Clinton Foundation Official: "This is not charity... The whole thing is bankable. It's a commercial proposition."

Ira Magaziner laid it out in 2007. Sean Davis:

An analysis by The Federalist showed that the Clinton Foundation spent less than 10 percent of its budget on charitable grants from 2011 through 2013....

One argument offered by Clinton defenders is that the former first family’s charitable organization isn't a grant-making foundation and instead chooses to do much of its charitable work in-house. The result, according to these defenders, is that the group’s charitable work won’t really show up on a tax form since the bulk of it is done by salaried employees of the foundation.

There's only one problem with this rationale: it was resoundingly rejected by Ira Magaziner, the CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the brains behind the Clinton Foundation. "This is not charity," Magaziner told The Atlantic in 2007. “The whole thing is bankable. It’s a commercial proposition.”

Speaking of Clintons telling you exactly who they are: Hillary pretty much told the world "This is going to be a huge conflict of interest Money Machine" in her confirmation hearings -- but Republicans apparently didn't accept the threat was real, and passed her comfortably into power. Molly McCaughey:

Contrary to what is widely reported, the Clinton Foundation never agreed to stop raising money from foreign governments while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Such funding should have been off limits -- because it risks the appearance that US foreign policy is up for sale.

Quick note: It also risks the reality that US foreign policy is up for sale.

But even after Republican and Democratic senators pressed her in 2009 to accept limits, she refused. That should have red-flagged the Clintons' intentions.

...
At Hillary's Jan. 13, 2009, confirmation hearing, members of the Foreign Relations Committee expressed their concerns. But Hillary stonewalled them.

She'd already worked out an agreement with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, and she refused to change it in any way. The agreement imposed no limits on who could give -- including foreign governments -- or how much.

If the State Department or the White House had concerns about a proposed gift, the foundation would listen, the agreement said. But the Clinton Foundation, not the White House or State Department ethics officers, would have the final say.

Remember, she violated even that -- this agreement required her to disclose such donations, so that at least other people could at least offer Her Majesty an outside opinion on their propriety. But Hillary Clinton hid the Algerian government's $500,000 donation.

And of course all during this period, Bill Clinton was pocketing -- personally; not even with the pass-through cover of the "commercial proposition" charity -- an enormous amount of money from foreign governments who wanted favors.

And domestic corporations that wanted favors, too. Andrew Perez:

Former President Bill Clinton accepted more than $2.5 million in speaking fees from 13 major corporations and trade associations that lobbied the U.S. State Department while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, an International Business Times investigation has found. The fees were paid directly to the former president, and not directed to his philanthropic foundation.

Many of the companies that paid Bill Clinton for these speeches -- a roster of global giants that includes Microsoft, Oracle and Dell -- engaged him within the same three-month period in which they were also lobbying the State Department in pursuit of their policy aims, federal disclosure documents show. Several companies received millions of dollars in State Department contracts while Hillary Clinton led the institution.

...

The revelation that the Clinton family accepted money from 13 firms actively working to influence the Clinton-run State Department follows IBTimes' report on Monday showing that Goldman Sachs paid Bill Clinton $200,000 just before the banking giant began lobbying the State Department. It also follows earlier IBTimes reports on money flowing into the Clinton Foundation from Pacific Rubiales and Cisco Systems just before Clinton took actions at the State Department that benefited those companies.

Ten of the 13 firms that both lobbied the State Department and paid Bill Clinton speaking fees did so within the very same three-month reporting period. This group includes five technology firms -- Oracle, Dell, Microsoft, SalesForce and VeriSign -- that collectively paid Bill Clinton a total of $1.05 million.

You can click the link to see what those firms got for their money.

Hint: It wasn't just $500,000 worth of wonderful, wonderful words from Bill Clinton.

Some of the words they got for their money were in the form of contracts issued by the State Department.

posted by Ace at 02:49 PM

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