Clinton corruption, two articles
Power Line - Thursday October 27, 2016
by Paul Mirengoff
No one who has been paying attention doubts that the Clinton Foundation is a corrupt enterprise or that Hillary Clinton is a party to the corruption. But two new articles, if read in tandem, drive home the point.
The first article is from the Washington Post, no less. It’s called “Inside ‘Bill Clinton Inc.’: Hacked memo reveals intersection of charity and personal income.”
The memo in question was written by the infamous Doug Band, at that time a central player at the Clinton Foundation and president of his own corporate consulting firm. In his memo, say Post writers Rosalind Helderman and Tom Hamburger, “Band detailed a circle of enrichment in which he raised money for the Clinton Foundation from top-tier corporations such as Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola that were clients of his firm, Teneo, while pressing many of those same donors to provide personal income to the former president.”
Helderman and Hamburger continue:
The memo, made public Wednesday by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, lays out the aggressive strategy behind lining up the consulting contracts and paid speaking engagements for Bill Clinton that added tens of millions of dollars to the family’s fortune, including during the years that Hillary Clinton led the State Department. It describes how Band helped run what he called “Bill Clinton Inc.,” obtaining “in-kind services for the President and his family — for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.
Bill Clinton is the focus of the Post’s article. Hillary is in the background. Her complicity is perhaps implied, but not documented.
The second article, by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, gives Hillary her due. It explains the role she played as Secretary of State in “Bill Clinton, Inc.” — an enterprise that should be called “Bill and Hillary Clinton, Inc.”
Ross bases his reporting on documents obtained by Citizens United. The documents show how decisions about access to Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State were based, at least in part, on status as a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) donor.
A Dec. 4, 2012 email shows that Paul McElearney, CGI’s head of member development, emailed Abedin asking if he could meet with Hillary Clinton during her trip to Ireland two days later. Abedin said that she could accommodate McElearney. He then asked if four other people could also meet Clinton.
Before responding, Abedin asked Band and two of his associates: “Are these legit cgi [Clinton Global Initiative] people?” She added: “Everyone is asking to see [Secretary Clinton.”
Clearly, then, contributing to the Clinton Global Initiative was a factor in determining who, among the many who were asking to see Hillary, would be given access.
Putting the two articles together, we see (again) that Bill Clinton’s man Doug Band obtained not just charitable contributions but also personal income and benefits for the Clintons and that those who contributed to “Bill and Hillary Clinton, Inc.” had preferred status when they sought access to Secretary Clinton.
In fact, one of the corporations mentioned by the Post, Dow Chemical, features in another email cited by Ross in the Daily Caller story. According to Ross, an email obtained by Citizens United shows that in April 2011, Band asked Abedin to invite Diego Donoso, an executive with Dow Chemical’s offices in Japan, to a diplomatic session between Hillary Clinton and Naoto Kan, Japan’s prime minister at the time.
Dow wasn’t just a donor to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative. It was also a client of Band’s consulting firm, Teneo.
It isn’t clear whether Donoso attended the diplomatic session. It is clear that his contributions to “Bill and Hillary Clinton, Inc.” counted in his favor with Abedin (and therefore Hillary).
According to the Post, Dow’s massive payments to Teneo led to an investigation by an internal Dow fraud investigator. He concluded: “It appears Dow is paying Teneo for connections with Clinton.”
The investigator was right. And, taken together, the reporting of the Post and the Daily Caller shows that Dow was also paying Bill Clinton for connections, in the form of better access at a minimum, with Hillary.
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