Clinton Foundation agrees it accepted $1 million in gift from Qatar

Statement came after Julian Assange says in an interview that the foundation received money from ISIS funders

After startling revelation by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the Clinton Foundation on Saturday confirmed that it had accepted a $1-million gift from Qatar – when Hillary Clinton was the US Secretary of State – without informing the State Department.

The remarks came even as Clinton promised to let the agency review new or significantly increased support from foreign governments.

Assange had earlier claimed that the wealthy people from Qatar and Saudi Arabia who donated money to Hillary Clinton’s charitable foundation also provided financial support to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

According to a Reuters report, the Clinton Foundation officials had in October declined to confirm the Qatar donation.

Meanwhile, officials at Qatar’s embassy in Washington and its Council of Ministers in capital Doha declined to discuss the donation.

The State Department also said it has no record of the foundation submitting the Qatar gift for review, and that it was incumbent on the foundation to notify the department about donations that needed attention. A department spokeswoman did not respond to Reuters’ additional questions about the donation.

According to the foundation's website, which lists donors in broad categories by cumulative amounts donated, Qatar's government has directly given a total of between $1 million and $5 million over the years.

The Clinton Foundation has said it will no longer accept money from foreign governments if Clinton is elected President and will spin off those programmes that are dependent on foreign governments.

In an interview with documentary maker John Pilger for RT at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Assange pointed to an email exchange between US Democrat Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager John Podesta – leaked by his organisation in October – which he believed “is the most significant email in the whole collection”.

“There’s an early 2014 email from Hillary Clinton, not so long after she was Secretary of State, to her campaign manager John Podesta. That email states that ISIS, ISIL is funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection,” Assange told Pilger.

Assange also pointed out that the US’ biggest ever arms deal with Saudi Arabia was made during Clinton’s tenure as the Secretary of State.

“Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest ever arms deal in the world was made with Saudi Arabia: More than $80 billion,” Assange added.

Earlier, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has also raised questions on the funding of the Clinton Foundation, also during the Presidential debates, and said that major donors might have obtained favoured access to Clinton's State Department.