An email just went out to the press corps announcing that, as promised, Bill Clinton has released his foundation's donor list ahead of his wife's confirmation hearing for her appointment as secretary of state. But no sooner had I clicked over to the foundation's website and read that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar had donated multiple millions of dollars each to Clinton's charitable works, than the site crashed. The website of Friends of Saudi Arabia, a group listed as a million-dollar donor to the Clinton Foundation, is also down. But according to the U.S.-Saudi Arabia Information Service:
Friends of Saudi Arabia is an apolitical, secular, educational, non-profit organization that serves to build bridges of goodwill and understanding between Saudi Arabia and the international community.
Events hosted by Friends of Saudi Arabia serve as a tool for nurturing dialogue, debate, alliance building and networking opportunities between people of diverse backgrounds with hopes to dispel misconceptions, establish friendships, and inspire global understanding and exchange. Friends of Saudi Arabia aims to promote better “people to people” understanding as well as bridging social and cultural gaps.
--Dana Goldstein
Update: The donor website is back up and running, albeit slowly and sporadically. If you click through the first few pages, which are dominated by governments, family foundations, and international NGOs, you can see the corporations that support the foundation. Some, such as Pfizer, have a less than progressive record on issues the foundation works on, such as ensuring access to medicines for HIV/AIDS patients living in poverty. Pfizer donated between $500,001 and $1 million.
