The Clintons' Little Tin Box
This week seems to spell the
beginning of the end for Hillary’s campaign and two show tunes keep popping
into my head unbidden: “Little Tin Box” from the musical Fiorello and
“How Long Has this Been Going on?”
Every five minutes it seems the
scandal deepens as it is beyond question that the Clinton family (including new
to the game Chelsea) have been using their tax-exempt charity the Clinton
Foundation to enrich themselves, expand their power, and sell out U.S.
interests. The only questions remaining are when will she drop out of the race
and can we expect a thorough investigation of the Foundation with appropriate
consequence ,
In the song “A Little Tin Box”, the
corrupt politicians sing where they kept the bribes paid to them:
Into a little tin box,
A little tin box
That a little tin key unlocks.
There is nothing unorthodox
About a little tin box.
In a little tin box,
A little tin box
There's a cushion for life's rude shocks.
There is faith, hope and charity,
Hard-won prosperity,
In a little tin box.
And here’s what we learned went into
the Clinton Foundation’s “Little Tin Box”
Victor Pinchuk
is a businessman active in Ukraine who owns the EastOne Group investing company
and the Interpipe Group, Ukraine's biggest pipe manufacturer. He is the second
richest man in Ukraine and is heavily involved in politics as a former member
of parliament who is also married to the daughter of a former Ukrainian
president. He is also the largest individual donor to the Clinton Foundation.
And not just the Foundation, but
also the spinoff Clinton Global Initiative received millions from Pinchuk while
Hillary was Secretary of State. He should have but was never sanctioned for
these trades.
Hillary Clinton’s State Department
was part of a panel that approved the sale of one of America’s largest uranium
mines at the same time a foundation controlled by the seller’s chairman was
making donations to a Clinton family charity, records reviewed by the Wall
Street Journal show.
The $610 million sale of 51% of
Uranium One to a unit of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency, was approved
in 2010 by a U.S. federal committee that assesses the security implications of
foreign investments. The State Department, which Mrs. Clinton then ran, is one
of its members.
Between 2008 and 2012, the Clinton
Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a project of the Clinton Foundation,
received $2.35 million from the Fernwood Foundation, a family charity run by
Ian Telfer, chairman of Uranium One before its sale, according to Canada
Revenue Agency records.
These contributions were not
publicly disclosed.
3.) Millions were paid to Bill Clinton for speeches by big Foundation donors while Hillary
served as secretary of state, aspects of which were not made clear by the
foundation's public filings. These payments raise numerous conflict of interest issues as do the millions paid directly to the Foundation by
foreigners and foreign governments.
Bill Clinton was paid more than $100
million for speeches between 2001 and 2013, according to federal financial
disclosure forms filed by Hillary Clinton during her years as a senator and as
secretary of state.[snip] The Post analysis shows that, among the approximately
420 organizations that paid Bill Clinton to speak during those years, 67 were
also foundation donors that each gave the charity at least $10,000.
Many of those funders were major
financial institutions that are viewed suspiciously by liberals whom Clinton
has been courting as she seeks to secure the Democratic nomination — and avoid
a vigorous primary challenge from the populist left.
Four major financial firms — Goldman
Sachs, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup — collectively have given
between $2.75 million and $11.5 million to the charity, which is now
called the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Between 2001 and 2013,
their combined speech payments to Bill Clinton came to more than
$3 million.
The Post analysis also
revealed aspects of Bill Clinton’s paid speaking career during Hillary
Clinton’s tenure at the State Department that were not clear from her public
filings.”
And from Reuters:
For three years in a row beginning
in 2010, the Clinton Foundation reported to the IRS that it received zero in
funds from foreign and U.S. governments, a dramatic fall-off from the tens of
millions of dollars in foreign government contributions reported in preceding
years.
Those entries were errors, according
to the foundation: several foreign governments continued to give tens of
millions of dollars toward the foundation's work on climate change and economic
development through this three-year period. Those governments were identified
on the foundation's annually updated donor list, along with broad indications
of how much each had cumulatively given since they began donating.
By its own reports, which the
Foundation concedes substantially understate the contributions, it received
half a billion dollars in donations -- surely that would have covered
the salary of a decent accountant for the past 5 years. The only reasonable
conclusion was the Foundation was trying to obscure from scrutiny what was
going on.
5.) The Clintons even profited from the disaster in Haiti, collecting millions for earthquake relief and then
enriching themselves by insuring that the big rebuilding contracts went to
their supporters or donors:
Controversy surrounding the Clintons
only deepened with the recent revelation, contained in an upcoming book by
Peter Schweizer, that Tony Rodham — Hillary Clinton’s younger brother — serves
on the advisory board of a U.S.-based company that in 2012 won one of Haiti’s
first two gold-mining permits in 50 years. After objection from the Haitian
Senate, the permits have been placed on hold.
“Neither Bill Clinton nor the
brother of Hillary Clinton are individuals who share the interests of the
Haitian people,” said Samuel Nesner, an anti-mining activist who thinks mining
poses great environmental risks and will mainly benefit foreign investors.
“They are part of the elite class who are operating to exploit the Haitian
people.”
6.) The Clintons seem to have directly dipped into the box to sustain their lavish lifestyle, not for
charitable purposes. For example reports indicated Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea
together used $8 million in 2013 for their travel expenses:
Between 2009 and 2012, the Clinton
Foundation raised over $500 million dollars according to a review of IRS
documents by The Federalist (2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008). A measly 15 percent
of that, or $75 million, went towards programmatic grants. More than $25
million went to fund travel expenses. Nearly $110 million went toward employee
salaries and benefits. And a whopping $290 million during that period — nearly
60 percent of all money raised — was classified merely as “other expenses.”
Official IRS forms do not list cigar or dry-cleaning expenses as a specific
line item. The Clinton Foundation may well be saving lives, but it seems odd
that the costs of so many life-saving activities would be classified by the
organization itself as just random, miscellaneous expenses.
The financial issues plaguing
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign have become too much even for liberal groups,
and now Common Cause is calling for an independent audit of donations to the
Clinton Foundation.
Amid suggestions that foreign
governments donated to the foundation in hopes of getting special treatment
from President Obama’s State Department when Clinton was his top diplomat, the
group on Friday said a “thorough review” is needed.
7.) They used the Foundation, which
taxpayers fund to the tune of $16 million through Bill’s “office expense”
allowance”, to employ and further enrich their operatives:
[S]ources say that several Bill
Clinton staffers who have been paid through the GSA have also been paid through
the foundation or his personal office. They include Doug Band, the former White
House aide who previously helped run the foundation’s Clinton Global
Initiative, and senior foundation official Laura Graham, whose foundation
salary increased from $74,000 in 2005 to more than $180,000 in
2013, according to tax filings. Another Clinton insider believed to have been
on the GSA payroll is Bill Clinton’s chief of staff Tina Flournoy, a
former union official who advised Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign and whose
arrival on her husband’s staff in 2012 was seen by some insiders
“as Hillary’s planting a sentinel,” according to a report in New York
magazine.
8.) There was significant overlap
between those who contributed to Hillary and those who contributed to the Foundation.
A Washington Post review of
Clinton Foundation data through 2014, found “substantial overlap between the
Clinton political machinery and the [F]oundation.” For example, almost half of
the major donors who were supporting Ready for Hillary, an organization promoting
Mrs. Clinton's anticipated 2016 presidential run, and nearly half of the
bundlers from Hillary's 2008 campaign, had given $10,000 or more to the Clinton
Foundation, either personally or through foundations or businesses which they
themselves headed. As of early 2015, for instance, Clinton friend and
fundraiser Susie Tompkins Buell had given the Clinton Foundation some
$10 million from her eponymous charitable fund. Another leading Clinton
supporter, billionaire Haim Saban, had given an estimated $25 million to
the Foundation.
Contributions to the Foundation are
tax-deductible and didn’t count against campaign contribution limits. Was this
a deliberate end run around campaign finance and tax laws?
9.) Cheryl Mills, Hillary’s chief of
staff at the Department of State,simultaneously was employed by the Foundation in clear conflict of interest:
Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at
the State Department was listed as a director at the Clinton Foundation in its
corporate records for more than three years after joining the administration,
highlighting concerns that Clinton’s aides were too close to the foundation
during her tenure.
The “William J. Clinton Foundation
Corporation” named Cheryl Mills as one its three directors when it applied for
nonprofit corporate status in Florida in June 2009 -- five months
after Mills began serving as Clinton’s chief of staff and counsel at the State
Department.
[snip]
A spokesperson for the Clinton
Foundation did not respond to request for comment on when Mills officially left
the organization. Mills said in her own financial disclosures that she stepped
down in March of 2009, a little more than a month after she became chief of
staff. During that time, Mills was included in correspondence about the State
Department’s vetting process for Bill Clinton’s consultancy gigs.
Richard Painter, chief White House
ethics counsel under President George W. Bush, said that there could be legal
implications if Mills’ role at the Clinton Foundation overlapped with her time
at the State Department. Officials are encouraged to step down from any
nonprofit boards before joining the government due to the conflict of interest
statute.
“It would be highly problematic if
she was a director of the foundation and she was participating in State
Department decisions that could have a financial benefit to the foundation,”
Painter said. “If you did do something that had a direct and predictable
financial benefit for the foundation, you get into criminal statutes.”
Painter said officials who keep
their roles with a nonprofit are required to recuse themselves from any
decisions that could benefit the group.
Mills served as Clinton’s point
person on Haiti, helping to direct U.S. funding to economic recovery projects.
Bill Clinton was appointed UN envoy to Haiti in 2009, and the Clinton
Foundation promoted numerous projects in the country, including ones that
involved major foundation donors.
Mills, who left the State Department
in 2013, is listed as a current member of the Clinton Foundation board on its
website.
The Foundation contends that she
resigned before going to State, but her own records say she remained on the
Board for over a month after assuming the position at State.
Did the Foundation expend funds to
others connected to Hillary in ways not apparent from the late, sloppily
prepared filings? We still have no idea who funded Sidney Blumenthal’s private
intelligence service Hillary utilized at State, for example.
10.) Fraud and Corrupt Practices
Characterize the Foundation’s and the Clintons’ Operations
Charles Ortel of the Wall
Street Journal has examined the Foundation reports contends there is fraud
involved:
1.) What
do Clinton Foundation disclosures tell informed readers about the stewardship
of billions of dollars in “charitable contributions” sent to Little Rock, to
New York City, to Boston, to London, and to Stockholm from numerous donors with
modest means, from wealthy and powerful donors, and from a host of governments
and government-connected benefactors?
2
.) Did management exercise vigilance to ensure that the Clinton Foundation
actually carried out its original and its amended tax-exempt purposes?
3.)
Did directors take reasonable care, as fiduciaries, under applicable state,
federal, and foreign laws to operate this charity serving, at all times, a
public interest?
4)
Are all business arrangements with material “related” parties fully and
adequately disclosed in annual, publicly available filings that comparable
charities regularly complete on time?
Or, do the Clintons, and others who
operate the Clinton Foundation, function as Robin Hood in reverse? Do they dupe
small, modest income donors to enrich themselves and cronies?
Headline Conclusions of the First
Foundation Report
The truth is that it is difficult to
perform penetrating analysis of publicly available financial information
pertaining to the Clinton Foundation because, so far, it is not technically
complete in numerous material respects.
The numbers that the Clinton
Foundation supplies to the public in its legally mandated filings do not add
up, are frequently incorrect, and appear to be materially misleading. In
numerous cases, the Clinton Foundation appears to have followed inconsistent
policies adding in appropriate portions of the various activities it pursued
around the world to create “consolidated” financial statements.
As the attached report notes, in
several instances portions were added only for some of the years in which the
entities remained in operation, artificially enhancing purported financial
results. In other cases, important elements of activity were improperly
characterized and combined.
Meanwhile the Foundation solicits
donations even though its informational filings are not in compliance with
applicable law. Regulators at Federal, State, Local, and international levels
are not doing what they should do to protect the public.
Much has been made of the media’s
slow acknowledgement of the Foundation’s corrupt practices. True, in August of
2013, the New York Times did raise some questions about what was going on:
But overall, it and the major media
made little of what was obvious to anyone who was paying attention: the
Foundation was operating outside the law in numerous respects and the Clintons
were profiting mightily from it. Aside from ignoring their filing obligations,
noted by Ortel, other conflicts with the law are obvious -- among them:
Their lavish travel and payoffs to
friends and operatives employed by the Foundation should have raised eyebrows
as being in conflict with the inurement prohibitions of the tax exemption under
which the Foundation was operating:
A section 501(c)(3) organization
must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, such as
the creator or the creator's family, shareholders of the organization, other
designated individuals, or persons controlled directly or indirectly by such
private interests. No part of the net earnings of a section 501(c)(3)
organization may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.
A private shareholder or individual is a person having a personal and private
interest in the activities of the organization.
Then there’s the question of whether
the Foundation’s activities violated the Federal Corrupt Practices Act signed
into law by, you guessed it, Bill Clinton.
I seem to recall that her evasive,
ever-changing testimony and document expropriation and destruction almost
resulted in an indictment against her in the Whitewater investigation but the
prosecution declined to seek her indictment then, undoubtedly because it
would have been a futile exercise to try the then First Lady before a D.C.
jury. Will anyone take action against the Clintons now?
Will this corruption knock her out
of the presidential contest? Who on the shallow Democrat bench could the
Democrats call on to replace her? Why are the major media suddenly giving this
the attention it really deserved while she was secretary of state? Surely, they
could have spent a fraction of the time they spent investigating Palin’s emails
and Romney’s high school pranks to find out about this big time graftorama?
And when will Congress put some real
clamps on tax-exempt corporations -- things like requiring they pay out the
trillions of dollars they sit on in ten years’ time unless the corporations are
designed to aid a particular, defined charitable institution like a church,
hospital, or school. The broader the stated purpose of these outfits, the more
likely they exist without scrutiny in perpetuity, fattening their
administrators’ pay and doing no good -- like the Ford Foundation, today a big
source of anti-American and anti-Israeli funding around the world.
Isn’t it time to scale back
substantially on the benefits paid out to former presidents directly and
through the burgeoning of useless presidential libraries. Create one
presidential library, if Congress wishes, and put all succeeding presidents’
stuff there. Surely these are becoming of greater use to the former presidents
and their staffs than to the general public, which pays for them.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/the_clintons_little_tin_box.html#ixzz3YOXkTG6P
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