The Facts
The Clintons
played a major role in recovery efforts in Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010. Former president Bill Clinton was the public face of U.S. efforts in Haiti through several recovery roles. He was the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, co-leader of the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund (with former president George W. Bush) and co-chairman of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, a quasi-government planning body that approved hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. government-funded recovery projects.
The U.S. Agency for International Development supported the commission’s efforts, and Hillary Clinton led the U.S. response in Haiti as secretary of state. The Clinton Foundation raised more than $30 million for Haiti relief projects.
The Clinton family’s charitable work in Haiti has been a mix of success, disappointment and controversy. As our
Washington Post colleagues reported, some Clinton-backed projects didn’t come through, such as a $2 million housing expo for thousands of new housing units. The
Government Accountability Office found poor planning and unsustainable outcomes for taxpayer-funded projects through USAID, such as a $170 million power plant and port for the Caracol Industrial Park, which the Clinton Foundation promoted.
Hillary Clinton’s younger brother
had connections to a mining project in Haiti, raising suspicions among Haitians about the Clintons’ motives. Luxury hotel projects paid by the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund promised construction jobs — but for Haitians, it represented another disconnect between Clinton-backed efforts and the realities of one of the poorest countries struggling to rebuild after one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the Western Hemisphere.
There’s real frustration among Haitians over failures in progress promised to them, not just by the Clintons but from the international community at large. In 2015, Haitian activists
protested outside the Clinton Foundation in New York, claiming the Clintons mismanaged hundreds of millions in taxpayer money through the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission.
But there is no evidence that Hillary Clinton, through the Clinton Foundation, raised “hundreds of millions of dollars” for a hospital that was never built. We consulted groups that have been critical of recovery delays in Haiti, but they could not point to a specific Clinton Foundation-funded hospital project, either.
“We’ve tried to figure out what he might be citing as well, but we can’t provide you with a source of his claim because one doesn’t exist,” said Craig Minassian, a Clinton Foundation spokesman. “The Clinton Foundation never committed to build a hospital, nor did it accept, raise
Vice news reported on this too.