Trump on Clinton Foundation: Shut it down, give money back, Fox News via YouTube, August 22, 2016
(The interview is wide-ranging and touches on far more than the Clinton Foundation. — DM)
Archive for the ‘Clinton Foundation’ category
Trump on Clinton Foundation: Shut it down, give money back
August 22, 2016Tom Fitton discussing the bombshell release of Clinton emails by Team Judicial Watch
August 22, 2016FBI, DOJ launch Probe into Firm of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta
August 21, 2016FBI, DOJ launch Probe into Firm of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta, Breitbart, Jerome Hudson, August 20, 2016
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The FBI and Justice Department have launched an investigation into whether the Podesta Group, the lobbying and public relations firm co-founded by Hillary Clinton presidential campaign chairman John Podesta, has any connections to alleged corruption that occurred in the administration of former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych.
The federal probe is, CNN reports, “examining the work of other firms linked to the former Ukrainian government, including that of the Podesta Group.”
The Podesta Group, run by John Podest’s brother Tony Podesta, was retained by the Russia-controlled firm UraniumOne in 2012, 2014, and 2015, to lobby Hillary Clinton’s State Department. The lobbying firm was paid a total of $180,000 according to public records.
Yanukovych took office in February 2010. He was forced to flee to Russian after a political uprising in Ukraine. Federal prosecutors are probing the work Yanukovych’s regime paid the Podesta Group to do while he was the head of the Ukrainian government.
As it was first detailed in the New York Times bestselling book Clinton Cash, Uranium One — which hired the Podesta Group — is the firm that funneled millions to the Clinton Foundation as the Russian government gained ownership of the company.
According to the New York Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin had a “goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.”
The Times reported last April:
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.
“And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock,” the Times report said.
According to the Daily Caller, Uranium One “paid the Podesta Group $40,000 to lobby the State Department, the Senate, the National Park Service, and the National Security Council for ‘international mining projects,’ according to a July 20, 2012 filing.”
Distancing itself from the work it did for an organization with ties to Yanukovych’s pro-Russian regime, the Podesta group said it hired lawyers to examine its relationship with the organization linked to the ousted Ukrainian president.
“The firm has retained Caplin & Drysdale as independent, outside legal counsel to determine if we were misled by the Centre for a Modern Ukraine or any other individuals with regard to the Centre’s potential ties to foreign governments or political parties,” a Podesta Group statement said, according to CNN. The statement continued:
When the Centre became a client, it certified in writing that ‘none of the activities of the Centre are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized in whole or in part by a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party.’ We relied on that certification and advice from counsel in registering and reporting under the Lobbying Disclosure Act rather than the Foreign Agents Registration Act. We will take whatever measures are necessary to address this situation based on Caplin & Drysdale’s review, including possible legal action against the Centre.
The FBI and DOJ investigation is also examining former Donald Trump presidential campaign manager Paul Manafort’s firm, according to CNN.
Spokesman from the federal agencies as well as Manafort’s firm have not commented on the ongoing investigation.
‘Clinton Cash’ Author: Clinton Foundation Foreign Cash Ban ‘Too Little, Too Late’
August 19, 2016‘Clinton Cash’ Author: Clinton Foundation Foreign Cash Ban ‘Too Little, Too Late’, Breitbart, Peter Schweizer, August 18, 2016
Greg Allen/Invision/AP
If it would be wrong for Hillary’s foundation to accept foreign cash as president, why wasn’t it wrong for Hillary’s foundation to accept foreign cash from oligarchs and countries who had business pending on her desk as Sec. of State?
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In the wake of reports that the Clinton Foundation may have been hacked, Hillary Clinton’s embattled foundation announced on Thursday that, if Clinton is elected, her foundation will no longer accept the kinds of foreign and corporate donations at the heart of the Clinton Cash scandal.
The new pledge is a stunning tacit admission of wrongdoing, but it comes too little too late and raises the obvious question: If it would be wrong for Hillary’s foundation to accept foreign cash as president, why wasn’t it wrong for Hillary’s foundation to accept foreign cash from oligarchs and countries who had business pending on her desk as Sec. of State?
Moreover, if, as has been confirmed by numerous mainstream media organizations, Hillary Clinton violated her ethics pledge with the Obama administration to disclose all Clinton Foundation donations, why should the American people believe she would now honor a new pledge to forgo bagging cash from foreign oligarchs and countries?
After all, as both Bloomberg and the Washington Post have reported, Hillary’s foundation has still not revealed 1,100 foreign donations. And as Clinton Cash revealed, other hidden foreign donations include four totaling $2.35 million from Ian Telfer, the former head of one of the Russian government’s uranium companies, Uranium One. Let that sink in: the head of Russian’s uranium company was transferring funds to Hillary Clinton’s foundation.
Only now, with the fear of hacked emails being made public, has Hillary Clinton decided to entertain the idea of putting an end to the unprecedented practice of a sitting executive branch official with foreign policies pending on her desk accepting hundreds of millions of foreign dollars.
Indeed, for years, and as recently as this week, voices across the political spectrum have been appalled by the glaring conflict of interest and pleaded for the Clinton Foundation to reject foreign money in the hopes of reducing the threat of influence peddling and pay-to-play schemes. The New York Times, the Boston Globe, and even former Democratic National Committee Chairman Ed Rendell have all called on Hillary to stop. She refused. Only once it became clear that the Clinton Foundation may have been vulnerable to hacking, and the potential exposure of internal communications became a serious threat, did she decide to cut off the spigot of foreign funds into her foundation.
This week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) launched a probe to discover why the Obama Dept. of Justice blocked multiple FBI field office requests to investigate the Clinton Foundation. That’s a start. And the Clinton Cash documentary has now been viewed well over three million times.
But pressing broader questions remain, questions national mainstream media have heretofore been afraid to ask Hillary Clinton about the most glaring and vast series of conflicts of interest in modern American politics.
Hillary Clinton has not answered why her State Dept. approved the transfer of 20% of all U.S. uranium to Russia while not disclosing to the Obama administration that nine investors in that uranium deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Hillary Clinton has not answered why her brother, Tony Rodham, sat on the board of a company that received a rare “gold exploitation permit” from the Haitian government while she was dispersing billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in Haiti earthquake disaster relief.
Hillary Clinton has not answered why she hid $2.35 million in Clinton Foundation donations from the head of one of the Russian government’s uranium companies.
Hillary Clinton has not answered why she has yet to release the names of the 1,100 foreign Clinton Foundation donors that both Bloomberg and the Washington Post confirm remain secret.
Hillary Clinton has not answered why it was appropriate for Bill Clinton to deliver a $500,000 speech in Moscow paid for by a Kremlin-backed bank while she led the so-called Russian reset as Sec. of State—a Clinton Cash revelation so egregious, that even the progressive New Yorker magazine was left to ponder, “Why was Bill Clinton taking any money from a bank linked to the Kremlin while his wife was Secretary of State?”
Hillary Clinton has not answered why her current campaign chairman, John Podesta, sat on the board of a company alongside Russian officials that received $35 million from Rusnano, Vladimir Putin’s funding apparatus.
Hillary Clinton has not answered whether her husband will stop giving paid speeches.
Myriad questions have gone unasked and unanswered about the toxic brew of foreign cash and Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. decisions.
Perhaps now, with this stunning new tacit admission of unethical and inappropriate behavior by Hillary Clinton and her foundation, will the mainstream media find the spine to do the hard work of investigative reporting and the courage to demand serious answers.
Schweizer: ‘Now We Have, Influencing Our Politics and Getting Favors and Access, Foreign Oligarchs’
August 13, 2016Schweizer: ‘Now We Have, Influencing Our Politics and Getting Favors and Access, Foreign Oligarchs’, Breitbart, Ian Hanchett, August 13, 2016
On Saturday’s “Smerconish” on CNN, Breitbart editor at large and author of “Clinton Cash” Peter Schweizer stated that “The Clinton Foundation and the Bill Clinton speaking fees are a way around” are ways around federal law preventing foreign nationals from putting money into campaigns to get access, and “So, now we have, influencing our policies and getting favors and access, foreign oligarchs, not just American businesses and citizens.”
Schweizer said, “We all know that in politics a guy on Wall Street raises money for a candidate, sometimes because they want access and they want favors, but federal law prevents foreign nationals from doing that. If you’re a guy like Gilbert Chagoury, you cannot put money in a campaign to get access, because we don’t want foreign entities getting access and influencing our policymakers. The Clinton Foundation and the Bill Clinton speaking fees are a way around that. That’s why you have guys like Gilbert Chagoury, Frank Giustra, and others sending them large checks. So, now we have, influencing our policies and getting favors and access, foreign oligarchs, not just American businesses and citizens.”
Schwezier added of Chagoury, “I don’t think he is being suggested because of his Lebanese expertise. He’s being suggested because he’s a major Clinton Foundation donor. By the way, he’s somebody with a criminal record, convicted in Switzerland for aiding and abetting a criminal enterprise and money laundering, because he had this slight problem, he helped the Nigerian dictator, Abacha, smuggle billions of dollars out of the country into Swiss bank accounts. And he’s also very controversial in Lebanon. He does not represent a mainstream view of Lebanese opinion.”
Which Is Worse—an October Surprise or a December Surprise?
August 13, 2016Which Is Worse—an October Surprise or a December Surprise? PJ Media, Roger L Simon, August 12, 2016
(Won’t December be a tad late to do anything about it? — DM)
While the mainstream media—desperate to prevent Donald Trump from bringing his gold lamé lifestyle anywhere near the White House—rattles on in mock astonishment about the loquacious businessman’s latest gaffe, a far more significant threat to our country looms than any possible verbal miscue. According to The Daily Caller Foundation’s Richard Pollock:
Multiple FBI investigations are underway involving potential corruption charges against the Clinton Foundation, according to a former senior law enforcement official.The investigation centers on New York City where the Clinton Foundation has its main offices, according to the former official who has direct knowledge of the activities.
Prosecutorial support will come from various U.S. Attorneys Offices — a major departure from other centralized FBI investigations.
The New York-based probe is being led by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bharara’s prosecutorial aggressiveness has resulted in a large number of convictions of banks, hedge funds and Wall Street insiders.
Bharara is the attorney who recently brought down the supposedly untouchable Democratic NY Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver—a veritable Boss Tweed of modern New York politics. Evenhanded, the prosecutor also put away NY Republican Majority Leader Dean Skelos for five years on corruption charges.
Importantly, I have been told that Mr. Bharara works independently of the censorious hand of Loretta Lynch at the DOJ in DC. He is reputed to be his own man and likes to keep New York’s Southern District free of Beltway interference. As for that anonymous “former senior law enforcement official,” he—I also have been told—is definitely in a position to know. (This contradicts earlier reporting, by CNN and others, that the Clinton Foundation was not under investigation.)
Can we say, “Watch out, Hillary!”? Better yet, “Watch out, America!”? Be careful what you wish for at the ballot box this November. What you vote for on Election Day may not be what you are getting a month later.
In other words, which is worse—an October Surprise or a December Surprise?
Report: 96 Percent of Clintons’ Charity Donations Went to Family Foundation
August 12, 2016Report: 96 Percent of Clintons’ Charity Donations Went to Family Foundation, Washington Free Beacon,
Hillary and Bill Clinton funneled 96 percent of their charitable donations to their own family foundation, according to the Democratic nominee’s 2015 tax returns.
Last year, $1 million of the total $1,042,000 that the Clintons deducted in charitable contributions went to the Clinton Family Foundation, the Daily Caller reported Friday.
The tax return showed that the other $42,000 in contributions went to Desert Classic Charities, a nonprofit that organizes an annual charity golf tournament. The organization then in turn contributed $700,000 to the Clinton Foundation. A foundation adviser and longtime Bill Clinton assistant, Doug Band, was on the organization’s board of directors through 2014, according to IRS filings.
The Clintons earned in total more than $10.5 million in 2015, primarily from paid speeches. Less than 10 percent of their total income went to charity.
Clinton released her tax returns Friday as pressure builds on Donald Trump to follow suit. The Republican nominee has argued that he cannot release his returns because he is being audited by the IRS.
An IRS official told the Washington Post in April that there was no reason Trump could not release his tax returns prior to 2009.
Reporter Calls Out State Dept for Repeatedly Dodging on Clinton Emails
August 12, 2016Reporter Calls Out State Dept for Repeatedly Dodging on Clinton Emails, Washington Free Beacon, Jack Heretik, August 11, 2016
Associated Press reporter Matt Lee called out State Department Press Director Elizabeth Trudeau during Wednesday’s press briefing for repeatedly not answering questions on whether newly released emails show impropriety between the department and the Clinton Foundation.
Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch released 296 pages of State Department emails on Tuesday that it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The emails showed cases of top Clinton Foundation officials rewarding their donors with access to the State Department.
“Do you have any response to criticism by some who suggest there was a relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department at the time?” NBC producer Abigail Williams asked Trudeau. “There was an email that came out in this recent set that is between a then-executive at the Clinton Foundation and [top Hillary Clinton aides] Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, in which he is requesting to set up a meeting between a billionaire donor and the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon. Do you have any response?”
Williams was referring to an April 2009 exchange in which a top associate at the foundation pushed to set up a meeting between the donor and the ambassador to Lebanon because of the former’s activities in the country.
Trudeau said she would not comment on any specific emails. Williams tried to ask her question differently.
“You don’t feel like there was impropriety in the relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department at the time?” Williams asked.
Trudeau repeated her initial response, saying the State Department communicates regularly with a wide range of individuals and organizations. She did not address whether or not it was improper for an executive in the Clinton Foundation to communicate with senior State Department officials on behalf of a wealthy donor.
“That’s not her question,” Lee said as another reporter began to ask Trudeau a question.
Lee would later try to ask Williams’ question again.
“Can you at least try to answer Abigail’s question which was, has the department looked into this and determined that there was no impropriety?” Lee asked.
“The Department is regularly in touch with people across the whole spectrum, Matt,” Trudeau said.
“That’s not the question. The question is whether or not you’ve looked into this, the building has looked into it and determined that everything was okay, that there was nothing wrong,” Lee said.
Trudeau did not answer the question.
“We feel confident in our ability and our past practice of reaching out to a variety of sources and being to responsive to requests,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau’s answer upset Lee.
“I’m sorry. Am I not speaking English?” Lee asked before restating the question.
Trudeau then gave Lee an answer to what he was asking her.
“We feel confident that all the rules were followed,” Trudeau said.
Justice Department officials pushed for Clinton Foundation probe
August 11, 2016Justice Department officials pushed for Clinton Foundation probe, Washington Examiner,
Top Justice Department officials pushed for a public corruption probe of the Clinton Foundation earlier this year, but were overruled by their colleagues after a bank alerted the FBI to the “suspicious activity” of a foreign donor to the charity.
Three Justice Department field offices agreed that the agency should pursue the investigation at the behest of the FBI, CNN reported Thursday.
During a previously unreported meeting earlier this year, high-ranking Justice Department officials clashed over the possibility of pursuing a public corruption investigation. According to CNN, the agency had already looked into the Clinton Foundation in 2015 following the publication of a book, Clinton Cash, that detailed allegations of influence peddling.
Hillary Clinton’s involvement in the activities of foundation donors while serving as secretary of state has raised questions about whether she followed the ethics requirements imposed on her and her husband at the outset of her tenure.
While the FBI announced last month its intention to close a year-long probe of Clinton’s private email use without recommending charges, the law enforcement agency had remained silent on the existence of a separate, rumored investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
Compromised: Justice Dept. Refused FBI Probe of Clinton Foundation
August 11, 2016Compromised: Justice Dept. Refused FBI Probe of Clinton Foundation, Front Page Magazine, Matthew Vadum, August 11, 2016
(Please see also, Report: Justice Department declined FBI request to investigate Clinton Foundation. — DM)
The highly politicized Department of Justice swatted down pesky FBI requests to investigate the Clinton Foundation earlier this year, CNN reported yesterday.
CNN buried the lede, as it frequently does on news stories that make Democrats look bad. The online version bears the innocuous-sounding headline, “Newly released Clinton emails shed light on relationship between State Dept. and Clinton Foundation.”
It is not until the 25th paragraph that the article states that an unidentified law enforcement official gave CNN a heads-up earlier this year. As the probe of Clinton’s private email servers was ramping up “several FBI field offices approached the Justice Department asking to open a case regarding the relationship between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation.”
At that time, the article continues, the Justice Department “declined because it had looked into allegations surrounding the Clinton Foundation around a year earlier and found there wasn’t sufficient evidence to open a case.”
Not even enough evidence to look into the foundation’s affairs?
Not more than a year after the publication of Peter Schweizer’s blockbuster book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, opened the floodgates for investigative reporters to dig into the matter.
As I’ve written before, various lawyers have told me there is already a strong legal case against Mrs. Clinton. The fact that she destroyed email evidence — evidence subject to a congressional subpoena, no less — is already evidence in itself that she obstructed justice through spoliation of evidence. Spoliation means you can take as evidence the fact that evidence has been destroyed. Courts are entitled to draw spoliation inferences and convict an accused person on that basis alone.
The only reason FBI Director James Comey didn’t recommend she be prosecuted is because, well, he lacks a spine and he’s corrupt. He said there was no evidence of Clinton’s “efforts to obstruct justice,” a requirement that does not actually appear in the Espionage Act.
Evidence of corruption at the Clinton Foundation is everywhere, yet CNN and much of the mainstream media are still doing everything they can to ignore, misrepresent, or downplay the questionable things Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton did through the foundation.
The congenitally corrupt Clintons created their private email system to frustrate Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) requesters, shield Hillary’s correspondence from congressional oversight, and steer money to their corrupt foundation, which, amazingly enough, still enjoys tax-exempt status.
These illegal, insecure private email servers Clinton used while at the State Department are at the heart of the scandal over her mishandling of an Islamic terrorist attack in militant-infested Benghazi, Libya on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 that left four Americans, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens, dead. Even now, four years after the assault, the Obama administration has failed to provide an autopsy report about Stevens who was initially reported to have been ritualistically sodomized before being murdered by Muslim terrorists.
Every few days Judicial Watch has been releasing emails obtained under FoIA that may ultimately lead to evidence of political interference at the highest levels that provided cover for the anticipatory presidential bribe processing vehicle known as the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
“No wonder Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts and Congress,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “They show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton in potential violation of the law.”
On Tuesday the watchdog group published emails sent to Abedin, Clinton’s longtime aide with generational ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, seeking favors. Abedin now vice-chairs Clinton’s presidential campaign. She also worked at the State Department with Clinton and with her at the Clinton Foundation.
“The new documents reveal that in April 2009 controversial Clinton Foundation official Doug Band pushed for a job for an associate,” according to a Judicial Watch summary. “In the email Band tells Hillary Clinton’s former aides at the State Department Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin that it is “important to take care of [Redacted]. Band is reassured by Abedin that “Personnel has been sending him options.” Band was co-founder of Teneo Strategy with Bill Clinton and a top official of the Clinton Foundation, including its Clinton Global Initiative.”
Emails also show Abedin left then-Secretary Clinton’s daily schedule, presumably a sensitive document, on a bed in an unlocked hotel room.
“An email on April 18, 2009, during a conference in Trinidad and Tobago, from aide Melissa J. Lan to Huma Abedin asks for the Secretary’s “day book binders.” Abedin replies: “Yes. It’s on the bed in my room. U can take it. My door is open. I’m in the lobby. Thx.” Moreover, the emails show the annoyance of another Clinton aide that the schedule was sent to an authorized State Department email address and not to an unsecured non-state.gov account.”
Other emails show Clinton campaign adviser and pollster Mark Penn provided Clinton advice on NATO and piracy. Clinton fundraiser Lana Moresky asked Clinton to have the State Department hire someone. Clinton asked Abedin to follow up and “help” the applicant and asked Abedin to “let me know” about the job.
Meanwhile, the Left is trying to take the focus off the Clinton Foundation.
A high-profile watchdog group controlled by Hillary Clinton ally David Brock is demanding the IRS investigate Donald Trump’s personal foundation for allegedly aiding his presidential campaign.
The call by CREW, or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has to be the most obvious political hit job of this election cycle.
CREW is a member of what some in the conservative think tank community call the “Brocktopus,” that is, the network of groups the disgraced former journalist runs, which spends oodles of money defending all things Clinton. An admitted serial liar, Brock’s empire of sleaze also includes “conservative misinformation” watchdog Media Matters for America, pro-Hillary disaster-control spin site Correct the Record, and American Bridge 21st Century, a super PAC that promotes Hillary and attacks her critics.
CREW executive director Noah Bookbinder asked the IRS to investigate the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a tiny nonprofit founded by Trump decades ago to give away profits from his book, The Art of the Deal.
How the foundation, which ranked 4,347th in the FoundationSearch “Top Foundations by Assets for the state of New York” list would help the Trump campaign isn’t clear. “The Trump Foundation has no full-time staff, and gave away just $591,000 in 2014 — the last year for which records are available,” the Washington Post reports.
It’s possible the Trump Foundation has been helping the Trump campaign but the philanthropy is so anemic it is difficult to imagine it doing much to help its benefactor’s political career. Even if the IRS takes up this piddling little case not much is likely to come of it. It’s a political stunt by CREW, a nakedly partisan group under the boot of one of Hillary’s biggest backers.
It’s the wheeling and dealing Clinton Foundation with its involvement in billion-dollar transactions, its ties to shady figures, and the debt it owes to the unsavory governments of countries around the world that needs to be properly and thoroughly examined.
WarSclerotic 
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