A top Democratic moneyman recruited by Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign has put fundraising activities on hold, saying he can’t do it with a clear conscience because the former secretary of state has too many unanswered questions swirling around her. New York businessman Jon Cooper, who Team Clinton enlisted for its elite corps of early fundraisers known as “HillStarters,” said that he decided not to tap his donor network for Mrs. Clinton because she hasn’t provided enough answers about foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation while she ran the State Department, her exclusive use of private email for official business as America’s top diplomat and her commitment to liberal priorities.
“I’m officially on the fence,” said Mr. Cooper, a bundler for President Obama’s campaigns who is active in Democratic politics in New York, which Mrs. Clinton represented in the U.S. Senate and where she has set up her campaign headquarters.
Mr. Cooper said he was writing a fundraising email to the roughly 10,000 people in his network when he realized that his heart wasn’t in it.
“I was sitting there trying to draft the email, and I just couldn’t do it,” he told The Washington Times.
Mr. Cooper, who is openly gay and married to longtime partner Robert Cooper, said he was disappointed with how long it took Mrs. Clinton to support gay marriage as a constitutional right plus her reluctance to back a liberal economic agenda, including raising the federal minimum wage.
