing was said in the courtroom.

THE END GAME

Eventually, senators will deliberate. Whether that’s done in private is up to them.

In 1999, the Senate defeated a Democratic effort to open up deliberations. Once a decision has been reached, the Senate meets in open session to vote on each article of impeachment. Senators will stand one by one at their desks and offer their verdict, guilty or not guilty.

Twenty years ago, Republican House members could not persuade any Democratic senators to convict Clinton and they lost five Republican votes on one impeachment article and 10 on the other. Democrats have an equally tall order this time. To convict Trump, they need to draw 20 Republican senators, assuming all 45 Democrats and two Democratic-allied independents vote against the president.

If Trump is not convicted, the trial ends and he remains in office.

But if he is convicted, the country would enter an unprecedented situation. Trump would be automatically removed from office and Vice President Mike Pence would become president. It’s not clear how quickly the succession would happen, but the Constitution does not contemplate any gap between a Senate vote to convict and the new president assuming power. “In the case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President,” the 25th Amendment says.

This story has been corrected to reflect that Trent Lott represented Mississippi, not Louisiana.

Experts: Bomber Likely Left Behind Trove Of Forensic Clues

An officer with the Uniform Division of the United States Secret Service uses his dog to search a checkpoint near the home of President Barack Obama, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in Washington. The U.S. Secret Service says agents have intercepted packages containing "possible explosive devices" addressed to former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

BY MICHAEL BIESECKER & LISA MARIE PANE

WASHINGTON (AP) — Investigators examining the explosive devices sent to high-profile targets in Washington and New York this week will be working to glean forensic clues to help identify who sent them, from fingerprints and DNA evidence to tracking the origin of the packages and the components used to make the bombs.

Larry Johnson, a former head of criminal investigations for the U.S. Secret Service who also served as a special agent in charge of the presidential protective detail, said that bomb makers usually leave evidence behind. “If there is a human involved, there is a high probability you’re going to get somewhere investigatively,” he said. “There will be no stone left unturned.”

Johnson said it is highly likely that the person or people who built the bombs have been previously flagged by law enforcement. The Secret Service maintains an extensive database of individuals and groups who have made past threats against presidents or other top political leaders, either through letters, emails or on social media.

“A good percentage of the time, this is not the first time whoever is responsible for this will have stuck their neck out,” Johnson said. “Those looking to do revenge or harm to someone, it doesn’t just come to them one day.”

Among the first steps for investigators will be retracing the path of the packages through the postal system or courier service used to deliver them.

The U.S. Postal Service operates a sophisticated imaging system that photographs the outside of each piece of mail processed across the country and can be used to determine the specific location of where it was sent. That’s how federal officials were led to a woman who sent the poison ricin through the mail to President Barack Obama and then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2013.

The envelopes and packaging materials themselves will also be closely scrutinized.

“It will be a treasure trove of forensic evidence,” said Anthony Roman, a private security and investigations consultant. “As human beings, we are filtering off our DNA everywhere we walk, everywhere we sit.”

Even the most careful bomber is likely to leave behind genetic material that could be used to identify them, especially traces of sweat, saliva or skin cells. There may also be fingerprints or hair.

Roman said investigators will also be collecting all available video camera footage taken from where the packages were mailed and delivered, as well as interviewing any potential witnesses in the area.

Because the devices were intercepted before they exploded, forensics experts will be able to carefully disassemble the devices and examine the components. They’ll examine the wiring, the initiating system, any timing device. If it was a pipe bomb, authorities will seek to identify what type of pipe. The design of the bomb will be compared to other explosive devices recovered in the past.

Adam B. Hall, director of the Core Mass Spectrometry Facility at the Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis at Northeastern University, said most devices are made from easily available materials regardless of what specific type of device it is.

It will have three primary components: the pipe, the explosive filler and an “initiator,” or mechanism to set it off. The initiator will help identify how sophisticated the bomb maker is, whether it’s a timing device or a remote trigger.

“Your typical pipe bomb, it’s not very sophisticated,” said Hall, who previously worked in the Massachusetts State Police crime laboratory and was involved in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation. “A lot of the directions for this are available on the Internet. ... This is not something that would require days or weeks of planning in order to execute.”

Still, there are likely innumerable telltale signs that could help authorities track down how and where it was made, said Jimmie Oxley, the co-director of the University of Rhode Island’s Center of Excellence in Explosives, Detection, Mitigation, and Response.

Some explosives can be homemade, which will make them more difficult to trace. But other materials must be purchased and can help narrow down where and how a device was made. Smokeless powder, for example, is virtually guaranteed to have been purchased. Black powder can be commercial grade or homemade, but it’s easy to discern which is which.

“All of these are signatures,” she said.

There are times, such as with the recent spate of bombings in Austin, Texas, as well as with the notorious Unabomber, when each device will have a different “signature” in an attempt to throw off authorities or as the person making the devices tests and finesses their technique.

Oxley said there will still likely be some commonalities that will allow law enforcement to zero in on a suspect or suspects.

“It’s not an insurmountable task,” Oxley said. “There’s a ton of evidence out there. Unless this is a really, really smart person, they will find out who did this.”

Pane reported from Boise, Idaho. Associated Press reporter Chad Day contributed from Washington.

Follow AP investigative reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck

Explosive Devices Sent To Obama, Clintons; CNN Evacuated

This May 25, 2016 file photo shows the home of former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama in Washington. The Secret Service says a package identified as 'potential explosive device' was sent to former President Barack Obama in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

BY MICHEAL BALSAMO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Disrupting a rash of targeted attacks, the U.S. Secret Service intercepted a bomb that was addressed to Hillary Clinton and a possible explosive that was sent to former President Barack Obama.

Also Wednesday, a police bomb squad was sent to CNN’s offices in New York City and the newsroom was evacuated because of a suspicious package.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press that investigators believe the explosive that was discovered near the Clintons’ home in Chappaqua, New York, is linked to one found Monday at the compound of liberal billionaire George Soros.

The official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said one of the packages had the return address of Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz, an ironic reference to the former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

The package addressed to Obama was intercepted Wednesday by Secret Service agents in Washington.

Neither Clinton nor Obama received the packages, and neither was at risk of receiving them because of screening procedures, the Secret Service said in a statement.

The White House condemned “the attempted violent attacks recently made against President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and other public figures.”

“These terrorizing acts are despicable, and anyone responsible will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that that referred to the senders as “these cowards.”

Hillary Clinton was attending campaign events for Democrats in Florida on Tuesday and Wednesday and was not at the family’s New York residence at the time. She is headlining a fundraising reception on Wednesday for former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who is running for Congress in South Florida.

FBI Probing Clinton Foundation Corruption Claims

BY SADIE GURMAN

WASHINGTON (AP)  — The FBI is investigating whether the Clinton Foundation accepted donations in exchange for political favors while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, two people familiar with the probe confirmed Friday. The revelation comes as President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have been urging the Justice Department to look into corruption allegations involving the foundation.

It is unclear when or why the probe began, but the sources told The Associated Press it has been ongoing for several months, with prosecutors and FBI agents taking the lead from their offices in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the foundation has offices. The people were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Hill newspaper first reported the probe.

Critics have accused the Clinton family of using the foundation to enrich themselves and give donors special access to the State Department when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. But public corruption prosecutors in Washington expressed disinterest in working with the FBI on a Clinton Foundation-related investigation in 2016, saying they had concerns about the strength of the FBI's evidence.

A spokesman for the foundation, Craig Minassian, said it had been "subjected to politically motivated allegations, and time after time these allegations have proven false."

Trump has repeatedly called for an investigation into Clinton, her aides and the foundation, harping on Attorney General Jeff Sessions for not taking action. Democrats say Trump is trying to steer attention away from investigations examining whether his campaign was involved with Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election.

Sessions in November directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate a number of Republican grievances and determine whether a special counsel should be appointed to look into allegations that the Clinton Foundation benefited from an Obama-era uranium transaction involving a Russian state company. In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Sessions said the prosecutors would also make recommendations into "whether any matters currently under investigation need additional resources."

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

An Emotional Bill Clinton Eyes Possible Exit From Foundation

JULIE PACE

ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUGUST 30, 2016

WASHINGTON (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — When Bill Clinton told the staff of his global charity he would have to step down if Hillary Clinton won the White House, he was vividly clear about how that felt: Worse than a root canal, he said.

For Clinton, the foundation that bears his name has shaped much of his post-White House legacy, helping transform him from a popular yet scandal-tainted former president into an international philanthropist and humanitarian. But the Clinton Foundation is also the focus of election-year scrutiny — pushed along by Donald Trump — about the Democratic power couple's ability and willingness to separate the organization's wealthy contributors from past and possible future government roles.

The decisions surrounding the foundation's future are the latest chapter in an unprecedented partnership of personal and political ambitions. While political spouses — Hillary Clinton among them — often put aside their own goals, never before has that been required of a former president.

Friends and associates say that while Bill Clinton knows his role in the high-profile charity has to change, settling on how and when he might walk away has been emotional. He's also said to be deeply frustrated with the criticism shadowing his potential exit.

"We're trying to do good things. If there's something wrong with creating jobs and saving lives, I don't know what it is," he said last week. Mark Updegrove, the director of the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library and author of "Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House," said that while the foundation has unquestionably done good work around the world, the former president has no choice but to step aside if his wife wins the White House.

"Bill Clinton is smart enough to know that as much as the Clinton Foundation might help to augment his legacy, Hillary Clinton becoming president will be a far greater legacy than anything he himself can do as a former president," Updegrove said.

The foundation made some adjustments after she became secretary of state, but it has still faced numerous questions about how rigorously firewalls were upheld that were meant to separate donors from her government work.

An Associated Press review of Clinton's calendars from a two-year stretch show that more than half of those she met with from outside of government had made contributions to the foundation. For Trump and other Republicans, the Clintons' overlapping worlds are rife with ethical lapses. And for some Democrats, even that perception is worrisome in an election year where control of the White House and Congress are at stake.

Meanwhile, there's an odd reality of modern American politics: What presidents do after leaving the White House can shape their legacy almost as much as their tenure in the Oval Office. It can be an opportunity to bolster presidential successes and try to make up for failures. And those who leave office relatively young — Clinton was 54 — can spend many more years on these legacy projects than they did in the White House.

"For the last 15 years, it has been his life," said Tina Flournoy, Clinton's chief of staff. During the announcement of his potential departure, she said he noted that his role as head of the foundation was "the longest job he has held."

Jimmy Carter, who was seen by some as an ineffectual one-term president, has dramatically reshaped his image with decades of work on global issues. George W. Bush left office deeply unpopular, but has been applauded for dedicating his post-White House years to HIV programs in Africa and work with wounded military veterans. President Barack Obama has been discussing plans for his White House afterlife with confidants for months.

"There's a certain expectation that you stay involved, you don't totally get off the scene," said Anita McBride, a longtime Bush family aide. Bill Clinton's foundation began largely to support the building of his presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas. As his post-White House ambitions grew, so did the foundation, ballooning into a $2 billion charity focused on global health, climate change and other international efforts.

The former president has leveraged his contacts to fill the foundation's coffers and traveled the world to meet with people helped by its work. He's the star of the annual Clinton Global Initiative meetings in New York, a mingling of international power players and celebrities that has become the hottest invitation in the philanthropic community.

The plan for the foundation's future in the event of a Clinton victory this fall includes daughter Chelsea Clinton remaining. Foreign and corporate donations will be halted, though the foundation is looking for ways to spin off some programs and keep them running.

The prospect of Bill Clinton stepping away from the foundation that has been the main outlet for his energy and intellect has renewed discussions about how he would fill his time in his wife's administration. Though he's now 70 and slowed by health issues, people close to the Clintons say they fully expect him to seek a prominent role. Hillary Clinton has even raised the prospect of putting her husband in charge of "revitalizing the economy."

"He just has to feel productive every single day," said Susie Tompkins Buell, a longtime Clinton friend. "If he gets into another situation where he's going to have that ability, he's going to be fine."

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Bill Clinton Company Shows Complexity Of Family Finances

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is welcomed to the stage by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. The newly released financial files on Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s growing fortune omit a mystery company with no apparent employees or assets that the former president has used to provide consulting and other services, according to corporate documents reviewed by The Associated Press. (AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The newly released financial files on Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's growing fortune omit a company with no apparent employees or assets that the former president has legally used to provide consulting and other services, but which demonstrates the complexity of the family's finances.

Because the company, WJC, LLC, has no financial assets, Hillary Clinton's campaign was not obligated to report its existence in her recent financial disclosure report, officials with Bill Clinton's private office and the Clinton campaign said. They were responding to questions by The Associated Press, which reviewed corporate documents.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide private details of the former president's finances on the record, said the entity was a "pass-through" company designed to channel payments to the former president.

Under federal ethics disclosure rules, declared candidates do not have to report assets worth less than $1,000. But the company's existence demonstrates the complexity of tracking the Clintons' finances as Hillary Clinton ramps up her presidential bid.

While Bill Clinton's lucrative speeches have provided the bulk of the couple's income, earning as much as $50 million during his wife's four-year term as secretary of state in the Obama administration, the former president has also sought to branch out into other business activities in recent years. Little is known about the exact nature and financial worth of Bill Clinton's non-speech business interests.

The identities of several U.S and foreign-based companies and foundations that Bill Clinton worked for have been disclosed in Hillary Clinton's recent financial report as well as in earlier reports during her stint as secretary of state.

Under federal disclosure rules for spouses' earned income, Hillary Clinton was only obligated to identify the source of her spouse's income and confirm that he received more than $1,000. As a result, the precise amounts of Bill Clinton's earned income from consulting have not been disclosed, and it's not known how much was routed through WJC, LLC.

WJC, LLC was set up in Delaware in 2008 and again in 2013 and in New York in 2009, according to documents obtained by The AP. The company did not appear among holdings in the Clintons' financial disclosure released last week or in previous Hillary Clinton disclosure reports between 2008 and 2013, when she resigned as secretary of state. Bill Clinton signed a document as its "authorizing person" in a corporate filing in Delaware in 2013.

A limited liability company is a commonly used business structure that provides tax advantages and limited legal protection for the assets of company owners and partners. The purpose of Bill Clinton's U.S.-based company was not disclosed in any of the corporate filings in Delaware and New York, but State Department files recently reviewed by the AP show that WJC, LLC surfaced in emails from Bill Clinton's aides to the department's ethics officials.

In February 2009, Clinton's counselor, Douglas Band, asked State Department ethics officials to clear Bill Clinton's consulting work for three companies owned by influential Democratic party donors. Memos sent by Band proposed that Bill Clinton would provide "consulting services regarding geopolitical, economic and social trends affecting the entity and philanthropic opportunities" through the WJC, LLC entity.

State Department officials approved Bill Clinton's consulting work for longtime friend Steve Bing's Shangri-La Industries and another with Wasserman Investments, GP, a firm run by entertainment executive and Democratic party donor Casey Wasserman. The ethics officials turned down Bill Clinton's proposed work with a firm run by entertainment magnate and Democratic donor Haim Saban because of Saban's active role in Mideast political affairs.

WJC, LLC was also cited by Band in a June 2011 memo sent to State Department ethics officials asking for clearance to allow Bill Clinton to advise Band's international consulting company, Teneo Strategy LLC. Band's request said Teneo would use "consulting services provided by President Clinton through WJC, LLC." State Department officials approved the three-year contract between the two companies.

None of the proposals detailed how much Bill Clinton would be paid. While Hillary Clinton's 2011 federal disclosure report did not mention WJC, LLC, it reported that Bill Clinton received "non-employee compensation over $1,000 from Teneo," but did not disclose a more precise amount. Federal disclosure rules require the spouses of filers to disclose the identity of any income sources over $1,000, but they do not have to provide exact figures.

Pass-through, or shell, companies became an issue in the 2012 presidential campaign when Republican candidate Mitt Romney disclosed a private equity entity worth $1.9 million despite failing to report the company on his previous federal disclosure. Romney aides said the company previously held no assets but then received the $1.9 million "true up" payment — a catch-up payment to make up for private equity fees from defunct investment advisory businesses that had not been previously paid.

__ Associated Press writer Randall Chase contributed to this report from Dover, Delaware

Archives Show Hillary Clinton Ok'D Tax Breaks For Non Profits

President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton talk during the White House Conference on Philanthropy in the East Room of the White House in Washington. As first lady in the final year of the Clinton administration, Hillary Rodham Clinton approved the unveiling of a White House plan to push for tax breaks for private foundations and wealthy charity donors at the same time that the William J. Clinton Foundation was soliciting donations for her husband’s presidential library, recently-released Clinton-era documents show.

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS. (AP) — As first lady in the final year of the Clinton administration, Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed a White House plan to give tax breaks to private foundations and wealthy charity donors at the same time the William J. Clinton Foundation was soliciting donations for her husband's presidential library, recently released Clinton-era documents show.

The blurred lines between the tax reductions proposed by the Clinton administration in 2000 and the Clinton Library's fundraising were an early foreshadowing of the potential ethics concerns that have flared around the Clintons' courting of corporate and foreign donors for their family charity before she launched her campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

White House documents in the Clinton Library reviewed by The Associated Press show Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton were kept apprised about a tax reduction package that would have benefited donors, including those to his presidential library, by reducing their tax burden. An interagency task force set up by Bill Clinton's executive order proposed those breaks along with deductions to middle-class taxpayers who did not itemize their returns. Federal officials estimated the plan would cost the U.S. government $14 billion in lost tax payments over a decade.

In a January 2000 memo to Hillary Clinton from senior aides, plans for a "philanthropy tax initiative roll-out" showed her scrawled approval, "HRC" and "OK." The document, marked with the archive stamp "HRC handwriting," indicated her endorsement of the tax package, which included provisions to reduce and simplify an excise tax on private foundations' investments and allow more deductions for charitable donations of appreciated property. The Clinton White House included the tax proposal in its final budget in February 2000, but it did not survive the Republican-led Congress.

"Without your leadership, none of these proposals would have been included in the tax package," three aides wrote to Hillary Clinton in the memo, days before she led a private conference call outlining the plan to private foundation and nonprofit leaders.

Federal law does not prevent fundraising by a presidential library during a president's term. While most modern-day presidents held off until the end of their term, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush allowed supporters to solicit donations while they were still in office, and President Barack Obama is now doing the same.

But in directly pushing the legislation while the Clinton Library was aggressively seeking donations, Hillary and Bill Clinton's altruistic support for philanthropy overlapped with their interests promoting their White House years and knitting ties with philanthropic leaders. Hundreds of pages of documents contain no evidence that anyone in the Clinton administration raised warnings about potential ethics concerns or sought to minimize the White House's active role in the legislation.

"The theme here for the Clintons is a characteristic ambiguity of doing good and at the same time doing well by themselves," said Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Hubert H. Humphrey School at the University of Minnesota. Jacobs said the Clinton administration could have relied on a federal commission to decide tax plans or publicly supported changes but not specific legislation.

Instead, Jacobs said, "this was a commitment by the Clinton White House to identify options and promote them with no regard to the larger picture." Spokesmen for Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Clinton Foundation declined to comment, deferring to the former president's office.

A spokesman for Bill Clinton's office said that his administration was not trying to incentivize giving to the foundation, but instead was spurred by a 1997 presidential humanities committee that urged tax breaks for charities to aid American cultural institutions. Bruce Reed, Bill Clinton's chief domestic policy adviser at the time, also responded Thursday that the former president "wanted to give a break to working people for putting a few more dollars in the plate at the church. Not for any other far-fetched reason." Gene Sperling, former economic adviser to both Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama, added that the tax reduction package was "developed at the Treasury Department, endorsed by experts and designed to encourage all forms of charitable giving."

The Clinton Foundation would not have benefited directly by the tax proposals. The foundation is a public charity and not subject to the excise tax, which applies only to private foundations and is still law. The foundation is also not known to donate appreciated property and stocks to other charities.

But the tax changes would have indirectly helped the foundation — as well as many other U.S. charities — by freeing nonprofits' investments and donations that otherwise would have gone into tax payments. A reduction of the excise tax would have boosted the assets of private foundations. Higher deductions for appreciated investments and property would have also aided the Clinton Foundation, which accepts non-cash gifts. In 2010, for example, the charity declared more than $5 million in donated securities on its federal tax returns.

By the time the Clinton administration introduced its tax package in February 2000, the foundation had already raised $6 million in donations, according to tax disclosures. Among corporate-tied nonprofits that pledged or donated at least $1 million to the library project through the early 2000s, according to tax documents and published reports, were the Wasserman Foundation, the Roy and Christine Sturgis Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Anheuser-Busch Foundation.

Though Bill Clinton did not take over the nonprofit until after his presidency, he had openly discussed his plans for the organization's future with New York executives in June 1999. And the foundation's fundraising was led at the time by a trusted childhood friend, James "Skip" Rutherford, now dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas.

Rutherford said he was not aware of the tax proposals and was focused at the time on small donors and likely contributors around Arkansas. Months before proposing the tax breaks, Clinton White House officials began courting leaders from some of the nation's most influential charities. In the summer of 1999, aides began discussing the possibility of a White House conference to celebrate American philanthropy at the turn of the millennium.

White House documents at the Clinton Library show that Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was herself a board director of the activist New World Foundation in the 1980s, helped oversee the conference. She and aides quickly shaped preparations for a formal White House event planned for that October.

Wealthy donors and major foundations were enlisted to plan and fund the event. Aides spent weeks in White House meetings with charity officials, culling their suggestions on boosting giving by Americans and eliminating government barriers. Department heads were ordered to identify the nonprofits they worked with and find ways to improve those relationships.

A September 1999 White House list proposing possible "philanthropy heroes" to highlight at the conference included wealthy donors of "large recent gifts," among them Microsoft's Bill Gates and his wife, Dell computer founder Michael Dell and investors George Soros and Eli Broad.

They all later donated to the Clinton Foundation through their companies or private foundations. There are no indications that White House officials discussed future Clinton Foundation gifts with any nonprofit. But the White House attention lavished on their concerns, Jacobs said, showed that "the president and the first lady were making tax reform for a specialized, wealthy part of American life one of their top priorities."

In another September memo, aides told Hillary Clinton she could expect "public and private sector announcements" about tax reductions and "streamlining IRS forms for nonprofits." The aides asked for her guidance on policy and guest lists. They told her that funding for the event would be absorbed by the Treasury Department and several foundations and donors, among them the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Getty Foundation, AOL and Jill Iscol, a close Hillary Clinton friend and donor who in 2000 was named finance co-chair of the first lady's New York Senate campaign.

When one aide wrote in an earlier email that Iscol had volunteered to aid the event as "fiscal agent," another aide replied in a handwritten aside: "Little worried in relation to HRC scrutiny." Iscol's IF Hummingbird Foundation later donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Others also became donors to the Clinton Foundation: The Ford Foundation has donated more than $1 million and the MacArthur Foundation and the Mott Foundation have each donated more than $250,000.

In emails and memos, Clinton aides noted strong support among nonprofit interests for tax reductions. A key concern was the annual 2 percent excise tax on foundations' investments that has been law since 1969. Under the excise tax, which is still law, some foundations are able to reduce the tax to 1 percent, but only by using a complicated system that sometimes leads to larger tax burdens. The Council on Foundations, a national organization of corporate grant-makers, has urged a single lower flat excise tax because the current system is too complicated.

Another voice for tax breaks was the actor Paul Newman, who routed the after-tax profits and royalties from his Newman's Own food products to charity. An October 1999 Treasury memo to Clinton aides recounts a 1998 meeting between Newman and then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in which the actor lobbied for "increasing the limits on charitable deductions for corporations and individuals."

After Rubin ordered aides to analyze Newman's proposal, officials warned "that it would be difficult to increase deduction limits without opening up potential abuses such a complete avoidance of income taxes" by some donors.

When Newman pressed again by letter, officials passed his name along to White House officials, who invited him to the 1999 celebration of philanthropy. Newman's foundation later donated between $500,000 and $1 million to the Clinton Foundation before his death in 2008.

Two days after the October 1999 Treasury Department memo, the Clintons hosted the White House philanthropy conference. More than 200 guests — including Newman, singer Justin Timberlake and the heads of major U.S. charities — applauded as the Clintons hailed the accomplishments of volunteers and private foundations.

"We need to think about, in government, whether we can do more things to generate more constructive philanthropy," Bill Clinton told the crowd. Added Hillary Clinton: "There has never been a better time for philanthropy than today."

That day, a presidential memo from Bill Clinton ordered the heads of all executive departments to convene an interagency task force to find "ways to reduce governmental barriers to innovative nonprofit enterprises."

In late January, the task force, which included Treasury Department and domestic policy officials, settled on three tax initiatives. They included the two tax breaks for foundations and donors and the third proposal aimed at allowing low and middle-income taxpayers who did not itemize their returns to claim deductions for charity donations over $500 each year.

Hours before Bill Clinton's State of the Union speech in 2000, Hillary Rodham Clinton led a private conference call with charity and foundation leaders to unveil the plans for tax reduction package. Aides told her the discussion would "underscore the priority you are placing on philanthropic initiatives, show the linkage between this year's budget initiatives and the White House Conference of Philanthropy, and to further associate you with philanthropy among the nonprofits and foundation community."

But Bill Clinton's speech that night mentioned only the aid to middle-class donors. He said nothing about the plan to give tax breaks for foundations and wealthy donors. The following month, all three proposals were included in the Clinton administration's 2001 fiscal year budget.

They died in committee.

Read document excerpts at http://apne.ws/1eiMR0p

State: No Evidence Of Conflict In Clinton Foundation Gifts

Former US President Bill Clinton, second right, and and Chelsea Clinton, left, help a Kenyan to fit hearing aids, Saturday, May 2, 2015, when they visited a hearing aid fitting in Nairobi, for individuals in need of hearing assistance. The Starkey Hearing Foundation backed by Clinton Global Initiative conducts hearing missions in the United States and around the globe to bring the gift of hearing to those who would otherwise live in the isolation of a silent world, and pledged to fit more than one million hearing aids to people in need this decade

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department said Monday it has no evidence that any actions taken by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was secretary of state were influenced by donations to the Clinton Foundation or former President Bill Clinton's speaking fees.

Spokesman Jeff Rathke said the department received requests to review potential conflicts primarily for proposed speech hosts or consulting deals for Bill Clinton and found no conflicts. Rathke said, however, that the department welcomes new commitments from the Clinton Foundation to disclose its donors and to support additional efforts that ensure all of those donations are public.

The State Department's comment comes as Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign grapples with criticism that foreign entities traded donations to the family charity for favors at the State Department. Hundreds of paid speeches given by Bill Clinton, which can command as much as $500,000 or more per appearance, have also come under attack from Republican opponents.

Speaking during a nine-day tour of Clinton Foundation projects in Africa with his daughter, Chelsea, Clinton defended his foundation, saying there's nothing "sinister" about getting wealthy people to help poor people in developing countries.

"There's been a very deliberate attempt to take the foundation down," Clinton said. "And there's almost no new fact that's known now that wasn't known when she ran for president the first time." Bill Clinton said 90 percent of donors give $100 or less. But over half of the donors giving $5 million or more are foreign, including foreign governments. Under pressure, the foundation recently announced it will only take money from six Western countries.

"It's an acknowledgment that we're going to come as close as we can during her presidential campaign to following the rules we followed when she became secretary of state," he said. He added: "I don't think that I did anything that was against the interest of the United States."

Bill Clinton has largely stayed on the sidelines during the early weeks of his wife's presidential bid, opting to focus on his foundation work instead of visiting early primary states with his wife. His decision to re-enter the political fray, with an appearance on NBC's "Today" show, reflects concerns that the intense scrutiny — and Republican attacks — on the family charity is having a negative impact on Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations. An Associated Press-GfK poll released last week found that more than six in 10 independents agreed that "honest" was not the best word to describe the second-time presidential candidate.

"Bill Clinton is saying what Hillary Clinton has said on many occasions: just trust us, just trust us. And unfortunately trust is earned through transparency, and I think they have not been particularly transparent on a whole host of things," said Republican Carly Fiorina, a former technology CEO who announced her presidential candidacy on Monday.

The Republican organization America Rising released a web video on Monday that uses footage of Clinton's confirmation hearings for secretary of State to raise questions about her integrity. The video uses 2009 footage of Clinton saying "there is not an inherent conflict of interest in any of my husband's work at all," juxtaposed with a list of foreign countries that have donated to the foundation.

Maine Teacher Wins $1 Million Global Teacher Prize In Dubai

Nancie Atwell, a teacher from Southport, Maine, U.S., center, throws a kiss as she poses with former President of the United States Bill Clinton, left, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, prime minister of the U.A.E. and Ruler of Dubai, after she won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, March 15, 2015. Atwell has been teaching since 1973 and founded the Center for Teaching and Learning in Southport.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An English teacher from rural Maine won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize on Sunday after 42 years of work as an innovator and pioneer in teaching literature.

Nancie Atwell plans to donate the full amount to the Center for Teaching and Learning which she founded in 1990 in Edgecomb, Maine as a nonprofit demonstration school created for the purpose of developing and disseminating teaching methods. The school says 97 percent of its graduates have gone on to university.

Atwell said that winning the award is a valedictory for her life's work, but that her true validation comes from the responses of students. "I really find that I'm validated every day just by the experiences I have with children in the classroom," she told The Associated Press after receiving the award.

Atwell was selected from a pool of 1,300 applicants from 127 countries. The top 10 finalists, which included two other teachers from the U.S. and others from Afghanistan, India, Haiti, Cambodia, Malaysia, Kenya, and the U.K., were flown to Dubai, United Arab Emirates for the ceremony. The winner was announced on stage by Sunny Varkey, founder of the non-profit Varkey Foundation that focuses on education issues and founder of the for-profit GEMS Education company that has more than 130 schools around the world.

The award was created to be the largest prize of its kind and to serve as a sort-of Nobel Prize for one exceptional teacher each year. After Atwell won the award, a young boy no older than 11 with a book bag strapped to his back waited patiently with his mother for a photograph with the winning teacher.

Varkey said that the award is aimed at fostering that kind of admiration for teachers and to say "to a celebrity-obsessed world that teachers are important and worthy of respect." Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who is honorary chair of the Varkey Foundation, were also on-hand to give Atwell the award.

Atwell has received numerous other awards throughout her life for her innovative approach to teaching. She has authored nine books about teaching, including "In The Middle," which sold more than half a million copies.

"The other recognition I've received has been content-area specific," she said. "This is global... this is really an award for a body of work, for a lifetime of teaching." Hundreds of teachers have visited her center in Maine over the years to learn its writing-reading practices.

Her school's eighth grade students read an average of 40 books per year, compared to the national average of about 10. They also write extensively, and many of her students have gone on to become published authors.

All of her students choose the subjects they write about and the books they read. The school's website boasts that there is "never a raised voice or standardized test," but that there are tens of thousands of books and time to read from among them every day.

"If we want them to be highly literate, we have to value the power of stories and self-expression," she said, explaining her approach. "Anything else is a false choice. Anything else will be an exercise that gets kids good at doing exercises."

This is the first year for the Global Teacher Prize to be awarded, though the Varkey Foundation plans it to be an annual event. Experts, including other teachers and school administrators, shortlisted the top 50 finalists and a prize committee helped select the top 10. The winner was then selected by a group of more than 60 people that included CEO's, investors, professors, journalists and public figures such as Oscar Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey and Grammy Award-winning artist Esperanza Spalding.

Online:

Global Teacher Prize http://www.globalteacherprize.org/

Center for Teaching and Learning http://c-t-l.org/

Clinton Says Obama On Firm Ground On Immigration

Former President Bill Clinton gives the keynote speech at the New Republic Centennial Gala Dinner at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday noted that previous U.S. presidents have issued some type of executive order on immigration, suggesting his Democratic successor was on "pretty firm legal footing."

The former president spoke on the eve of President Barack Obama's scheduled announcement of executive actions that could spare as many as 5 million immigrants from being deported from the U.S. Clinton said during an event honoring the magazine The New Republic that it was part of a larger debate about the nation's role around the globe.

"As far as I can tell every president in the modern era has issued some executive orders affecting immigration, so I think it — I imagine he's on pretty firm legal footing," Clinton said at a gala celebrating the publication's centennial.

Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush extended amnesty to family members who were not covered by the last major overhaul of immigration law in 1986. Clinton sought to frame the debate in a larger context, saying Americans should be optimistic about the nation's future. He said the next two decades could be positive for the country if the U.S. can develop inclusive economics and inclusive politics.

"In a world where borders look more like nets than walls, we are interdependent whether we like it or not, so the only thing that remains is to define the terms of our interdependence," he said. Clinton joked that nobody cares what an ex-president says unless his wife might run for office. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is considering a White House campaign in 2016.