‘Workplace discrimination’ at the Clinton Foundation? WikiLeaks email describes ‘huge’ gender pay gap

An email released by WikiLeaks, which was purportedly written by a campaign staffer for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, states that there are “huge discrepancies” between the salaries of men and women at the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea Clinton address the 2015 Meeting of Clinton Global Initiative University at the University of Miami on March 7, 2015, in Coral Gables, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

According to an email allegedly penned by Clinton campaign staffer Karuna Seshasai, eight out of the 11 highest-paid employees at the Clinton Foundation are men.

The February 2015 email to Clinton aide Ian Mandel stated that, should the gender pay gap at the Clinton Foundation be questioned, one of the “key take aways” is that “3 out of the 11 highest paid employees of the Foundation are women.”

Seshasai allegedly continued:

[Average] salary of the highest paid men is $294,157.50, while the [average] salary of the highest paid women is $181,576.66 ($112K difference) Median salary of the highest paid men is $346,106, while the median salary of the highest paid women is $185,386 ($190K difference) Chart and citations are on the attached doc. And I included the original > 2013 990, where the [numbers] come from.

Mandel allegedly forwarded the information from Seshasai to campaign staffers Tony Carrk and Robby Mook, writing, “Given the story yesterday about pay equity at the State Department, I wanted to flag something that came out of our research on pay equity at the Foundation.”

“There are huge discrepancies, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they went here next. See a summary below from Karuna,” Mandel added.

The Clinton campaign has called a gender pay gap “workplace discrimination.”

“Women earn less than men across our economy — and women of color often lose out the most. Hillary will promote pay transparency across the economy and work to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act — a bill she introduced as senator — to give women the tools they need to fight workplace discrimination,” a spokesperson for the campaign wrote on their website.

A spokesperson for the Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to TheBlaze’s request for comment. A spokesperson for the Clinton Foundation said that the charge that the organization doesn’t pay women salaries equal to men "has been debunked by PolitiFact."

"It found that the people making these accusations misrepresented the issue of pay equity, cherry-picked data and reached misleading conclusions," the spokesperson said, adding that as of the end of 2014, "64 percent of the Foundation’s U.S.-based employees were women; the senior leadership team was split evenly between women and men; and comparing the median salary of women to men on the senior leadership team who are in unique positions, women made 91 percent."

This post has been updated to include a response from a spokesperson for the Clinton Foundation.