The Clintons' War on Women (40 page)

“There’s just no evidence,” the former president said to reporter Christiane Amanpour when asked about
Clinton Cash,
an exposé on the shady connection between the Hillary’s office and the foundation. “Even the guy that wrote the book apparently had to admit under questioning that, ‘We didn’t have a shred of evidence for this, we just sort of thought we would throw it out there and see if it flies.’ And it won’t fly.”

This is a common Clinton tactic, turn a credible allegation into an incredible attack. “This is not the fault of a vast right-wing conspiracy, sexism, or unfair media coverage,” wrote journalist Ron Fournier. “It’s the result of actions taken by an experienced and important public servant whose better angels are often outrun by her demons—paranoia, greed, entitlement, and an ends-justify-the-means sense of righteousness.”
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Clinton knows that, unlike Nixon, Hillary has erased the evidence of her crimes, but the avalanche of money speaks for itself.

“The gusher of money flowing their way also offers an explanation for the email scandal, in which Hillary claimed to have deleted more than 30,000 emails from her private server,” Michael Goodwin wrote in the
New York Post.
“What did she know about money coming into the foundation? What did she know about who was paying her husband to speak? How much coordination was there? She claims the emails she deleted were purely personal, and her lawyer says
the server was ‘wiped clean.’ That’s not something that can ever be said about their reputation.”

“It is Tammany without the charm,” Goodwin concluded.

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See Amazon:
The Benghazi Report: Review of the Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Facilities in Benghazi, Libya, September 11-12, 2012
.

CHAPTER 23

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

B
enghazi was a sideshow, but it led to the government’s demands for Hillary’s emails. This turned a focus on a money-making machine designed to line the Clintons’ pockets, underwrite their luxury travel, pay a coterie of aides and courtiers, and in a few places, pay also for the silence of those who know too much about Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Former president Nixon declined to sit on corporate boards or take any honoraria for speeches, living on the proceeds of six
New York Times
bestsellers. Not since the days of Lyndon Johnson has any U.S. president cashed in the way the Clintons have.

The media had long struggled with document requests from Hillary’s State Department, which now all made sense. “If there wasn’t something to hide, Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have deleted tens of thousands of emails from her secret email server and the State Department wouldn’t be dragging its feet on virtually every public
records request that comes their way,” said one Capitol Hill staffer who worked on the Gowdy Committee.
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Did she realize when she conducted official business through her private emails that she was in violation of the Freedom of Information Act? Daniel Metcalf, the former top FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) official, says that Hillary was well acquainted with those issues. “I have no doubt whatsoever based upon firsthand knowledge that she is quite familiar with the requirements and potential disclosure risks of the FOIA. I happen to know this from the work I did during the Clinton administration on the more than two dozen scandals that erupted then, and the records controversies and information policy issues that arose in connection with them. I daresay that her familiarity with the FOIA is what animated this unique arrangement. In other words, she knew what she was getting out of.”
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Clinton’s statement that she set up her own private email system and server for convenience didn’t persuade Metcalf. “What she did blatantly circumvented the Freedom of Information Act,” he said. “By managing to obtain what truly was an unprecedented arrangement with the State Department’s administrative officials, she effectively insulated her emails from FOIA’s reach, categorically so, from 2009 until now. And she relegated to herself unilateral control over the process, unlike anything that any other department head has managed to do in recent memory.”
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In circumventing federal regulations by using her own off-the-books server, she gained control over who had access to her emails. This also helped to make the release of the emails an issue of personal privacy. Clinton said that it was understandable that she wouldn’t want other parties privy to her email server, some of which she said contained “personal communications from my husband and me.”
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This statement regarding Bill’s personal emails proved to be irrefutably false. In fact, her husband had only sent two emails in his life, both as president. One email was to former senator and astronaut John Glenn, the other to U.S. troops serving in the Adriatic.
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It
is of importance to note that just one week before Hillary Clinton took office Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to former president Bill Clinton, registered the
clintonemail.com
domain that Hillary would use as secretary of state. This action lends further credence to the theory that the use of a private server for official government communication was more than a sinless lapse in judgement. The private email address Hillary used on the server was
[email protected]
. Recently, a second email address Secretary of State Clinton used for official business was found on the server. When discovered, Clinton’s lawyer stated that the email address,
[email protected]
was never used when Hillary was secretary of state. This was later proven to be false.
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Although it can’t be proven, Hillary’s lines of communication between big-money donors to the Clinton Foundation and her influence on issues that had a positive outcome for those donors would not be hard to find in the thousands of destroyed emails.

The foundation has always been something Hillary has had interest in. Hillary, according to the
New York Times,
served “an important role in shaping both the foundation’s organization and the scope of its work.”
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The foundation is essentially a luxury travel service for the former president and his wife and their daughter. It spent $8.5 million for luxury travel in 2013, while only spending $9 million on actual charitable deeds.

The foundation also serves as a broker between big business and political donors when they engage in influence peddling. For money, the Clintons will give cover to dictators and human rights abusers and enrich our nation’s oldest enemies. They will accept donations from convicted pedophiles as well as Islamic regimes that oppress women.

Shrewd observers thought President Barack Obama put Hillary in his cabinet to mute criticism by Bill. In actuality, Obama handed them the keys to the candy store. As insurance to the administration, the
Clintons agreed to disclose the names of and seek approval on donations. This accord was briskly violated.

“Ultimately, there is no conflict between the foreign policy of the United States and the efforts of the Clinton Foundation seeking to reduce human suffering and increase opportunity for people in need,” Hillary said assuredly.
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This proved to be patently untrue.

At first, the Clinton Foundation did publish what they said was a complete list of the names, more than 200,000 donors, and has continued to update it. But in 2010 the foundation’s flagship health program stopped making the annual disclosure. The health program, called the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), spends more money than all the other programs combined.
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A spokesperson for Hillary declined to comment and former president Clinton could not be reached due to his extensive traveling demands. The White House declined to answer questions about whether the Obama administration was aware of this breach of promise. In a second breach of promise, Hillary Clinton assured President Obama that the State Department would be able to review any new or increased contributions to CHAI by foreign governments while she served as the nation’s top diplomat. This, however, was also a lie. The State Department said it was unable to cite any instances of officially reviewing or approving new money from any foreign governments. This is because none of the seven government donations had been submitted to the State Department. CHAI spokesperson Maura Daley confirmed this apparent flub adding that “not doing so was an oversight which we made up for this year.”
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The web of VIP donors with corporate interests and the sheer number of donors who were lobbying the State Department for
something
in itself stinks of corruption and a clear conflict of interest. Even Stevie Wonder could connect the dots.

A recent study found that many of the donors to the foundation also spent money swaying the State Department while Clinton ran the agency. “Roughly 65 percent of foundation donors among the Fortune 100 also spent money on lobbying the State Department,” wrote
Sarah Westwood in the
Washington Examiner.
“By contrast, just 31 percent of companies that declined to give to the Clinton Foundation from the same group also lobbied the agency. What’s more, many corporations that gave to the charity also funneled resources into other State Department projects as lobbyists worked to further their interests at the agency.”
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Though the Clintons have steadfastly maintained their innocence in the face of any and all accusations, there are several glaring instances in which the actions of the State Department benefited the immediate interests of the Clinton Foundation:

• According to the
National Journal
, a New York developer donated $100,000 to the foundation at about the same time Hillary helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman’s mall project.
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• Chevron donated between $500,000 to $1 million to the Clinton Foundation and in the same year contributed more money to the State Department than any other federal agency. With the help of the State Department, the American energy corporation was able to secure natural gas leases to drill on six continents.
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• In 2001, when the State Department decided on which products and services would be included in expanded sanctions of Iran, Swedish telecom company Ericsson was spared. Iran was a major market for the company. Later in the year, Bill was paid $750,000 by Ericsson for a single speech.
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• In 2013, it was found that a Chinese firm with strong ties to China’s internal intelligence department was one of the largest donors to the Clinton Foundation, with a $2 million pledge to the foundation’s endowment.
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The firm, Rilin Enterprises, spent $1.4 million since 2012, lobbying Congress and the State Department. Rilin Enterprises owns a strategic port along the border
with North Korea and was also the contractor that built the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC.
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• San Jose, California, networking giant Cisco Systems invested $16 billion in the Chinese market when suddenly they faced congressional scrutiny over their alleged complicity in building the infamous Great Firewall that helps China’s brutal regime censor information and spy on its citizens. In 2008, Cisco endured a high-profile Senate hearing about its Chinese policy and reaffirmed its commitment to China. At the company’s annual meeting in 2009, a group of investors stormed the meeting and demanded a shareholders resolution that would prevent the Chinese government from using Cisco technology to engage in its widespread human-rights abuses. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped in on behalf of the giant company and supported Cisco’s opposition to the shareholder resolution. The State Department honored Cisco as a finalist for “outstanding corporate citizenship, innovation and democratic principles.” The following year the company won the award. Although the honors were for Cisco’s work in the Middle East, the award and recognition gave Cisco the image as a company on the forefront of human rights.
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What Clinton did not say at the State Department award ceremonies was that Cisco had been pumping money into her family’s foundation. Though the foundation will not release an exact time line of the contributions, records reviewed by International Business Times show that Cisco had by December 2008 donated from $500,000 to $1 million to the foundation. The company had hired lobbying firms run by former Clinton aides. After the money flowed into the foundation,
Clinton’s State Department not only lauded Cisco’s human rights record, it also delivered millions of dollars’ worth of new government contracts to the company. Asked by the IBT for comment, the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary’s presidential campaign all declined.

On February 19, 2015, the
Wall Street Journal
reported that, during her time as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton helped promote the interest of other large U.S. corporations, many of which have donated large sums of money to the Clinton Foundation: “Among recent Secretaries of State, Hillary Clinton was one of the most aggressive global cheerleaders for American companies, pushing governments to sign deals and change policies to the advantage of corporate giants such as General Electric, Exxon Mobile, Boeing, and Microsoft Corp.”

At the same time, those companies were among the many that gave to the Clinton Foundation. At least sixty companies that lobbied the State Department during her tenure donated a total of more than $26 million, according to a
Wall Street Journal
analysis of public and foundation disclosures. The
Journal
went on to say that “As Mrs. Clinton prepares to embark on a race for the Presidency, she has a web of connections to big corporations unique in American politics—ties forged both as Secretary of State and by her family’s charitable interests. Those relationships are emerging as an issue for Mrs. Clinton’s expected Presidential campaign as income disparity.”
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