Last night the subject of the Clinton Foundation came up in an interview between Hillary Clinton and CNN’s Anderson Cooper. This is a very touchy subject.

By even the most charitable view, the activities of the Clinton Foundation are corrupt and hopelessly compromised. As far as anyone can tell the Foundation has three purposes. First, it allows rich donors and the random brutal despot to curry favor with the Clintons. Second, it provides an under the table income stream to the Clinton family (I use family, here, in the Mafia sense). Third, it provides work to Democrat operatives who are not employed by the federal government. Its operations were characterized by a leading charity monitoring groups as a slush fund. It also, on occasion, provides a very nice life style to Bill Clinton’s mistresses.

When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, she essentially acted as a “director of development” for the Foundation. Her private emails, including those containing classified information, were shared with Clinton Foundation staff. There was a troubling linkage between foreign nations and organizations giving money to the Clinton Foundation and receiving access or favors from the State Department.

In the interview that followed a timorous and thoroughly stump broken Anderson Cooper let Hillary Clinton tell lie after lie. The applicable segment begins around 3:30.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: Trump has said he’s clearly going to be focusing on the Clinton Foundation. Last night he said, and I quote, ‘The Russians, the Saudis, the Chinese all gave money to the foundation and got favorable treatment in return.

The foundation has obviously raised huge sums of money for worthy causes. It’s always not been transparent, though. Tens of millions of dollars have come from a Canadian partnership whose donors can remain secret. There was a large donation from Algeria that wasn’t submitted to State Department for approval. If you’re president, will your husband divest himself of any association with the foundation?

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, Anderson, we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

But let me just try to set the record straight. We had absolutely, overwhelming disclosure. Were there one or two instances that slipped through the cracks? Yes. But was the overwhelming amount of anything that anybody gave the foundation disclosed? Absolutely. And I’m proud of the foundation. I’m proud of the work it has done…

COOPER: But some big donors clearly want the association with you or your husband that being linked to the foundation gives them. As president, obviously it’s vital that you or certainly your husband not appear in any way compromised. I guess, have you considered the idea of him stepping down?

CLINTON: Again, I’m not going to consider anything until we see what the circumstances are. But let me just point out that people give lots of money to presidential campaigns, don’t they?

They give lots of money to political parties as well. So, you know, that is money that goes directly to support political activities of candidates, money that has been given to the foundation goes to support humanitarian work.

This is insane. The level of the lie Clinton told is only exceeded by the sheer gutlessness of Cooper in letting that lie slide. Let’s look at this snapshot (h/t to Townhall’s Guy Benson):

(1) Clinton Foundation Failed to Disclose 1,100 Foreign Donations (Bloomberg)

(2) Clinton charity never provided foreign donor data (Boston Globe)

(3) Clinton charities will refile tax returns, audit for other errors (Reuters)

(4) Quid pro quo linking contributions to US government action (New York Times)

At least one foreign contribution, $500,000 from Algeria, had to be returned because it violated federal ethics rules for Clinton to accept it. The Clinton Foundation actually manages a private sector hedge fund out of its offices in Colombia and uses Foundation staff as its staff.

Cooper knew he was going to ask the question and he had access to the same research that I do. He could have hammered her on the Foundation and provided a clear cut case as to why she and her family have to divest themselves of all Foundation activities. Instead, Cooper averted his eyes and moved on.

Now that Donald Trump has surfed the crest of slavish media adulation to the GOP nomination, the media are about to return to doing what they do best: run interference for Democrats to get them elected.