Also from today’s Jolt:

The Clinton Foundation, Previewing Life Under Another Clinton Presidency
So what was, or is, the Clinton Global Initiative and Clinton Foundation?
Lots of former presidents have their libraries and related think tanks, their charities, their efforts at remaining in national life after their presidency. Jimmy Carter played a high-profile role with Habitat for Humanity.
But for Bill – and Hillary, about to begin a senatorial career at the moment she thought of herself as “dead broke” – that wasn’t enough. They wanted or needed something bigger. Something with a global reach; something that didn’t work with any one signature good cause but with all of them. Something that could bring in any celebrity – even Natalie Portman and her dog with first-class tickets. Something on an epic scale, a group that would think nothing of spending more than $10 million a year on travel costs alone. The organization would wed enormous financial resources — $2 billion – with unimpeachable motives – er, maybe a bad word choice. It would combine wealth on an unimaginable scale with an unparalleled ability to generate good press and publicity for their noble motives and actions
Of course, foreign governments would want in on the act. Of course, the line between the charitable initiatives and staffers’ corporate consulting grew blurry. Of course there is an “undertow of transactionalism in the glittering annual dinners, the fixation on celebrity, and a certain contingent of donors whose charitable contributions and business interests occupy an uncomfortable proximity.”
Now, Politico reveals, those within the institution developed its own status quo and resisted attempts at reform:
At the foundation, sources say, Lindsey and other longtime Bill Clinton confidants hampered Braverman’s reform efforts by warning the former president not to allow too many changes that could be interpreted as a course correction. The result was that Braverman would develop consensus around reforms, but, when he tried to implement them, the old guard would try to undercut him, say people familiar with his tenure. They say he lacked the political background or allies to navigate between the Clintons and their sometimes divergent power bases.
The bonds of big money and friendship are tied even tighter:
And some rolled their eyes when the foundation’s $250 million was invested with a firm called Summit Rock Advisers where Chelsea Clinton’s best friend Nicole Davison Fox is managing director. The two were classmates at Sidwell Friends School and Davison Fox interned in the Clinton White House. She later served as matron of honor in Clinton’s wedding, and her husband was a founding employee of the hedge fund started by Clinton’s husband, Marc Mezvinsky.
The Clinton Foundation is appropriately named: It is powerful, wealthy, secretive, and furious in response to even the slightest criticism.

Royals, with a court, courtiers, retainers, servants…