Clinton Cash (24 page)

Large commitments have been made by foreign businessmen with records of making payments to government officials to gain influence. Gilbert Chagoury, for example, who has sponsored speeches by Bill and committed $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative, has a long history of association with corrupt transactions in Nigeria. Denis O’Brien,
who has also arranged speeches and written checks to the Clinton Foundation, was implicated in enriching government bureaucrats in Ireland to help his cellular business.
⁵

The Clintons themselves have a history of questionable financial transactions. During their first presidential campaign in 1992, concerns were raised about their position in a real estate development in Arkansas known as Whitewater. There was also the matter of Hillary’s miraculous profit from cattle futures, which turned a $1,000 investment into $100,000. No one ever proved that these transactions were illegal. But a cloud hovered over their heads and, when Bill became president, he and Hillary brought it with them to Washington.

In Bill’s first term as president, as both he and Hillary faced myriad allegations concerning unethical conduct, his legal defense fund accepted an anonymous donation of $450,000 through a Little Rock restaurateur named Charlie Trie. Clinton and Trie were close friends. Shortly after the 1992 election, Trie began channeling money to the legal defense fund and into the DNC’s so-called soft-money accounts for the president’s reelection. The DNC became so concerned that the money might be coming from China that it hired private investigator Terry Lenzner to investigate.

As Lenzner later wrote, “I could see why they were concerned; red flags were obvious. For example, the money orders had different names on them, but the word ‘presidential’ was misspelled on all of them—in the exact same way and in the same handwriting.”
⁶
Lenzner discovered that many of these donations were from people who were making only $20,000 to $30,000 a year and could not possibly be the source of these large contributions. Accordingly, Lenzner recommended the DNC return the donations. The DNC agreed. But Bill initially refused. It was only after the cochairs of his legal defense fund (a former attorney
general and a Catholic priest) both threatened to resign that the donations were sent back.

Following the 1996 election, the DNC was forced to return some $2.8 million in illegal or improper donations, most of it from foreign sources. Of that amount, almost 80 percent was raised or contributed by Trie and another Clinton friend, John Huang. Like Trie, Huang had known Clinton for years and worked for the Lippo Group, an Indonesian conglomerate. Huang took a post as a DNC fundraiser and quickly set about soliciting large sums of money from foreign sources. Huang arranged for South Korean businessman John H. K. Lee to have dinner with President Clinton—in return for a $250,000 donation.
⁷
He also arranged for Yogesh K. Gandhi, who claimed to be related to Mahatma Gandhi, to meet in the White House with the president and be photographed being presented with an award—in exchange for $325,000. Both donations had to be returned after the stories became public.
⁸

Meanwhile, more than one hundred “White House coffees” were held in 1995 and 1996 at which large-dollar contributors paid for face time with the president. White House officials initially denied that these were fundraisers, but schedules from Harold Ickes, the deputy chief of staff in the White House, referred to them as “political/fundraising coffees.” White House officials even tracked the “projected revenue” of these events, including who paid and how much.
⁹
Then there was the evidence that, for the right contribution, you could spend the night in the Lincoln Bedroom.
¹⁰

The Clintons aren’t stupid people. They know the law and take pains to operate within it. Besides, corruption of the kind I have described in this book is very difficult to prove. We cannot ultimately know what goes on in their minds and ultimately prove the links between the money they took in and the benefits that
subsequently accrued to themselves, their friends, and their associates. That said, the pattern of behavior I have established is too blatant to ignore, and deserves legal scrutiny by those with investigative capabilities that go beyond journalism.

Over the last dozen years, the Clintons have been involved in hundreds of transactions (as private citizens and public officials) with foreign governments, foreign investors, and foreign corporations around the world. It appears from the Clinton Foundation donor list and the roster of those who have sponsored speeches that there is barely an oligarch, royal family, or foreign investor in trouble with the law that is not represented.

As we saw earlier, four of the Clinton Foundation trustees have been charged or convicted of financial crimes. Is there another foundation anywhere in the world that has faced similar problems? More to the point, why would a former American president choose to associate with such dubious characters?

Hillary’s apparent involvement in these transactions is even more troubling. While Bill was a private citizen, Hillary was still a government official. Her tenures as a senator and as secretary of state are marked by an alarming pattern of large money flows: the sources of the funds, the amounts, and the timing were frequently suspect. Many payments occurred as Hillary was grappling with vital national security questions involving everything from uranium to the Keystone XL pipeline.

In fact, the money flow did not slow down when Hillary became America’s chief diplomat. On the contrary, it
accelerated
, especially the funds from overseas. And the funds came from a collection of troubling sources: foreign governments, third world oligarchs, and foreign corporations. The biggest paydays came not from countries like Great Britain or Germany, but from countries and industries with cultures where bribery and corruption are common and occur on a massive scale.

In March 2012 Hillary delivered remarks in the grand ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington, DC. The occasion was a dinner for Transparency International, an international organization that fights corruption. Hillary spoke at length about how “sunlight [is] the best disinfectant” and declared that fighting corruption is an “integral part of national security.” Hillary said, “our credibility depends on practicing what we preach.”
¹¹

But as we’ve seen, the Clintons have failed to live up to their commitments to President Obama, the US Senate, and the American people to simply disclose the names of all Clinton Foundation major contributors. Multimillion-dollar foreign contributions have not been reported. Contributions of shares of stock in foreign companies that had business before the State Department were also not disclosed. Foreign corporations that poured in millions have been hidden from view. Moreover, the cases chronicled in this book are only the ones we know of.

And when it comes to Bill’s speeches, the Clintons have often failed to fully disclose who is actually paying for the speeches. Why do the Clintons do this? Why do they put themselves again and again in positions that raise serious questions about their ethical conduct?

Opinions run the gamut. Defenders claim that it is not about the money: Bill and Hillary don’t really care that much about it. That’s an odd argument. If wealth is not the goal, why charge six-figure speaking fees and pocket the money? Why not charge a minimal fee or donate the proceeds to charity?

Money definitely appears to be a factor. The Clintons are just like many in politics: money carries serious weight. Gather enough weight and you can intimidate most people into not questioning how you got it.

Indeed, as noted above, the Clintons have always been shamelessly transactional. During Bill’s tenure as governor of Arkansas,
for example, it was Hillary who benefited the family financially through deals with those who wanted something from her husband. Her remarkable success in cattle futures comes to mind. James Blair, who was an outside counsel to Tyson Foods, set up her accounts. In the same period, Tyson was a beneficiary of several state actions.
¹²

Most recently, of course, the roles have been reversed. Those seeking help from Hillary became the ones throwing money at Bill. Foreign money has flowed to the Clintons and their foundation from people and entities with intense personal interests in the political choices of the secretary of state. And in several instances that we have described, the evidence suggests that Hillary shifted course to the benefit of those providing the funds.

Moreover, the latest game has been played not at the level of state or even national affairs, but on a global scale. The era of globalization has opened up a bonanza of opportunities for businessmen willing and able to cut resource extraction deals around the world. Many of these deals, as we have seen, are made in developing countries where civilized rules do not always apply and where the players involved are unsavory.

The Clintons are perhaps the most politically sophisticated public figures of their generation. They know how things work in the corridors of power and around the world; they know that foreign governments are trying to influence American foreign policy; and they know that bribery is rampant around the world. They have numerous avenues for making money. Some of those avenues might not be as lucrative as giving a $700,000 speech in Nigeria, but they would be much cleaner.

Even if nothing illegal occurred, one has to wonder about the political judgment involved. Surely the mere appearance of selling American power and influence to foreign interests should be enough to cause a former US president—and a possible future
one—to steer well clear of such potentially embarrassing entanglements. “Bribery interferes with trade, investment, and development,” Hillary Clinton said at the OECD’s fiftieth-anniversary forum in 2011. “It undermines good governance and encourages greater corruption. And of course, it is morally wrong—and far too common.”

On that we can all agree.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
his investigative project required an extraordinary amount of in-depth research that included everything from reviewing Canadian tax records to Ukrainian shipping records. Because of the global reach of this project, it also required tracking down information from sources around the world. Because of the sensitive nature of this project, the researchers asked that their names not be included in the acknowledgments. I am nonetheless grateful for their professionalism, doggedness, and attention to detail.

The Government Accountability Institute has benefited from terrific leadership in our little more than three years of existence. This includes our chairman and CEO Stephen K. Bannon, as well as our board of directors, Owen Smith, Ron Robinson, and Hunter Lewis. I want to say a special thanks to those who have supported our research over the past couple of years, which has offended both Republicans and Democrats in Washington.

Love and gratitude always to my children, Jack and Hannah. You both mean the world to me.

My family has been enormously supportive as I’ve walked through this complicated project. Thanks to my wife, Rhonda (to whom this book is dedicated); my mom, Kerstin Schweizer; as well as my family “up north”: Maria and Joe, Danny and Adam. Thanks, too, to Ava and Raquel. Welcome to the family!

I’ve benefited from tremendous professional guidance and camaraderie over the course of my writing career. I appreciate my agents, Glen Hartley and Lyn Chu, for their sage advice and counsel, and was so pleased to be working again with Adam Bellow, a longtime friend, on this project.

As always, the author alone is responsible for the contents of this book.

N
OTES

CHAPTER 1: THE LINCOLN BEDROOM GOES GLOBAL

1.    Solomon, John, and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, “Clinton Library Got Funds from Abroad,”
Washington Post
, December 15, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121402124.html.

2.    Storace, Patricia, “Q&: How Bill Clinton Is Changing the World,”
Condé Nast Traveler
, August 15, 2007, http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2007-08-15/q-a-how-bill-clinton-is-changing-the-world.

3.    “Bluman v. Federal Election Commission Case Files,”
SCOTUSblog
, http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/bluman-v-federal-election-commission/.

4.    Von Oldershausen, Sasha, “Are the Clintons Trying to Duck Property Taxes in New York?”
The Real Deal
, June 17, 2014, http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/06/17/are-the-clintons-trying-to-duck-property-tax-payments/.

5.    Marquis, Christopher, “Clintons Buy $2.85 Million Washington Home,”
New York Times
, December 29, 2000, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/30/us/clintons-buy-2.85-million-washington-home.html.

6.    Van Natta, Don, Jr., Jo Becker, and Mike Mcintire, “In His Charity and Her Politics, Many Clinton Donors Overlap,”
New York Times
, December 19, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/politics/20clinton.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&.

7.    Ibid.

8.    Ibid.

9.    Ibid.

10.  “Sorting Out the Pardon Mess,”
New York Times
, February 22, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/23/opinion/sorting-out-the-pardon-mess.html.

11.  “Carter: Rich Pardon ‘Disgraceful,’”
CBSNews
, February 21, 2001, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/carter-rich-pardon-disgraceful/.