Did State Dept staffers thank Clinton Foundation donors, per @GroverNorquist? Nope.
We see lots of RW Jdicial Watch--and its lies show up here on DU. Glad to see this. One my RW LIE is seeing the light.
False
Norquist
Under Hillary Clinton, State Department "officials were sending official thank-yous to people who gave to the Clinton Foundation."
— Grover Norquist on Thursday, March 24th, 2016 in a Fox Business interview
Grover Norquist says State Department employees sent thank-yous to donors of Clinton Foundation
By Jon Greenberg on Monday, March 28th, 2016 at 6:08 p.m.
State Department investigators last year issued a subpoena to the Clinton Foundation seeking documents about projects run by the charity that may have required U.S. government approval when Hillary Clinton was secretary of State. (Inform)
Opinion polls consistently show that if there’s one thing Hillary Clinton is up against with voters, it’s that too many of them question her honesty.
Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, fed into that theme during an interview on Fox Business with host Maria Bartiromo on March 24, 2016. Norquist segued from talking about her presidential campaign fundraising to the "mixing of her official job as secretary of state and the Clinton Foundation."
Norquist said, "We now know (that) officials were sending official thank-yous to people who gave to the Clinton Foundation. Letting them know ‘wink, wink, nudge, nudge’ that you didn’t just give to the Clinton Foundation. Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, appreciates what you’ve done."
We wondered if Norquist's allegation was correct.
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Judicial Watch posted a number of documents it received through a Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department. .................
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PolitiFact @PolitiFact 27m27 minutes ago
Did State staffers thank Clinton Foundation donors, per @GroverNorquist? Nope. http://bit.ly/1Ro9BMz
Under Hillary Clinton, State Department "officials were sending official thank-yous to people who gave to the Clinton Foundation."
— Grover Norquist on Thursday, March 24th, 2016 in a Fox Business interview
..............Our ruling
Norquist said that State Department officials were sending official thank-yous to donors to the Clinton Foundation. We looked at the source documents he relied on and found nothing that supported his version of events. State Department staff did ask for lists of projects and partners in preparation for a speech Clinton was to give at a Clinton Global Initiative meeting.
However, there is no hint that any staff member expressed official appreciation to any donor. The event itself involved partners in CGI projects, which by that time was financially separate from the foundation. In addition, there is no indication that money for those projects flowed through CGI.
Finally, Clinton thanked governments for showing up, but didn’t thank donors. She praised the audience in general, but that would include many who were on the receiving end of CGI’s efforts.
The documents do not say what Norquist suggested they said. We rate this claim False.