The Clintons' War on Women (44 page)

“The story of the Clinton rulebook is a long and Gothic yarn, with its roots in the loam of human nature: lust, money, ambition, idealism,” wrote prolific journalist David Von Drehle in a recent exposé for
Time.
“The mix of those last two—ambition and idealism—put the young Bill and Hillary Clinton on the path of politics a half-century ago. The first two—lust and money—posed significant obstacles in their way.

“Because the Clintons did not have wealth of their own to fund their ambitions, they had to become adept at coaxing it from others,” Von Drehle continued. “Indeed, they may be the most adept in American history, having coaxed billions of dollars from a multitude
of donors—which requires a degree of flexibility in one’s choice of benefactors. As the saying goes: Beggars can’t be choosers.”
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Last July, Corning, Inc., a New York glass company, gave a lump sum of $225,000 to Hillary for one speech.
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Years earlier, Secretary of State Clinton had convinced the Chinese government to lower tariffs on the company.
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In true pay-to-play nature, Corning also donated six-figure sums to the foundation.
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Hillary claims she donates payments from universities to the foundation, but has not provided evidence to support that claim. For her memoir,
Hard Choices
, she received $14 million from Simon & Schuster. In light of such huge financial gains, it’s strange to hear Hillary bemoan the “fact” that she was “broke” and could barely afford the mortgages on her many houses.

Then there is a concern about the foundation accepting foreign donations.

Since 2013, when Hillary stepped down from her position as secretary of state, $262 million has come in from foreign entities. The largest share of donations from the financial services sector has been from those contributors with close ties to Wall Street. A third of foundation donors who have given more than $1 million are foreign governments or other entities based outside the United States, and foreign donors make up more than half of those who have given more than $5 million.

“The role of interests located in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Argentina may spur questions about the independence of a potential commander in chief who has solicited money from foreign donors with a stake in the actions of the US government.”
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This, of course, ignores the fact that these Islamic nations brutally oppress women denying them the right to vote, drive a car, get an education, choose their own husbands, or show their face in the public square.

Foreign nationals are banned by law from contributing to American politicians’ campaign coffers. They are not, however, banned from contributing to private foundations. According to Ken
Thomas of the
Washington Post
, “Republicans contend that foreign governments donating to a foundation led by a potential US president creates unacceptable conflicts of interest.”
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The laws that dictate the exclusion of foreign nationals from donating to the campaigns of American politicians were put there for a reason; to keep foreign influence from dictating U.S. foreign policy.

The constitutional ban on foreign cash payments to U.S. officials is known as the Emoluments Clause and originated from Article VI of the Articles of Confederation. The text of the clause:

These questionable contributions also come with the caveat that some of the countries they are accepting from are deplorable on human rights, an issue aligned with the “mission” of the foundation. The
Wall Street Journal
reported that from 1999 to 2014, the foundation received $7.3 million from Saudi Arabians.
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Saudi Arabia is a country known to deny freedoms of speech, religion, and political association to it citizens. It is also a country known for its restrictive social code, which suppresses women’s rights.

“In countries that stone people to death for adultery and imprison people for adultery, this is the kind of thing you would think someone for women’s rights would be standing up against, instead of accepting thinly veiled bribes,” said Rand Paul.
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Earlier this year, a government-owned Moroccan company donated one million dollars to the foundation.
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Former president Clinton heaped praise upon the country and its leadership. Unfortunately, as Kenneth Vogel wrote in
Politico,
the workers of OCP Corporate, the mining company that donated the money, “had seen a
very different side of Morocco’s government and OCP. They say the company, formerly called the Office Chérifien des Phosphates, forced them to retire early and slashed their pensions, leaving them struggling to scrape by while hiring ethnic Moroccans for more senior jobs. The miners also told me how they had witnessed firsthand multiple examples of the ‘arbitrary and prolonged detention’ and ‘physical and verbal abuse’ that the US State Department says Moroccan authorities mete out to Sahrawis advocating for independence in Moroccan-occupied Western Saharas.”

“Hillary Clinton sold her soul when they accepted that money,” declared Mohamed Lahwaimed, “And now we are concerned that if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency of the United States of America, she will take the side of Moroccans even more,” Lahwaimed said through an interpreter.

Added fellow former miner Lahbib Salhi, “All the tainted money that Morocco has gathered from taking away our rights has been used to bribe the Clinton Foundation and the international community.”
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Yet another scandal involved a Clinton spinoff in Sweden that collected $26 million in donations while Sweden was trying to persuade Hillary Clinton’s State Department not to sanction major national firms doing business with Iran. The
New York Post
’s Michael Goodwin summed it up. “The
Washington Times
broke the story and says the spin-off was never disclosed to federal ethics officials, ‘even though one of its largest sources of donations was a Swedish government sanctioned lottery,’” Goodwin wrote.

“Two results: No Swedish firms were sanctioned, and one of them, telecommunications giant Ericsson AB, paid Bill Clinton $750,000 for a speech,” Goodwin continued. “The
Times
reports that Ericsson was trying to sell tracking technology to Iran that could be used by the mullah’s security services.”
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Indeed, it seems the Clinton Foundation will take money from anyone with pockets, regardless of purpose or ethical standards.

The
issue of travel has also come up recently, as the figure of $8.4 million for travel costs incurred by the Clintons in 2013 gave rise to questions of overlapping travel: how much was legitimate for the foundation versus primarily for the benefit of Hillary’s political campaign. According to documents reviewed by
America Rising,
“The Clinton Foundation has raised hundreds of millions that it claims is for charitable causes, but clearly overlaps with Hillary Clinton’s political ambitions. The Foundation must be transparent in all spending so voters can see how it used charitable funds to subsidize expensive air travel, a lavish personal lifestyle, the courting of political donors, or other campaign related travel.”
America Rising
’
s
executive director, Tim Miller, went on to say, “With 10 percent of the Clinton Foundation spending going towards ‘travel,’ and the Foundation’s acknowledgment that it approves charted private jet flights for Bill and Hillary Clinton, it’s past the time for self-described ‘most transparent person in public life’ to provide a detailed accounting of how her family foundation spends the money that it raises.” The travel expenses were nearly double what they were a year ago.
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In its released IRS Form 990 for 2013, the Clintons’ travel bill showed the $8.4 million. Yet Clinton’s only political travel in 2013 was related to Terry McAuliffe, the Clintons’ longtime friend who won the West Virginia governorship that year. The rest of her travel was for paid speeches, which were covered by the entity she spoke for. In previously uncovered speaking contracts it is clear that the venues normally covered the cost of travel. So how did Hillary spend $8.4 million in that year for travel? The Clinton Foundation responded by charging that the accusations made by
America Rising
were false. “There was no overlap. Period.” Hillary’s spokesman charged that “The accusation is patently, but not surprisingly given its source, false.” According to the
New York Post
, “the Clintons have spent nearly $50 million in travel costs over the past decade.” Reports by the
New York Post
, based on internal tax documents, show the foundation logged a $4.2 million travel bill in 2011. We have yet to
see how much Hillary will spend on travel in 2014. Money has been streaming in, but there are many cracks in the foundation.

According to credible sources, many “operators” associated with the Clinton Foundation have either been charged or convicted of financial crimes, including bribery and fraud.
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One such scoundrel, now serving a lengthy (twelve-year) federal prison sentence, is Florida’s own Claudio Osorio. Clinton’s pal Osorio is a sociopathic conman of such guile and greed that he was featured for a full hour on CNBC’s exposé show
American Greed
. Osorio, like the Clintons, exploited ostensibly charitable vehicles to line his own pockets. A good chunk of Osorio’s ill-gotten money managed to make its way into both the Hillary 2008 campaign coffers and the Clinton Global Initiative.

The earthquake-ravaged Haitians were a particularly disturbing target for Osorio’s frauds. Osorio had acquired federally backed money after the 2010 earthquake there, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars to build hundreds of homes for the displaced and homeless. Osorio never constructed a thing and simply pocketed the money to support his lavish lifestyle.

Vinod Gupta, the founder and chairman of the database firm InfoUSA and a major Clinton financial supporter was charged in 2008 with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for using company funds to support his lavish lifestyle. Allegedly he spent more than $9.5 million in corporate funds to pay for personal jet travel, his yacht, personal credit card expenses, and the twenty or more cars he owns. Eventually he settled with the SEC for around $4 million. Bill Clinton managed to get some of that money for himself to the tune of $3 million for consulting fees.
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A foundation trustee named Sant Chatwal, has convictions for illegal campaign financing, obstruction of justice, and other related charges. The Clintons pocketed millions from Chatwal in supposed speaking fees and in donations to the foundation. Chatwal was convicted in federal district court in 2014 for giving almost $200,000 in various illegal campaign donations to candidates for U.S. federal offices,
one of whom was none other than Hillary Clinton. Chatwal also pled guilty to tampering with witnesses in the course of the investigation into his illegal campaign activities. Chatwal’s convictions earned him no jail time, only fines, probation, and community service. Indian officials arrested Chatwal in 2001 on charges that he defrauded the Bank of India in a $9 million loan he obtained in the early 1990’s. Chatwal skipped town (skipped the country, really) to avoid this prosecution. Indeed, a trustworthy “trustee” worthy of Clinton-style ethics.

Another Indian, a politician named Amar Singh, got hooked up with the Clinton graft machine starting with his sponsorship of a Bill Clinton visit to India in late 2005. Singh was rewarded with personal access to the Clintons at their private dinner table that same year, in recognition of millions of dollars Singh gave to the Clinton Foundation. Singh met disgrace in India in late 2011, driven from the country’s political scene after being charged with corruption for trying to bribe members of India’s parliament during proceedings involving U.S.-Indian nuclear secrets.

Victor Dahdaleh, another foundation trustee was charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in Great Britain with paying more than 25 million pounds in bribes to executives in Bahrain to win contracts worth more than 2 billion pounds. Then there’s Rolando Gonzales Bunster, another trustee who has been named in a fraud case in the Dominican Republic.
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Rounding out this sordid summary of a few top Clinton crony-funders is Gilbert Chagoury, another Clinton/Democratic Party fundraiser with a bad reputation. During Bill Clinton’s presidential re-election bid, Chagoury has been accused of funneling nearly half a million dollars to a supposed Democrat voter-registration outfit in Florida. Chagoury is a million-dollar donor to both the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, which even honored Chagoury and his “Group” for supposed efforts in “sustainable development.” Chagoury has been linked to trying to take advantage of a third-world military dictatorship to line his pockets, specifically the
Abacha regime in Nigeria. That regime raped the Nigerian people for billions. Chagoury, and the Clintons, reaped the benefits. Topping it off, Chagoury could be found on the U.S. terrorism no-fly list as recently as five years ago.

Many of those who haven’t broken with the foundation due to their criminality, have left due to the increasingly difficult and demanding Chelsea, who came aboard as vice chairman in 2011.

“A lot of people left because she was there. A lot of people left because she didn’t want them there,” said a foundation insider. “She is very difficult.”
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This follows a familiar pattern for the entitled Chelsea. Coworkers at her previous places of employment, NBC News and McKinsey, were told they were not to approach her.