Bill Clinton Makes $700,000 Windfall on Felon's Money-Losing Company Backed By Chinese Government

That's a pretty convoluted headline, I admit, but I wanted to jam it all in there.

The spring before his wife began her White House campaign, former President Bill Clinton earned $700,000 for his foundation by selling stock that he had been given from an Internet search company that was co-founded by a convicted felon and backed by the Chinese government, public records show.

Mr. Clinton had gotten the nonpublicly traded stock from Accoona Corp. back in 2004 as a gift for giving a speech at a company event. He landed the windfall by selling the 200,000 shares to an undisclosed buyer in May 2006, commanding $3.50 a share at a time when the company was reporting millions of dollars of losses, according to interviews.

A spokesman for the William J. Clinton Foundation declined to identify the buyer who was willing to pay so much for a struggling company's stock, saying only that the transaction was handled by a securities broker.

I guess the only outstanding question is whether there were any cattle involved at any point in this exchange.

Yeah, we don't need to see those tax returns. That's just silly.

posted by Ace at 11:29 AM

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