Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton (70 page)

“The former president and Clinton Foundation did a wise thing here—albeit without a keen enough eye toward how a Rupert Murdoch–owned newspaper might work with this material when Hillary made a White House run,” wrote Callahan.

Notre Dame law professor Lloyd Mayer, a specialist in nonprofit tax law, commented that CGI had “only facilitated an investment by private parties in a company with a mission that matched the Clinton Foundation’s charitable purposes,” with an “incidental benefit” to third parties that was “permitted legally.” Literally scores of easily contacted sources, from lawyers and academics to foundation executives, could have explained these commonplace facts.

So Grimaldi’s complicated story, which he had pursued for a year, was no story at all. But CGI’s alleged tax violation was essentially an excuse to publish the name and picture of one of the company’s owners, Julie Tauber McMahon—a blond, divorced Chappaqua resident and friend of Clinton who had been identified as his “ex-mistress” by the
National Enquirer
and other tabloids on several occasions since 2008. She owned 29 percent of Energy Pioneer Solutions.

Clinton always denied an affair with McMahon, and she called him “a family friend,” but that didn’t discourage shrieking tabloid coverage for a couple of days. On the front page of Murdoch’s
New York Post
ran the headline “Blond Bombshell: Bubba Steered Charity $$ to ‘Friend,’ ” with a story inside reporting wrongly that the Clinton Foundation had given $2 million to Energy Pioneers.

And Trump played his part, calling in to the
Fox and Friends
morning show on Murdoch’s news channel to offer his view. “It’s a bombshell. There’s no doubt about it,” he said. “It’s a rough story and a lot of people have been talking about it for years.”

Pursuing negative allegations about Clinton—accurate or not—also allowed the right-wing media to soften the impact of the most troubling stories about Trump. The saga of “Trump University,” an expensive nondegree study course that had allegedly defrauded many gullible students, while earning millions for Trump, was inflicting political damage as it headed toward a civil fraud trial in federal court.

Rather than defend the indefensible, the
New York Post
and Fox News Channel seized on another trope from
Clinton Cash
that they dubbed “Clinton U.” In 2010, Clinton had signed up as the honorary chancellor for Laureate Education, an international for-profit higher education company. Its founder and chairman, Douglas Becker, paid Clinton $3.5 million a year to accept that title and deliver several speeches a year to students at its far-flung schools in Asia, South America, and the Middle East.

Becker was also the unpaid chair of an independent nonprofit called the International Youth Federation, which had no financial relationship with his company—and which had received millions of dollars in education grants from the State Department, dating back to the Bush administration. In the tabloid press and right-wing Internet sites, these relationships were compressed and distorted into claims that Hillary had steered $55 million to Becker’s company.

Trump seized on
Clinton Cash
and the insinuations in the Murdoch media to claim that Hillary had “laundered money to Bill Clinton through Laureate Education. . . . Clinton’s State Department provided $55.2 million in grants to Laureate Education. . . . Laureate thanked Bill
for providing unbelievable access to the Secretary of State by paying him off $16.5 million.”

Not a line of those accusations was true, as the
Washington Post
established with a few phone calls. Hillary had never done any favors for Laureate, which had obtained no U.S. government contracts, and Clinton had disengaged from the education company when his contract ended in 2015.

By then Trump had uttered so many falsehoods, about himself and others, that he possessed little credibility on any subject, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, even among a press corps that rarely hesitated to rough them up.

Citing
Clinton Cash
had not bolstered him at all—and may well have undermined Schweizer, who saw his book disparaged as “widely discredited” by reputable media in the wake of Trump’s speech. Such skepticism did little to discourage Schweizer, who had used a fresh infusion of cash to turn his book into a movie whose American premiere was scheduled for Philadelphia, on the eve of the Democratic convention.

At last he dropped all nonpartisan pretenses, telling an interviewer, “The key is to engage voters. If you look at what’s motivating Trump and Sanders fans, it’s disgust with cronyism and corruption in Washington.” He had produced the movie with Stephen Bannon, chairman of the sedulously pro-Trump website Breitbart News.

So Clinton and his foundation would remain primary targets for the Trump campaign, the Murdoch media, and the far right. So much had changed since the Clintons had left the White House—and so little.

Within the noise and turbulence of a presidential election, even as the possibility of profound change emerged on the horizon, Clinton might still reflect on what his post-presidency had meant to him and the world. He had always relied upon his ability to insulate himself mentally from crisis, to look beyond obstacles and see ahead, to analyze and synthesize, to think.

If he looked back, and asked what he had done, he would surely answer, “Not enough.” He had helped to rescue people from AIDS, malaria,
tuberculosis, diarrhea; he had helped American children change their diets to stave off obesity and diabetes; he had helped to rebuild Gujarat, Rwanda, Banda Aceh, New Orleans, Haiti, and many other forgotten places; he had helped to improve the lives of human beings everywhere, through the thousands of commitments and investments sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative; and he had helped Barack Obama win reelection as president, despite their personal frictions, preventing a Republican political hegemony that he believed would be disastrous for his country and the planet. He had done that and much more, and yet he would never believe that he had done enough.

But if he looked ahead, he might have to consider how to sequester, shed, and spin off much of what he had built in the course of those achievements, to protect the integrity and image of Hillary Clinton’s historic presidency.

Weeks before she was to be nominated, the former president, his daughter, Donna Shalala, and top staff had met to begin considering what should become of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation following a November election victory. No decisions had to be reached yet, of course, but there were several likely possibilities. The Clinton Global Initiative could declare victory in its original mission to reshape philanthropy, set its action networks free, and turn its archives and databases over to a university library, or perhaps the Clinton School for Public Service. The Clinton Health Access Initiative could and almost certainly should continue, either independently or under the auspices of a major foundation, nonprofit, or international organization. The Alliance for a Healthier Generation might proceed as a subsidiary of the American Heart Association. Other foundations that shared the missions of the remaining initiatives, such as the climate effort and the Too Small to Fail early childhood program, might adopt them—or not.

Someday, the creative ideas generated by the Clinton Foundation—along with the dedicated people who had conceived and tried to implement them—just might find their way into a smart government seeking fresh solutions to festering problems. Whether that ever were to happen or not, the repetitive collisions between politics and philanthropy would end, perhaps in a synthesis yet to be conceived.

And Bill Clinton could wake up in the White House, on the morning after Hillary’s dizzying inauguration, the first day of his life as first gentleman, starting a new job that nobody yet knew how to do.

It would be Saturday, January 21, 2017.

At least someone would bring the coffee.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The idea that eventually turned into this book first emerged from a profile of President Bill Clinton that I wrote for
Esquire
magazine more than ten years ago, at a time when he was still developing the philanthropic initiatives that have since become so well established. On that assignment, traveling through Africa and talking with him, I began to understand the scope of his aspirations.

Fewer than twenty ex-presidents have lived more than fifteen years beyond the end of their political careers, and of those even fewer sought to continue their public service in a meaningful way, although that has changed in recent decades. For those whose presidencies were controversial, the urge to serve often seems to be stronger.

Life after the presidency is a fascinating aspect of American history that Clinton has studied closely, tracing the abolitionist crusade of John Quincy Adams; the worldwide travels, scientific expeditions, journalistic triumphs, and political misadventures of Theodore Roosevelt; the postwar European relief projects of Herbert Hoover; and of course the humanitarian, diplomatic, and literary endeavors of Jimmy Carter, who retired from office more than thirty-five years ago—and is a man whom Clinton admires greatly, despite their clashing personalities and attitudes. The forty-second president has followed his own course, for better and occasionally for worse, one very different from each of those worthy predecessors yet with echoes of all of them.

In my effort to tell the story of Clinton’s post-presidency, I was very fortunate that he and his staff agreed to cooperate with me. They have done so over the past several years, at no small cost in time and trouble, as did Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, and many of the Clintons’ associates and friends. It is a sprawling, complicated epic with numerous narrative lines. I could never have found a path through it without their thoughtful and diligent assistance.

This is not an official account, nor did the former president approve its text. But most of the reporting in these pages is based on interviews
with him, his present and former aides, and others who were involved in his endeavors. I have also traveled extensively with him in the United States and abroad, including two additional trips to Africa. And I have had substantial access to Clinton Foundation documents, some of which are quoted, dating back to the organization’s earliest days.

Where I have relied on other sources, including news reports and broadcast transcripts, those are generally noted. Aside from Clinton’s own works—
My Life
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2004);
Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2007); and
Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2011)—several books proved particularly valuable:

AIDS Drugs for All
:
Social Movements and Market Transformations
, by Ethan B. Kapstein and Joshua W. Busby (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

All the Best: My Life in Letters and Other Writings
, by George H. W. Bush (Simon & Schuster, 2013).

The Asian Tsunami: Aid and Reconstruction After a Disaster
, by Sisira Jayasuriya and Peter McCawley (Edward Elgar, 2011).

The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster
, by Jonathan M. Katz (St. Martin’s Press, 2013).

The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies
, by Jonathan Alter (Simon & Schuster, 2013).

Clinton in Exile: A President Out of the White House
, by Carol Felsenthal (William Morrow, 2008).

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin (HarperCollins, 2010).

Haiti After the Earthquake
, by Paul Farmer (PublicAffairs, 2011).

Hard Choices: A Memoir
, by Hillary Rodham Clinton (Simon & Schuster, 2014).

Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues
, by Paul Farmer (University of California Press, 1999).

Katrina: After the Flood
, by Gary Rivlin (Simon & Schuster, 2015).

The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich
, by Daniel Ammann (St. Martin’s Press, 2009).

Power in Numbers: UNITAID, Innovative Financing, and the Quest for Massive Good
, by Philippe Douste-Blazy and Daniel Altman (PublicAffairs, 2010).

Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home
, by Laura Ling and Lisa Ling (HarperCollins, 2010).

The Southern Tiger: Chile’s Fight for a Democratic and Prosperous Future
, by Ricardo Lagos with Blake Hounshell and Elizabeth Dickinson (St. Martin’s Press, 2012).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To write a book about Bill Clinton, as I know from past experience, is to invite pointed criticism and even angry denunciation. So be it. But I must express my gratitude to everyone who lent their kind assistance to me over the long gestation of this project, without implicating anyone else in my errors or opinions. The credit is to be shared, but the blame is all mine.

Alice Mayhew, my justly renowned editor, proved her patience and kindness as well as her wisdom many times over. I also owe much to assistant editor Stuart Roberts for managing this process so skillfully, and great appreciation to production editor Lisa Healy, executive art director Jackie Seow, designer Paul Dippolito, copy editor Fred Chase, proofreader Mara Lurie, managing editor Kristen Lemire, publicist Leah Johanson, and marketer Stephen Bedford. Elisa M. Rivlin’s legal review improved the text. I also want to thank Simon & Schuster’s president and publisher Jonathan Karp and associate publisher Richard Rhorer.