The potential for harm is monumental and unprecedented. All of the money flowing into the foundation, even if those donations are restricted to those by individual American citizens, would create the appearance of corruption, if not corruption itself. This was the logic the Supreme Court used to justify limits on campaign donations by individuals in the 1976 case of Buckley v. Valeo.

The theory behind that case, beloved on the Left for its limitation of First Amendment principles, surely applies to the Clintons and their foundation. The money may not go directly into the pockets of Hillary’s pantsuits, but in donating to a corporation founded by the Clintons, named after the Clintons, and staffed by the Clintons’ longtime friends, every donor knows he is effectively doing the same thing. For the purpose of political influence, the Clintons and their foundation are one and the same.

Less discussed is the problem of the money flowing out of the corporation. Usually, we worry about politicians taking bribes, but politicians who can pay bribes also pose a threat to the balance of power in Washington. This agglomeration of financial and political power was one of the things that made Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi such a stain on the escutcheon of that nation.

By leveraging the fortune accumulated through his vast communications empire, Berlusconi was able to short-circuit many processes that had once limited Italian prime ministers’ power.