Trump calls for Clinton Foundation to be shut down

close

Video

Trump on Clinton Foundation: Shut it down, give money back

Republican presidential nominee on 'Fox & Friends'

Donald Trump launched a fresh attack on the Clinton Foundation on Monday, calling it “the most corrupt enterprise in political history” and saying it "must be" shut down.

Trump’s attack comes after Bill Clinton announced that if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, the Foundation will no longer accept foreign and corporate donations. The Associated Press reported that Bill Clinton said he would also stand down from his role at the foundation if his wife wins the White House.

"These steps would be implemented if Secretary Clinton is elected to avoid perception issues while ensuring the people who depend on our programs continue to be served," Clinton Foundation spokesman Craig Minassian said in a statement.

But in a statement released Monday morning, Trump called Hillary Clinton “the defender of the corrupt and rigged status quo” and accused the Clintons of caring more about donors than about the American people.

“It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history. What they were doing during Crooked Hillary’s time as Secretary of State was wrong then, and it is wrong now. It must be shut down immediately,” he said.

“It’s pay-for-play. If you look at it, it’s pay-for-play,” he told "Fox & Friends." "These are very greedy people, these are people who have skirted the law for a long time.”

He also said that the foundation should return money donated by countries that America shouldn’t be doing business with due to their human rights records.

The statement from Minassian indicated the charity has no plans to stop operations. "Nobody is presuming the outcome of the election, therefore implementing changes to programs before then would needlessly hurt people who are being helped by our charitable work around the world," he said.

Clinton campaign Chair John Podesta said Monday that Trump should "come clean" about his business interests after the changes to the Clinton Foundation.

"Donald Trump needs to come clean with voters about his complex network of for-profit businesses that are hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to big banks, including the state-owned Bank of China, and other business groups with ties to the Kremlin," Podesta said.

Pressure, though, continues to build on the organization.

On Sunday, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump supporter, said he would indict the non-profit for racketeering if he could.

“If I was attorney general, I would indict the Clinton Foundation as a racketeering enterprise,” Giuliani, who served as U.S. attorney in New York and as associate attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, told “Fox News Sunday.”

The foundation and Clinton’s campaign have been dogged by accusations of pay-to-play dating back to when Clinton served as secretary of state. Critics have raised questions about the amount of influence donors had when she served as the nation’s top diplomat.

Clinton stepped down from the foundation’s board when she launched her campaign in 2015, when she also stopped fundraising for the foundation and giving paid speeches.

Meanwhile, as Trump stepped up his criticism Monday of the foundation he was also trying to settle questions about his own immigration stance. In the same interview with "Fox & Friends," he said he's not flip-flopping when it comes to his proposal to deport the estimated 11 million people living in the United States illegally -- though his new campaign manager said Sunday his stance is "to be determined."

Trump had previously proposed using a "deportation force" to remove the 11 million people living in the United States illegally-- a proposal that excited many of his core supporters, but alienated Hispanic voters who could be pivotal in key states.

Trump met Saturday with Hispanic supporters, representatives of a community that has been wary of the billionaire businessman's deportation proposals and his plans to build a giant wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Questioned on whether Trump still intends to deploy the deportation force, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Sunday: "To be determined."

Trump told Fox News on Monday that he's "not flip-flopping," but wants to come up with "a really fair, but firm" solution.

Fox News' Mike Emanuel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.