QuickTake Q&A: Clinton Foundation Becomes Target for Republicans

The foundation that Bill Clinton started after leaving the White House catalogs the progress it has made around the globe in health care, climate change, economic development and opportunities for women and girls. Donald Trump is the latest big-name Republican to paint the foundation in far less noble terms: as a vehicle by which Clinton and his wife, Hillary -- who happens to be Trump’s opponent in the presidential campaign -- receive and disseminate billions of dollars in exchange for access and favors. "The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves," Trump alleges. Bill Clinton says the foundation will stop accepting foreign and corporate money, and make other changes, if his wife wins in November.

The Clinton Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity that was founded in 1998 to raise money for Bill Clinton’s presidential library. It morphed into a sprawling charitable endeavor that has raised an estimated $2 billion since 2002 and convenes the rich and powerful each year for the Clinton Global Initiative. Since it takes money from foreign governments and from people hoping to do business with foreign governments -- and has been run by a former president while his wife was a U.S. senator, U.S. secretary of state and a presidential candidate herself -- the foundation is vulnerable to charges of conflict of interest.