STUNNING NEW CHART O` THE DAY: How the Clinton Foundation Spent its Money in 2013

Before Hillary left office in 2013, the Clintons appeared bound and determined to slurp up as much money into their Foundation as possible, spending as little on direct aid as one could imagine for a "charity". The New York Post reports:

The Clinton Foundation's finances are so messy that the nation's most influential charity watchdog put it on its "watch list" of problematic nonprofits last month.

The Clinton family's mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.

The group spent the bulk of its windfall on administration, travel, and salaries and bonuses, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.

In 2013, according to the Clinton Foundation's IRS Form 1990 filing [PDF], the organization actually spent more than twice as much on travel, conferences, conventions and meetings than on actual, eh, grants.

Even the grants that were made were dubious "investments". One such grant was nearly half a million dollars to a San Francisco-based group called "Architecture for Humanity". Earlier this year the group announced it was closing its doors.

The average compensation for the top Clinton Foundation executives we know of was roughly a quarter of a million dollars a year. In fact, as Karl Denninger explains:

You might be interested in knowing that the "charity" had 35 employees with reportable compensation (that is, over $100,000) and their top five combined had $2.6 million in direct (that is, cash) compensation and another $278,000 in benefits for approximately $3 million -- or 1/3rd of all spending on "charitable causes". On a grossed-up basis the charity spent $21.8 million on salaries and wages or approaching three times what it spent on "charity."

In 2013 The Clinton Foundation employed 400 people, which means it doled out only $22,000 per employee.

In other words, it was -- as the Sunlight Foundation describes it -- "a slush fund", not a charity.


Related: CHART O' THE DAY: How the Clinton Global Initiative Used its Funds During Hillary's Tenure at State