WEINER SR., MARK S. born May 13th, 1954, in Providence, RI died peacefully at home on July 26th, 2016, surrounded by the family who loved him and whom he loved. The son of Irving and Ruth Weiner, Mark was born 2 months prematurely and from the very beginning, was a fighter. He defied all odds after he was diagnosed with special needs at a time when that meant an impossible future. With the help of his mother and teachers at Henry Barnard and La Salle, he went on to graduate from Harvard University Extension, receive an honorary doctorate from Rhode Island College and achieve greatness. A lifelong Democrat, Mark began his career working on Jimmy Carter's 1976 Presidential Campaign. He spent the next four decades working to help hundreds of Democratic candidates get elected, from Presidents to Senators to Mayors, all of whom considered him a friend and confidant. His company, Financial Innovations Inc., is one of the largest political mass-marketing firms in the country, supporting Democratic candidates, political causes, unions and non-profits since 1980. Mark's key leadership positions included Treasurer of the Democratic Governors Association, Chairman of the Rhode Island Democratic Party and several roles with the Democratic National Committee. Mark touched the lives of every single person he met, with his daily goal being to try to do something nice for someone else each day. Whether it was replacing an entire playground for local disabled children in Warwick, his dedication to helping the homeless or his activity with various causes within the Clinton Foundation, he was a committed philanthropist and activist who left the world a better place than he found it. His greatest joy in life was bringing people together. He had an incredible knack for creating an environment in which two people with different beliefs or backgrounds could come together, learn from each other and walk away from the experience having gained from it. Mark was the loving father of Cathy, Steven, Zoë and Richard, father-in-law of Brian Bunnin and adoring grandfather to Maxwell and Bennett. He and his wife, Susan, shared a beautiful marriage for 26 years, and Mark would often say, "I love her even more today than the day we got married." He leaves behind his sister, Betsy, and his mother, Ruth, who both describe him as "the light of their life," as well as many friends whose lives he changed. With a radiant smile and infectious laugh, he was a loyal, trusted and exceptional friend to anyone who had the privilege to know him. Services will be held on Tuesday, August 2 at 12pm at Temple Beth El, 70 Orchard Ave, Providence, RI. Doors will open at 10:30, please plan to arrive early due to security. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to Mark's favorite charity the Clinton Foundation. Donations can be made online at https://bbis.clintonfoundation.org/Tribute. Shiva will be held at the Aurora Club on Tuesday evening at 6pm.

• Mark Weiner, a major Democratic donor and fundraiser and longtime friend of the Clintons, died last week

• Weiner's friendship with the Clintons dates to 1976, when he interned for Hillary Clinton, who was running Jimmy Carter's campaign in Indiana

• Weiner grew close to then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton while raising money for the Democratic Governors Association

By ASSOCIATED PRESS 

PUBLISHED: 17:07 EST, 2 August 2016 | UPDATED: 22:44 EST, 2 August 2016 

Hillary Clinton took a break from the presidential campaign on Tuesday to attend the funeral in Rhode Island of her longtime friend, Mark Weiner, a major Democratic donor and fundraiser.

Former President Bill Clinton delivered the eulogy, saying he was there to represent the 'much despised and maligned political class, those of us who wouldn't have gotten as far in life — and certainly wouldn't have had half as much fun — if it hadn't been for Mark Weiner.'

Hillary Clinton didn't speak at the funeral, but her husband remembered Weiner as 'forever young, forever exuberant, always just a little too much'.

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The Clintons were just some on a long list notable people who attended the funeral service of Mark Weiner, center, an entrepreneur and die-hard democrat who died (pictured in 2004)

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Former President Bill Clinton rides in the back seat as a car pulls out from Temple Beth-El after the funeral of Mark Weiner

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Weiner has been friends with the Clintons since 1976, when he worked with Hillary Clinton on Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. Here he is pictured in Connecticut in 2002

He recalled Hillary Clinton had hired Weiner to oversee an Indiana congressional district during Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaign in that state.

He noted Weiner died preparing to go to the Democratic convention. 'He was always on the job, always trying to advance what he believed in.'

Clinton joked that he thinks he added 6 months to Mark Weiner's life by introducing him to Sophia Loren at a Swiss restaurant.

'No one will ever think of him for more than 30 seconds without breaking into a smile,' he said.

After Clinton spoke, Hillary Clinton, looking distraught, followed the casket down the center aisle. 

Weiner provided campaign buttons and other merchandise to Democratic presidential campaigns since 1980 and held leadership positions throughout the party. 

He died last week at 62 after a year's long battle with cancer. He was preparing to travel to the Democratic National Convention to hear Bill Clinton speak when he died.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Mark Weiner, a major Democratic fundraiser, Hillary Clinton supporter and provider of merchandise to the Democratic National Convention, died Tuesday in Rhode Island.

Weiner, 62, died in Newport as he prepared to head to the convention in Philadelphia, former Providence Mayor Joe Paolino said. He had wanted to see his longtime friend, former President Bill Clinton, address the convention Tuesday, Paolino told The Providence Journal.

Bill Clinton said during his speech late Tuesday that he and Hillary Clinton cried together upon learning that Weiner had died.

His cause of death wasn't immediately known, but Weiner had been treated for years for leukemia.

He was supposed to be a delegate at this year's convention, but the state party said the delegation recently voted to replace him by his son, Richard, because of his poor health. Weiner's wife, Susan, was also a delegate at this year's convention.

Clinton "couldn't have been nicer to Richard, as he always is," Paolino said, CBS affiliate WPRI reported. The former president suggested the convention find a way to pay tribute to Weiner at some point in the coming days, he said.

Weiner's company, Financial Innovations Inc., has since 1980 provided the official campaign merchandise for the DNC, such as T-shirts and buttons. The company also provided merchandise and other work for political candidates including Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 and for current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He is a longtime friend of the Clintons.

Paolino said Bill Clinton visited Weiner for several hours earlier this month in Newport, where Weiner was staying at Paolino's home.

Paolino told The Providence Journal that Weiner first met Hillary Clinton in 1976, when she was running Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign in Indiana and Weiner was her intern. Weiner had been involved in every presidential campaign since then. He also held several leadership roles over the years in Democratic Party organizations.

Under pressure from Gov. Bruce Sundlun, the chairman of Rhode Island's Democratic Party resigned Sunday after acknowledging that he had done personal business with a company that had been hired for certain state contracts and that had contributed to party coffers.

The chairman, Mark S. Weiner, who was the chief fund-raiser for Governor Sundlun in this year's primary, maintained that he had done nothing wrong when he collected $21,000 in sales receipts from Employee Benefits Services, including $3,000 for work in Rhode Island.

Mr. Weiner sold mugs and novelty items to the company, which has contributed more than $11,000 to the state party and the Governor's re-election campaign.

The company had a state contract to inventory state employee benefits programs and authorization to sell insurance policies to state employees.

Mr. Weiner's resignation came a day after the Governor, who won the Democratic primary last week, had urged him to take a leave of absence from the chairmanship until allegations surrounding his relationship with the company could be investigated.. 'It's Politically Wrong'

"He may not have done anything legally wrong," the Governor said of Mr. Weiner in an interview with The Providence (R.I.) Journal. "But I told him it's politically wrong and ethically wrong."

Mr. Weiner's relationship with the company and its president, Asher Schapiro, became a campaign issue when Mr. Sundlun's opponent in the primary, Francis X. Flaherty, accused Mr. Weiner of using his influence to help Employee Benefits Service win a state contract. Mr. Weiner has admited to making two calls on the company's behalf. The contract has since been canceled by the Governor.

Lincoln Almond, the United States Attorney in Rhode Island, has confirmed that the New York-based company is the subject of a preliminary Federal investigation into its business dealings in Rhode Island, but he has not described the nature of the investigation. Mr. Schapiro has been indicted on Federal bribery and money-laundering charges involving work he did for the American Motors Corporation.

Mr. Weiner could not be reached for comment.

Following is a list of people who stayed overnight at the White House, as released today by the Clinton Administration. The list, which includes both contributors and people who did not contribute, is divided into: Arkansas friends, longtime friends, friends and supporters, public officials and dignitaries and those in the arts and letters. Some guests stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom, but many stayed in other rooms. The White House did not provide the names of 35 Clinton relatives and guests and 72 friends of the Clintons' daughter, Chelsea.

Arkansas Friends (370)

• Diane Alderson, Edwin Alderson, Ben Allen, Ben Allen Jr., Bill Allen, Anita Arnold, Carol Arnold, Kay Kelly Arnold, Judge Richard Arnold, Truman Arnold, Liza Ashley, Hazel Askew, Mauria Aspell, Dr. Robert Aspell, Jerome Atchley, Stephanie Atchley, Richard Atkinson, Barbara Baldwin, Karen Ballard, Don Barnes, Marynm Bassett, William Bassett, Woodson Bassett, Ginger Beebe, Kyle Beebe, Mike Beebe, Clarence Bell, Hope Bell, Joe Bell, Stewart Bell, Dr. Joe Bennett, Mary Jean Bennett, Allen Bird, Sherry Bird, Arden Blair, Diane Blair, Heather Blair, James Blair Jr. Jim Blair, Sister Margaret Blandford, Jerry Bookout, Loretta Bookout, Martin Borchert, Rosemary Borchert, Constance Bowen, William Bowen, Charlotte Bradbury.
• Curtis Bradbury, Anne Bradford, Jay Bradford, Sarah Jane Bradshaw, Stanley Bradshaw, Richard Bronfman, Sheila Bronfman, Chris Burrow, Mary Chris Burrow, Dr. Bettie Caldwell, Bess Campbell, Craig Campbell, Craig Campbell Jr., Elizabeth Campbell, Guy Campbell, Mary Ann Campbell, Susan Campbell, Diane Carroll, Phillip Carroll, Weldon Chesser, Janice Choate, Barbara Clark, Ken Clark, L.W. Clark, Margaret Clark, William Clark, Stuart Cobb, Bonnie Cone, James Cone, Bill Conrad, Rosemary Conrad, Glenda Cooper, Dawn Correnti, John Correnti, Beth Coulsen, Mike Coulsen, Rose Crane, Frances Cranford, Wayne Cranford, Harry Criner, Patty Criner, Dr. Lou Santa Cruz, Susan Santa Cruz, Cathy Cunningham, Ernest Cunninham, Dennis Daniel, Roxanne Daniel, Fred Davidson, June Davidson, Wilma DeFoggi, Dr. Dillard Denson, Martha Jane Dickey, Carrie Dickinson, Tyndall Dickinson, Christopher Dixon, Lynda Dixon.
• Martha Dixon, Bob Dolman, Harryette Dorchester, Madalyn Dortch, David Eldridge, Margaret Eldridge, John Elrod, Connie Fails, Lucille Fannin, Jimmie Lou Fisher, Dr. Robert Fiser, Susan Fleming, Victor Fleming, David Folsom, Judy Folsom, Bo Forney, Kay Fowler, Effie Frazier, George Frazier, Michelle Fritts, Glo Futrell, Woody Futrell, Elaine Geschwind, Mac Geschwind, Linda Gillespie, Dean Morton Gitelman, Alla Gladden, Robert Gladden, Ashley Glover, Margaret Gail Goodrum, Randy Goodrum, Linda Grimes, Libby Grobmyer, Mark Grobmyer Jr., Dr. Brian Harbour, Jan Harbour, L. Michael Hardgrave, Luther Hardir, Mary Hardin, Joan Hargraves, Robert Hargraves, Chris Harrell, Ann Henry, Dr. Morris Henry, Debbie Herget, Dick Herget, Rebecca Hernreich, Robert Hernreich, Ann Hill.
• Richard Hill, Kaki Hockersmith, David Hodges, Marian Hodges, Bobby Houe, Frankie Hogue, Bernice Holt, Beth Holtz, Louis Holtz, Clifton Hoofman, Lois Hopper, Bobby Hopper, Ashley Horne, Becky Horne, Holly Horne, Truett Horne, Wendy Horne, Pastor Rex Horne, Carolyn Hubbell, Kelly Hubbell, Susie Hubbell, Webster L. Hubbell, Mary Sue Jacobs, Madalyn Johnson, Ken Johnson, David Johnson, Murray Johnson, Hilary Jones, Myra Jones, Eleanor Karam, James Karam, Willie Kueker, Dr. Frank Kumpuris, Kula Kumpuris, Dr. Kemal Kutait, Virginia Kutait, Deborah Lee. Joe Lee, David Leopoulos Jr., Linda Leopoulos, Nicholas Leopoulos, Thaddeus Leopoulos, Thea Leopoulos, Rabbi Eugene Levy Jr., Patricia Lile, Babbie Lovett, Rev. James Lumpkin, Jean Lumpkin, Charles Lyford, Kate Lyford, Nell Lyford, Robert Lyford. Diane Lyons, Betty Magie, Cone Magie, Bettie Ann Mahoney, Jodie Mahony, Michael Mahony, Doug Martin, Eddie Martin, Kimberly Martin, Mahlon Martin, Melinda Martin, Myrna Martin, David Matthews, Jerry Maulden, Lauren Maulden, Sarah Maulden, Sue Maulden, Jennifer Mays, Richard Mays, James McClelland, Patricia McClelland, Charlie McDowell, Lily McDowell.
• Shirley McFarlin, Hayden McIlroy, Mary Joe McIlroy, Michelle McIlroy, Marcia McIvor, Robert McNeice, Mary Mehlburger, Max Mehlburger, Jean Miles, Jim Miles, JoAnn Miles, Rev. John Miles, Kelli Miles, Curtistine Miller, Elizabeth Mitchell, Maurice Mitchell, Ark Monroe, Nancy Monroe, Beadle Moore.
• Blanche Moore, Dorothy Moore, Rudy Moore, B.J. Moses, Charles Brett Myers, Doug Myers, Amanda Newman, Amy Newman, Francine Newman, Joe Newman, Frances Nixon, Dr. Victor Nixon, Willie Oates, Cheryl Park, Delores Peterson, Merle Peterson, Frances Phelan, Dr. James Phelan.
• James Levi Phillips, Geneva Pledger, James Pledger, Joseph Purvis, Susan Purvis, Ellen Reaves, Graham Reaves, Hilary Reaves, Keith Reaves, Mary Jo Nelson Rogers, J.T. Rose, Nannice Rose, Nola Royster, Barbara Anne Rudolph, Billie Rutherford, Skip Rutherford, Deborah Sale, Mary Ann Salmon, Carolyn Schauflee, Louie Schauflee, Marty Schauflee, Michael Schauflee, Charlotte Schexnayder, Melvin Schexnayder, Mary Schroeder, Robert Schroeder, Dr. Joanna Seibert, Lottie Shackleford, Erin Shockley, Leslie Singer, Noah Singer, Donald Sjostrand, Rev. Gerald Keith Sjostrand, Janice Sjostrand, JoAnne Sjostrand, Helen Sloan, John Sloan.
• Gary Smith, Jane Smith, Jennifer Smith, Mark Smith, Maurice Smith, Nathan Smith, Rebecca Smith, Reece Smith, Sarah Smith, Steve Smith, Nan Snow.
• Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Annette Stacy, Bob Stacy, Jake Stacy, Sam Stacy, Carolyn Staley, Nell Steenburgen, Mary Steenburgen, Harriet Stephens, Warren Stephens, Amy Stewart, Theodore Striggles, Dorothy Stuck, Dr. James Suen, Karen Suen, Eddie Sutton, Patsy Sutton, Gladden Tappin, Henry Thomas, Marti Thomas, Danny Thomason, Harry Thomason, Linda Bloodworth Thomason, Rick Thone, Robert Turner, Patricia Upton, Richard Upton.
• Joan Vehik, Alice Walton, Christy Walton, Helen Walton, John Walton, Martha Whetstone, Carl Whillock, Margaret Whillock, Susie Whitacre, Caroline Whitson, Heather Whitson, Turner Whitson, Donna Axum Whitworth, J. Bryan Whitworth, Bernice Williams, Lee Williams, Olen Williams, Victoria Williams.
• Juanita Woodard, Larry Woodard, Judge Henry Woods, Kathleen Woods, Bill Worthen, Kathy Worthen, Betsey Wright, Buddy Young, Chase Young, Clayton Young, Rebecca Young, Patricia Youngdahl, Sara Youngdahl.

Longtime Friends (155)

• Linda Aaker, Robert Armstrong, Amy Ashby, Kit Ashby, Norma Asnes, Joseph Baczko, Kathleen Baczko, Dr. Nancy Bekavac, Kathie Berlin, Shannon Bettridge.
• Tommy Bettridge, William Bettridge, Robert Billingsley, Patsy Henderson Bowles, Jeff Braden, Paul Braden, Taylor Branch, Dr. Johanna Branson, Eli Broad, Vanessa Brown, Jane Bulnes-Fowles, Juan Bulnes-Fowles, Kathleen Burgess, Ciara Campbell, Jude Campbell, Thomas Campbell, Marvin Caplan, Thomas Caplan, Michael Conway, Dr. Yvonne Cormier, Bill Daley, Loretta Daley, Denise Dangremond, Robert Dangremond, Benjamin Eakeley, Douglas Eakeley, Priscilla Eakeley.
• Betsy Ebeling, Colin Ebeling, Thomas Ebeling, Rosemary Estes, Robert Farmer, Adele Fath, Creekmore Fath, Ann Fisher, Jerome Fisher, Pam Fleischaker, Bishop Louis Ford, Jinnet Fowles, Linda Fuller, Millard Fuller, Amanda Gill, Jock Gill, Rosemary Gill, Sophie Gill, Barbara Glicken, Howard Glicken, Ruth Goldway, Susan Graber, Dr. Billy Graham, Ruth Graham, Maria Grauso-Kuttner, Brian Greenspun, Myra Greenspun, Barbara Grossman, Steven Grossman, Laura Handman, Cheryl Acton Harbour, Laurel Heiden, Sherry Heiden, Harold Ickes, Ben Ifshin, Chole Ifshin, David Ifshin, Gail Ifshin, Jake Ifshin.
• Grace Ellen Johnson, H. Alston Johnson, Margaret Johnson, Mason Johnson, Roslyn Johnson, Ryan Johnson, Susanne Johnson, Tanner Johnson, Claiborne Jones, Donald Jones, Karen Jones, Robert Trent Jones Jr., John Kluge, M. Larry Lawrence, Shelia Lawrence, Melissa Ludtke, James Lyons, Marcia Lyons, Rev. Anthony Mangun, Michael Ann Mangun, Dr. Ann Markusen, David Markusen-Weiss, Vicki Marti, David Matter, Dorothy McAuliffe, Terry McAuliffe, James Moore, Jane Moore, Judith Price Osgood, Charles Palmer, Andrew Paschall, Doug Paschall, Rachel Paschall, Rosemary Paschall, Patricia Podlich, William Podlich, Shirley Price.
• Carolyn Rainer, William Rainer, Audre Rapoport, Bernard Rapoport, Ernest Ricketts, Kate Ricketts, Renee Ring, Lyn Hecht Schaffran, Kimberly Schreter, Molly Shanley, Constance Shapiro, Stuart Shapiro, Derek Shearer, Lloyd Shearer, Marva Shearer, Betty Sheinbaum, Stanley Sheinbaum, Jenny Simpson, Ashley Spence, Courtney Spence, Mary Couri Spence, Roy Spence, Shay Spence, Bill Staton, Carolyn Ellis Staton, Patty Stearns, Rick Stearns, Rev. Charles Stith, Deborah Prothrow Stith, Mary Alyce Stradling, Mike Driver Stradling, Susan Thomases, Michael Turpen, Susan Turpen, Richard Valeriani, Amy Verrett, Edith Wasserman, Lewis Wasserman, Mark Weiner, Susan Weiner, William Worsley, Paul Zofnass.

Friends and Supporters (111)

• Leonard Barrack, Lynne Barrack, Andrea Batchelor, Dick Batchelor, Erskine B. Bowles, Joan Brandt, William Brandt, Shirley Brown, Janet Burkle, John Burkle, Ronald Burkle, Rev. Anthony Campolo, Margaret Campolo, Bernie Cantor, Iris Cantor, John Catsimatides, Margo Catsimatides, Gertrude Cejas, Paul Cejas, Catherine Chapman, Max Chapman, John Connelly, Quincy Daniel, Sean Daniel, Joseph Dawson, Melba Dawson, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Beth Dozoretz, Ron Dozoretz, Daniel Dutko, Nancy Ellison, Debra Farar, Joel Farar, Sym Farar, Gary Fine, Alex Friedman, Richard Friedman.
• Frieda Furman, Roy Furman, John Garamendi, Patti Garamendi, Joe Geller, Charles Gervais, Felicia Gervais, Marie Gray, Dorothea Green, Steven Green, Fred Hochberg, Ruth Hunter, the Rev. William Hybels, Lee Iaccoca, Ghada Irani, Dr. Ray Irani, Rita Jackson, Laurene Jobs, Steven Jobs, Janice Johnson, Roger Johnson, Deborah Jospin, Clayton Kaeiser, Selma Kaye, Walter Kaye, Cynthia Leesfield, Ira Leesfield, Kathleen Leonard, Tom Leonard, Alan Leventhal, Carol Leventhal, Carl Lindner, Leni May, Peter May, Norma Mills, Olan Mills, Paul Montrone, Sandra Montrone.
• Dr. Dean Ornish, Alan Patricof, Susan Patricof, Gene Prescott, Morris Pynoos, Rita Pynoos, William Rollnick, Bruce Ratner, Julie Ratner, Steven Rattner, Lewis Rudin, Rachel Rudin, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, Edwin Schlossberg, Dr. Robert Schuller, Carol Shields, Stanley Shuman, Sydney Shuman, Donna Siegel, Fred Siegel, Alan Solomont, Susan Solomont, Carl Spielvogel, Barbara Stack, Bud Stack, Maria Titleman, William Titleman, Angelo Tsakopoulos, Sofia Tsakopoulos, Lillian Vernon, Bill Wardlaw, Kim Wardlaw, Maureen White, Audrey Wirginis, Hugh Westbrook, Dirk Ziff.

Officials and Dignitaries (128)

• Mayor Jerry Abrahmson, Madeline Abramson, Trond Andersen, Mayor Dennis Archer, Gov. Evan Bayh, Mrs. Evan Bayh, B. A. Bentsen, Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, Cynthia Blumenthal, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Chloe Breyer, Dr. Joanna Breyer, Nell Breyer, Justice Stephen Breyer, Gov. John Y. Brown, Mayor Willie Brown, President George Bush, Mayor Bill Campbell, Sharon Campbell, Diana Carlin, Gov. John Carlin, Jean Carnahan, Gov. Mel Carnahan, Martha Carper, Gov. Thomas Carper, Gov. Gaston Caperton, President Jimmy Carter, Rosalyn Carter, Gov. Ben Cayetano, Gov. Lawton Chiles, Rhea Chiles, Maggie Daley, Mayor Richard Daley, Clifton Daniel, Margaret Truman Daniel, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, Susan Davis.
• Gov. Howard Dean, Judith Dean, Attorney General Larry Echohawk, Terry Echohawk, Linda Edmisten, Secretary of State Rufus Edmisten, Attorney General Lee Fisher, Peggy Zone Fisher, Janet Fitzgerald, State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald, Representative Geraldine Ferraro, Mayor Sandra Freedman, Phyllis George, Frances Anne Glendening, Gov. Parris Glendening, King Harald of Norway, Queen Sonja of Norway, Mary James, Mayor Sharpe James, Elizabeth Jones, Gov. Brereton Jones, State Senator Daryl Jones, Mayor Frank Jordan, Wendy Jordan, Alice King, Gov. Bruce King, Gov. John Kitzhaber, Sharon Kitzhaber, Sussan Knowles, Gov. Tony Knowles, Dorothy Lamm, Gov. Richard Lamm, Congresswoman Blanche Lambert Lincoln, Dr. Steve Lincoln, Mary Lowry, Gov. Michael Lowry, Roderic Lyne.
• Prime Minister John Major, Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, Judith Mauro, Commissioner Edward McNamara, Lucille McNamara, Gov. Ned McWherter, Angela Menino, Mayor Thomas Menino, Gov. Robert Miller, Shirley Miller, Gov. Zell Miller, Gov. Benjamin Nelson, Diane Nelson, State Treasurer Bill Nelson, Billy Nelson, Grace Nelson, Nan Ellen Nelson, Donna Nigh, Gov. George Nigh, Lt. Gov. Frank O'Bannon, Judy O'Bannon, Judi Patton, Gov. Paul Patton, Dalia Rabin Philosoph, Leah Rabin, Yuval Rabin Jr., Mayor Ed Rendell, Judge Midge Rendell, Mayor Norman Rice Jr., Gov. Ann Richards, Ann Riley, Edward Riley, Mayor Joe Riley, Secretary Richard Riley, Ted Riley Jr., Mayor Richard Riordan, Bea Romer, Gov. Roy Romer. Mayor Kurt Schmoke, Dr. Patricia Schmoke, Gov. George Sinner, Jane Sinner, Bodil Slyngstad, Jane Sullivan, Gov. Michael Sullivan, Gov. John Waihee, Lynne Waihee, Gov. David Walters, Rhonda Walters, Mayor Wellington Webb, Wilma Webb, Gov. Bill Winter, Elise Winter, Ambassador Andrew Young.

Arts and Letters (67)

• Merv Adelson, Thea Adelson, Donna Ballman, Dr. Mary Catherine Bateson, Kathleen Battle, Alan Bergman, Candice Bergen, Marilyn Bergman, Jessica Capshaw, Kate Capshaw, Chevy Chase, Jani Chase, Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Judy Collins, Ted Danson, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Richard Dreyfuss, Patricia Duff, Barbara Fineman, Jane Fonda, John Gaubatz, Kathy Gaubatz, David Geffen.
• Jake Glaser, Paul Glaser, Gary Goldberg, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Richard Goodwin, John Guare, Lynda Guber, Peter Guber, Tom Hanks, Dr. Jean Houston, Dixie Jewison, Norman Jewison, Rick Kaplan, Priscilla Kaplan, Christine Lahti.
• Sherry Lansing, Esther P. Lederer, Chloe Malle, Mike Medavoy, Leslie Moonves, Nancy Moonves, James Naughton, Pam Naughton, Eileen Norton, Peter Norton, Sharyn Richardson, Charles Roven, Denise Roy, Becky Saletan, Thomas Schlamme, Wilson Schlamme, Lorraine Sheinberg, Sidney Sheinberg, Diane Simon, Neil Simon, Steven Spielberg, Dawn Steele, Barbra Streisand, Rose Styron, Elizabeth Tilberis, Ted Turner, Ben Wesley, Rita Wilson, Marianne Williamson.

President Clinton's new legal defense fund has raised in excess of $2 million in just six months, enriched by a campaign that partly blamed the Whitewater independent counsel for the First Couple's financial plight, said several supporters briefed in recent days on the fund's progress.

The Clinton Legal Expense Trust has exceeded its managers' most optimistic expectations, mainly through the direct-mail effort highlighting the inquiry of the President by the independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr, and the increased annual limit of $10,000 per individual.

The $2 million far outstrips the $1.3 million raised over a three-and-a-half-year period by the original fund, formed to help Mr. Clinton and his wife, Hillary, erase millions in personal legal bills. Their legal expenses were estimated at $6 million, and officials said the cost could eventually exceed $10 million. The earlier fund was disbanded last December after campaign finance controversies and strict giving limitations had slowed contributions to a trickle.

The new trust is free of some of the restrictions that had been on the original fund prohibiting solicitations and limiting annual contributions to $1,000 per individual.

More than 8,000 people have sent contributions to the new trust, ranging from $1 to the $10,000 maximum, the supporters said. Donations came ''from Main Street, Wall Street and Hollywood,'' said one supporter who insisted on anonymity. ''The direct mail was very successful.''

Several officials said the trust's total had been spurred by supporters' anger and frustration with Mr. Starr's four-year-old inquiry of the President. The solicitations began in late February, five weeks after Mr. Starr's prosecutors began investigating the Lewinsky matter.

''I would have given more, but they didn't want any more,'' said David Geffen, the entertainment mogul who said in an interview today that he had contributed $10,000 to the trust. The President spent several hours with Mr. Geffen on Tuesday at his Palladian-style home on his nine-acre Beverly Hills, Calif., estate.

''I just think this is an incredibly unfortunate situation for the President and for this country,'' Mr. Geffen said. ''There is a well-financed group of zealots who want to bring down the President. And this guy has no money. He's broke. This is a terrible situation.''

Fund-raisers attracted generous support from others in the entertainment industry. Supporters of the Clintons said the trust had received $10,000 checks from the performer Barbra Streisand, the actor Tom Hanks, the film maker Steven Spielberg, the film executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, the film executive Harvey Weinstein, the television producer Bud Yorkin and Gail Zappa, the widow of the performer Frank Zappa.

But a complete list of donors has not been released. Organizers of the new trust, which is headed by former Senator David H. Pryor of Arkansas, plan to announce the results at a news conference this month. The trust's executive director, Anthony Essaye, declined to comment.

Mr. Pryor wrote in a solicitation letter mailed to thousands of supporters: ''If you are disturbed by the way politics is conducted today, then what better response than to make your own gesture of decency and generosity. I know that it will be enormous comfort to the First Family to know that so many Americans appreciate their work and have come to their aid.''

One adviser estimated that the Clintons owe their private lawyers $6 million. In the letter, Mr. Pryor said that the bill exceeds ''the President's total compensation or the First Family's net worth.'' There are expectations that those bills could increase by at least $1 million a year before the President leaves office in 2001.

The President is the first sitting President to accept donations to help cover his legal bills. Former President Richard M. Nixon accepted donations to help defray his legal bills after he resigned from office, but he paid the bulk of his legal fees himself.

By contrast, Monica S. Lewinsky, the former White House intern at the center of the current inquiry, has received less than $10,000 in contributions to her legal defense fund, created by her former lawyer, William H. Ginsburg, her associates said. And associates of Linda R. Tripp, the woman whose surreptitiously recorded tapes of conversations with Ms. Lewinsky started the inquiry, said she had raised less than $25,000 to defray her legal bills.

The Clintons owe lawyers at Williams & Connolly and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. His lead lawyers are David E. Kendall, who is handling the Lewinsky matter, and Robert S. Bennett, who led his defense in the Paula Corbin Jones lawsuit, which is pending appeal.

In the last five years, the lawyers have also worked on the couple's Whitewater real estate transactions and on Democratic fund-raising controversies. Mr. Clinton has hired extra lawyers, some of whom charge an hourly rate of $500, to prepare motions and witnesses, and monitor grand jury testimony.

The Clintons' friends and advisers established the new trust to allow fund-raisers to aggressively raise money through direct-mail solicitations and higher annual limits per individual than the original fund.

In voice solicitations and direct mail, fund-raisers invoked the name ''Starr'' and found that longtime supporters of the Democratic Party and the President were so incensed at the independent counsel's inquiry that many people gladly contributed the maximum amount.

In a thank-you letter recently sent to one contributor, fund-raiser Beth Dozoretz wrote that a donation to the Clinton Legal Expense Trust is ''different'' from writing a big check to the Democratic Party.

''The heartfelt support for what the President and First Lady have had to endure is certainly different from your other contributions,'' Ms. Dozoretz wrote. ''Your support and commitment have been tremendous and appreciated.''

Mark S. Weiner, an old friend of the Clintons and the treasurer of the Democratic Governors Association, said, ''The President has a great number of friends and admirers who sympathize with what he is going through and who think that Ken Starr is totally out of control.''

Meredith McGehee, legislative director of Common Cause, said the trust's $10,000 annual contribution limits ''raise questions of propriety'' if the contributions come from people who conduct business with the Federal Government. ''The money should come in amounts that don't tend to override the campaign contributions limits and laws,'' she said.

The President's first legal defense fund was shut down on Dec. 31 last year because its effectiveness was crippled by revelations that it had been offered, but declined to accept, more than $639,000 in questionable donations solicited by Yah Lin Trie, a former Arkansas restaurateur and longtime friend of Mr. Clinton. Mr. Trie was indicted this year on charges that he made unlawful contributions, some from foreign sources. He has pleaded not guilty.

The original fund's trustees were forced to testify before a grand jury and Congressional committees about Mr. Trie's proposed donations and had to fend off a lawsuit. And as a result, the fund had to use tens of thousands of dollars intended to defray the Clintons' legal bills on its own legal fees. In 1997, the fund took in $79,702 in donations, and had to pay out $92,372 in administrative and legal expenses.

Restrictions on the original fund were imposed by a ruling of the Office of Government Ethics, which prohibited any official connected with it from soliciting money. The ruling by the office, a semi-independent agency within the Executive Branch, deemed the fund and its officers to be extensions of the Clintons and thus were bound by the same restrictions barring Federal officials from soliciting donations.

The new fund was established independently of the Clintons, enabling it to accept larger donations.

''When our trust was established,'' Michael H. Cardozo, the executive director of the old fund, said today,''the President and his advisers felt that he could not accept contributions for political reasons. The reality is that the only way to reduce these legal expenses is to receive contributions in excess of $1,000 per year per individual.''

Much of the $2 million was raised by Terence McAuliffe, a close friend of the President who headed the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1996 and headed the 1997 inaugural committee. Mr. McAuliffe was traveling today and was unavailable for comment. Mr. McAuliffe was assisted in his fund-raising duties by Ms. Dozoretz.

Tuesday evening might have looked like Kennedy Central at the Democratic convention, but the family member who is the biggest star inside the party these days was not on the podium during prime time.

Patrick J. Kennedy, the 33-year-old second-term congressman from Rhode Island, has achieved his stardom in the behind-the-scenes world of money and politics, collecting millions of dollars for his House colleagues and Democratic congressional candidates. In his role as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Mr. Kennedy has impressed his older and more seasoned colleagues, including Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the House minority leader from Missouri, who is also a committee leader.

''He's the brightest and hardest working young fund-raiser to hit the Democratic Party since Tony Coelho,'' said Mark Weiner, the treasurer of the Democratic Governors' Association and a big-league Democratic money man himself.

Under Mr. Kennedy's stewardship, the D Triple-C, as the committee is called in political shorthand, has collected $62 million since January 1999, Erik Smith, the committee spokesman said. With the fierce struggle for control of the House in the November election, this record haul is a potent weapon for Democrats. House Democrats actually have more cash on hand than their Republican counterparts, a historic reversal.

His grateful colleagues from the House and hopeful Congressional candidates tonight celebrated Mr. Kennedy's transformation into a Democratic money machine at a party for 1,500 people at the Egyptian Theater, a lavishly restored movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard, which first opened its doors in 1922 with Douglas Fairbanks in ''Robin Hood.''

Mr. Kennedy is, in a way, a Robin Hood of sorts for the Democrats. At Mr. Kennedy's urging, individual donors are giving more money to the D Triple-C than ever before. Since his appointment in December of 1998, he has been the first leader of the committee to create tiered giving, starting elite groups for Democratic donors of $50,000 and $100,000. Mr. Kennedy has been on the road almost constantly, raising money for Democratic Houses races, including trips to San Diego, Seattle and Atlanta. He even persuaded Tony Bennett, whose private performances can cost as much as $250,000, to donate a concert in Newport, R.I., next weekend.

That is proof, committee staff members say, that Mr. Kennedy has a lot of celebrity mojo at work. ''Patrick can call up a C.E.O. and ask for money,'' a staff member said. ''The name helps. Patrick gets his calls returned.''

Such bluntness is not out of character for Mr. Kennedy, who is a bold speaker, given to occasional outbursts complete with foot-stamping and a high-pitched strain to his voice that makes him sound more like a croaky teenager and less of a congressional heavy.

On Tuesday, he spoke passionately in a series of breakfast meetings to delegations: about the important symbolism of one uncle's nomination here 40 years ago and another uncle's assassination here 32 years ago, as well as the spinal tumor that threatened his life years ago. As a politician, Mr. Kennedy is energetic and displays the hallmark Kennedy charisma. As he approached the meeting of American Indians, several older women rushed out to hug him, tears forming in their eyes. It seems that everyone at the convention calls him by his first name.

There are, of course, those who would accuse Mr. Kennedy of selling out. There are some glaring ironies at work in Mr. Kennedy's fund-raising: Two-thirds of the money the D Triple-C has raised came in the form of large, unlimited contributions known as soft money, the type of donation used for party building that Democrats are trying to eliminate. And Mr. Kennedy's father, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, helped draft the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1976, which was intended in part to limit soft-money donations.

Darrell West, a professor of political science at Brown University, who has written a biography of Mr. Kennedy, said that Mr. Kennedy was openly flouting the rules his father wrote in 1976 to rebuild his party's finances. ''It is deeply ironic the way Kennedy is using soft money,'' Mr. West said.

Mr. Kennedy's spokesman, Larry Berman, said: ''Well, the Republicans made the rules. And Patrick just wants to play on a level playing field.''

Mr. Kennedy is reputed to have a bit of a temper; in March, for example, he physically confronted a 58-year-old female security guard at Los Angeles International Airport. The Los Angeles city attorney's office considered filing misdemeanor battery charges but declined. Mr. Kennedy acknowledged that he had acted rudely and apologized.

So much fund-raising leaves him little personal time, he said. So he is not married. ''Marriage gives you the image of stability, gravity and maturity,'' he said as he rushed out of the Omni to more receptions and interviews. He paused for a moment, then added: ''You know, all of those important things that are missing from my life.''

Over the last decade, former President Bill Clinton has raised more than $500 million for his foundation, allowing him to build a glass-and-steel presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., and burnish his image as an impresario of global philanthropy. The foundation has closely guarded the identities of its donors — including one who gave $31.3 million last year.

Now, the secrecy surrounding the William J. Clinton Foundation has become a campaign issue as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks the Democratic presidential nomination with her husband as a prime source of strategy and star power. Some of her rivals argue that donors could use presidential foundations to circumvent campaign finance laws intended to limit political influence.

Mr. Clinton himself echoed those concerns this fall when he pledged to make public future donors if Mrs. Clinton was elected president. While disclosure is not legally required, failure to do so, Mr. Clinton said, would raise “all these questions about whether people would try to win favor with her by giving money to me.”

Even so, past donors should remain private, he insisted, “unless there is some conflict of which I am aware, and there is not.”

But an examination of the foundation demonstrates how its fund-raising has at times fostered the potential for conflict.

The New York Times has compiled the first comprehensive list of 97 donors who gave or pledged a total of $69 million for the Clinton presidential library in the final years of the Clinton administration. The examination found that while some $1 million contributors were longtime Clinton friends, others were seeking policy changes from the administration. Two pledged $1 million each while they or their companies were under investigation by the Justice Department. 

Other donations came from supporters who had been ensnared in campaign finance scandals surrounding Mr. Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign.

In raising record sums for her campaign, Mrs. Clinton has tapped many of the foundation’s donors. At least two dozen have become “Hillraisers,” each bundling $100,000 or more for her presidential bid. The early library donors, combined with their families and political action committees, have contributed at least $784,000 to Mrs. Clinton’s Senate and presidential coffers.

The foundation and Mrs. Clinton’s political campaigns have been intertwined in other ways. Terry McAuliffe, who led the foundation’s fund-raising and sits on its board, is now Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman and chief fund-raiser. Cheryl Mills plays a similar dual role, sitting on the foundation board and serving as the general counsel to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. And Jay Carson recently traded a communications position at the foundation for a job as her campaign’s press secretary.

As the scope of the foundation expanded from the Clinton library into issues like treating AIDS in the developing world and addressing global poverty and climate change, and Mrs. Clinton moved closer to announcing her candidacy, the pace of giving quickened. Last year, contributions reached $135 million, a 70 percent increase over the previous year. Two-thirds came from just 11 donors.

The $31.3 million donation, which was previously undisclosed, came from the Radcliffe Foundation run by Frank Giustra, a Canadian who has made millions financing mining deals around the world. Mr. Giustra has become a member of Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, joining him on global trips and lending him the use of his private MD-87 jet. 

For weeks, Clinton Foundation officials had suggested that the $31.3 million contribution listed on its tax return did not come from a single donor. They then said it came from a single source, but declined to identify it. Wednesday afternoon, a representative of Mr. Giustra contacted The Times and acknowledged the Radcliffe contribution.

This year, Mr. Giustra announced separate plans to give the Clinton Foundation $100 million, plus half of his future earnings from natural resource business ventures, for a joint project to spur economic growth in poor Latin American mining communities. Taken together, the contributions make Mr. Giustra one of the foundation’s largest benefactors, if not the single largest.

The Times’s findings are based on tax documents filed by the Clinton Foundation and by groups that contributed to it, interviews with donors and people with direct knowledge of the foundation’s activities, as well as federal government records and an analysis of campaign finance data.

In a statement, the foundation said, “Donors did not seek, nor did President Clinton give, favors from the federal government,” adding that most of the contributions came after Mr. Clinton left office. “President Clinton is grateful for the support the foundation has received from more than 100,000 donors,” which helped provide AIDS medication for 750,000 people, fight climate change, combat childhood obesity and build heath systems around the world, the statement said. 

In a separate written response from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, a spokesman, Phil Singer, said, “Senator Clinton is not involved in the fund-raising or operations of the Clinton Foundation.” Mr. Singer noted that President Clinton’s promise to disclose future donors should his wife become president went beyond what the law required.

To limit the influence of any single donor, federal election law prohibits foreign donations to presidential campaigns and limits Americans to $2,300 per election. But presidential foundations are free to accept unlimited and anonymous contributions, even from foreigners and foreign governments. Indeed, the Saudi royal family, the king of Morocco, a foundation linked to the United Arab Emirates, and the governments of Kuwait and Qatar have made contributions of unknown amounts to the Clinton Foundation. 

“The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who introduced a bill to force disclosure of presidential foundation donors. The bill passed the House, 390-34, in March but stalled in the Senate. 

Building a Foundation

In June 1999, as the Clinton administration wound down, Mrs. Clinton told friends gathered in the White House solarium that wealthy donors had offered to establish a foundation for her. But she was set on running for the Senate in New York. That same month, Mr. Clinton and his chief fund-raiser met for dinner with 40 executives at La Grenouille, a French restaurant in Manhattan. The president had a vision for a charitable foundation that would tackle problems domestic and foreign, several former aides who helped establish the foundation said.

But first, Mr. Clinton had to raise money for his presidential library, which would ultimately cost $165 million. He found a ready pool of library donors in people and companies with matters before the government, many of them loyal Democratic contributors.

On October 6, 1999, the charitable arm of the Anheuser-Busch Companies gave $200,000, the first of five payments over five years totaling $1 million, according to records filed by the company’s foundation. Less than a month earlier, the company, the country’s leading beer maker, had scored a major victory when the Clinton administration’s Federal Trade Commission dropped a bid to regulate beer, wine and liquor advertising that critics said was aimed at under-age drinkers.

Francine I. Katz, a company spokeswoman, said the donation was unrelated to any government action and that its foundation had contributed more than $360 million to a wide array of organizations, including the Bush, Truman and Johnson presidential libraries.

William A. Brandt Jr., a bankruptcy lawyer in Chicago and prolific Democratic fund-raiser, pledged $1 million in May 1999. At the time, the Justice Department was investigating Mr. Brandt’s testimony to Congress about a $10,000 per couple fund-raiser he had held for the president’s 1996 re-election campaign. At issue was whether he had lied when he denied promoting it as an explicit opportunity to lobby a top bankruptcy official at the event.

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Frank Giustra, top, runs a group that gave $31 million to the Clinton Foundation; Sir Tom Hunter began donating $10 million a year in 2006; and Bernard L. Schwartz has pledged $1 million.

Credit...

Top, Evelyn Hockstein for The New York Times; middle, Jean-Philippe Defaut for The New York Times; bottom, Bill Cunningham/The New York Times

In August 1999, the Justice Department determined that “prosecution is not warranted.” Mr. Brandt, who is now a Hillraiser, did not respond to several phone and e-mail messages.

Bernard L. Schwartz, another major Democratic contributor who was then chief executive of Loral Space and Communications, gave $250,000 and pledged $750,000 more in 2000. At the time, investigators were trying to determine if Loral had improperly provided satellite technology to China. Under the Bush administration, Loral agreed to pay a civil fine of $14 million to settle the case. Mr. Schwartz, who is now also a Hillraiser, said that his donations were unconnected to Loral’s troubles and added that he had contributed to other presidential libraries.

Familiar Donors

Toward the end of the Clinton administration, Dr. Richard Machado Gonzalez and his lawyer, Miguel D. Lausell, both major Democratic donors in the 1996 presidential election, were pushing the president to increase Medicare reimbursements to hospitals in Puerto Rico, like the one owned by Dr. Machado. Mr. Lausell pledged $1 million to the library in 1999, eight months before Mr. Clinton proposed increasing Medicare payments to Puerto Rico for the second time in his administration. Dr. Machado gave the foundation $100,000 about six months later.

In the interim, the president appointed Mr. Lausell to the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which helps American companies with foreign projects. 

Jeffrey Farrow, who coordinated issues involving Puerto Rico for the president, said the administration felt Medicare unfairly penalized Puerto Rico by paying a lower rate there than in the 50 states. Although Congress rejected the proposed increase, Mr. Farrow said “they didn’t have to contribute the way they did in order to get our attention.” 

Both men are supporters of Mrs. Clinton, and Mr. Lausell serves as a senior adviser on Latino affairs. Dr. Machado did not return calls seeking comment, and efforts to reach Mr. Lausell through the campaign were not successful.

A fledgling telecommunications company, NextWave Wireless, was battling the Federal Communications Commission when library fund-raisers tapped its chief executive and a major investor. NextWave had promised to pay $4.74 billion for cellphone licenses, but when it declared bankruptcy before completing its payments, the F.C.C. threatened to put the licenses up for public auction, which would have ruined NextWave. 

Over three consecutive days in December 1999, with a decision imminent, the library logged a $100,000 pledge from NextWave’s chief executive, Allen Salmasi, and a $100,000 contribution plus a $1 million pledge from Bay Harbour Management, a major investor in NextWave. 

The agency ultimately repossessed NextWave’s licenses, prompting a court battle that the company won. Bay Harbour’s co-owner, Douglas Teitelbaum, who declined to comment, never fulfilled his promise to contribute the additional $1 million. Mr. Salmasi did not respond to an e-mail message or to calls to a company spokesman.

Mr. Clinton also found support for his library among some people who figured in the Democratic fund-raising controversies dating to the 1996 elections that involved White House sleepovers, coffees for big donors and money funneled from the Chinese government. 

Among them was Farhad Azima, an Iranian-born aviation executive whose involvement in the Iran-contra scandal — one of his companies flew military equipment to Iran in the 1980s — prompted the Democratic National Committee to return a $143,000 donation in 1997. The party later accepted the money. Mr. Azima pledged $1 million to the library.

Another $1 million pledge came from Eric and Patricia Hotung. Mr. Hotung is a Hong Kong businessman who in 1997 was granted a meeting with Mr. Clinton’s national security adviser after Mr. Hotung’s wife, Patricia, an American, offered $100,000 to the Democrats.

Nine of the original library donors received presidential appointments to organizations like the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. In his final days in office, Mr. Clinton appointed two of the donors, the businessmen Mark S. Weiner and Vinod Gupta, to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

A Joint Effort

At a Democratic debate in September, when Mrs. Clinton was asked whether the foundation would disclose its donors, she indicated that the decision was not hers. “Well, you’ll have to ask them,” she replied, referring to the former president and his staff. 

But Mrs. Clinton’s effort to distance herself understates the extent to which the foundation was a joint enterprise from the start. 

Shortly after the Clintons left the White House, close advisers convened meetings at the couple’s Washington home to map out Mr. Clinton’s future as a philanthropist.

Mrs. Clinton played an important role in shaping both the foundation’s organization and the scope of its work, said Karen A. Tramontano, a senior adviser in the Clinton White House and the foundation’s first chief of staff.

Advisers also were acutely aware that the foundation’s operations — and any perception of a conflict — could harm Mrs. Clinton politically. “She and I would speak frequently,” Ms. Tramontano said. “She had a lot of ideas. All the papers that went to him went to her.” 

Early on, donations to the library caused perception problems. The day after he left office, Mr. Clinton was embroiled in a scandal over his 11th-hour pardon of the financier Marc Rich, who fled the United States in 1983 to avoid tax evasion and other charges. A Congressional hearing later revealed that the pardon came after Mr. Rich’s former wife, Denise Rich, contributed $450,000 to Mr. Clinton’s library. 

That spring, Mrs. Clinton co-sponsored legislation to publicly identify donors to foundations of future sitting presidents. She referred to that legislation in the debate three months ago, although the bill had died in committee. 

Beyond the revelation of the Rich donation, the names of some other donors emerged after the library opened in November 2004, when a New York Sun reporter found a partial contributor list displayed on a public computer there. The list, with neither amounts nor dates, disclosed donations from the Saudi royal family and other foreign sources. After the Sun story, the computer plug was pulled. 

As the foundation has evolved into global philanthropy, it has attracted more large donors. Among them are Tom Golisano, an iconoclastic billionaire from upstate New York, who gives the foundation $3 million to $5 million a year, according to Mr. Golisano’s confidants; Stephen Bing, a Hollywood producer and a Hillraiser, who contributed stock worth $10,028,614 in 2005; Sir Tom Hunter, a Scottish businessman who began donating $10 million a year in 2006 for economic development in Africa; and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which said it had given or pledged $23,145,677 since 2005, mostly to support AIDS work and an effort to reduce the costs of malaria drugs.

Throughout, Mrs. Clinton has offered “good, specific ideas” to the foundation when Mr. Clinton asks her to attend planning sessions, said Ira Magaziner, a top foundation executive and longtime Clinton adviser. 

As the presidential campaign got under way, foundation officials began working to ensure that none of their enterprises would have political repercussions for Mrs. Clinton. Brian Byrd, who once worked for the Rockefeller Foundation and is now a lobbyist for arts groups, said that this year he interviewed for a job created to help review attendees to Mr. Clinton’s annual conference and make sure charitable pledges were met. 

“Part of it was that Hillary was running for president, and they wanted to be sure everything was on the up and up — that was said to me,” said Mr. Byrd, who added that he decided he did not want and was not offered the position. “They wanted to get all their ducks in a row.”