by Roger Stone
In circumventing federal regulations by using her own off-the-books server, she gained control over who had access to her emails. This also helped to make the release of the emails an issue of personal privacy. Clinton said that it was understandable that she wouldn’t want other parties privy to her email server, some of which she said contained “personal communications from my husband and me.”529 This statement regarding Bill’s personal emails proved to be irrefutably false. In fact, her husband had only sent two emails in his life, both as president. One email was to former senator and astronaut John Glenn, the other to U.S. troops serving in the Adriatic.530
It is of importance to note that just one week before Hillary Clinton took office Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to former president Bill Clinton, registered the clintonemail.com domain that Hillary would use as secretary of state. This action lends further credence to the theory that the use of a private server for official government communication was more than a sinless lapse in judgement. The private email address Hillary used on the server was [email protected]. Recently, a second email address Secretary of State Clinton used for official business was found on the server. When discovered, Clinton’s lawyer stated that the email address, [email protected] was never used when Hillary was secretary of state. This was later proven to be false.531
Although it can’t be proven, Hillary’s lines of communication between big-money donors to the Clinton Foundation and her influence on issues that had a positive outcome for those donors would not be hard to find in the thousands of destroyed emails.
The foundation has always been something Hillary has had interest in. Hillary, according to the New York Times, served “an important role in shaping both the foundation’s organization and the scope of its work.”532
The foundation is essentially a luxury travel service for the former president and his wife and their daughter. It spent $8.5 million for luxury travel in 2013, while only spending $9 million on actual charitable deeds.
The foundation also serves as a broker between big business and political donors when they engage in influence peddling. For money, the Clintons will give cover to dictators and human rights abusers and enrich our nation’s oldest enemies. They will accept donations from convicted pedophiles as well as Islamic regimes that oppress women.
Shrewd observers thought President Barack Obama put Hillary in his cabinet to mute criticism by Bill. In actuality, Obama handed them the keys to the candy store. As insurance to the administration, the Clintons agreed to disclose the names of and seek approval on donations. This accord was briskly violated.
“Ultimately, there is no conflict between the foreign policy of the United States and the efforts of the Clinton Foundation seeking to reduce human suffering and increase opportunity for people in need,” Hillary said assuredly.533 This proved to be patently untrue.
At first, the Clinton Foundation did publish what they said was a complete list of the names, more than 200,000 donors, and has continued to update it. But in 2010 the foundation’s flagship health program stopped making the annual disclosure. The health program, called the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), spends more money than all the other programs combined.534 A spokesperson for Hillary declined to comment and former president Clinton could not be reached due to his extensive traveling demands. The White House declined to answer questions about whether the Obama administration was aware of this breach of promise. In a second breach of promise, Hillary Clinton assured President Obama that the State Department would be able to review any new or increased contributions to CHAI by foreign governments while she served as the nation’s top diplomat. This, however, was also a lie. The State Department said it was unable to cite any instances of officially reviewing or approving new money from any foreign governments. This is because none of the seven government donations had been submitted to the State Department. CHAI spokesperson Maura Daley confirmed this apparent flub adding that “not doing so was an oversight which we made up for this year.”535
The web of VIP donors with corporate interests and the sheer number of donors who were lobbying the State Department for something in itself stinks of corruption and a clear conflict of interest. Even Stevie Wonder could connect the dots.
A recent study found that many of the donors to the foundation also spent money swaying the State Department while Clinton ran the agency. “Roughly 65 percent of foundation donors among the Fortune 100 also spent money on lobbying the State Department,” wrote Sarah Westwood in the Washington Examiner. “By contrast, just 31 percent of companies that declined to give to the Clinton Foundation from the same group also lobbied the agency. What’s more, many corporations that gave to the charity also funneled resources into other State Department projects as lobbyists worked to further their interests at the agency.”536
Though the Clintons have steadfastly maintained their innocence in the face of any and all accusations, there are several glaring instances in which the actions of the State Department benefited the immediate interests of the Clinton Foundation:
• According to the National Journal, a New York developer donated $100,000 to the foundation at about the same time Hillary helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman’s mall project.537
• Chevron donated between $500,000 to $1 million to the Clinton Foundation and in the same year contributed more money to the State Department than any other federal agency. With the help of the State Department, the American energy corporation was able to secure natural gas leases to drill on six continents.538
• In 2001, when the State Department decided on which products and services would be included in expanded sanctions of Iran, Swedish telecom company Ericsson was spared. Iran was a major market for the company. Later in the year, Bill was paid $750,000 by Ericsson for a single speech.539
• In 2013, it was found that a Chinese firm with strong ties to China’s internal intelligence department was one of the largest donors to the Clinton Foundation, with a $2 million pledge to the foundation’s endowment.540 The firm, Rilin Enterprises, spent $1.4 million since 2012, lobbying Congress and the State Department. Rilin Enterprises owns a strategic port along the border with North Korea and was also the contractor that built the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC.viii
• San Jose, California, networking giant Cisco Systems invested $16 billion in the Chinese market when suddenly they faced congressional scrutiny over their alleged complicity in building the infamous Great Firewall that helps China’s brutal regime censor information and spy on its citizens. In 2008, Cisco endured a high-profile Senate hearing about its Chinese policy and reaffirmed its commitment to China. At the company’s annual meeting in 2009, a group of investors stormed the meeting and demanded a shareholders resolution that would prevent the Chinese government from using Cisco technology to engage in its widespread human-rights abuses. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped in on behalf of the giant company and supported Cisco’s opposition to the shareholder resolution. The State Department honored Cisco as a finalist for “outstanding corporate citizenship, innovation and democratic principles.” The following year the company won the award. Although the honors were for Cisco’s work in the Middle East, the award and recognition gave Cisco the image as a company on the forefront of human rights.541
What Clinton did not say at the State Department award ceremonies was that Cisco had been pumping money into her family’s foundation. Though the foundation will not release an exact time line of the contributions, records reviewed by International Business Times show that Cisco had by December 2008 donated from $500,000 to $1 million to the foundation. The company had hired lobbying firms run by former Clinton aides. After the money flowed into the foundation, Clinton’s State Department not only lauded Cisco’s human rights record, it also delivered millions of dollars’ worth of new government contracts to the company. Asked by the IBT for comment, the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary’s presidential
campaign all declined.
On February 19, 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that, during her time as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton helped promote the interest of other large U.S. corporations, many of which have donated large sums of money to the Clinton Foundation: “Among recent Secretaries of State, Hillary Clinton was one of the most aggressive global cheerleaders for American companies, pushing governments to sign deals and change policies to the advantage of corporate giants such as General Electric, Exxon Mobile, Boeing, and Microsoft Corp.”
At the same time, those companies were among the many that gave to the Clinton Foundation. At least sixty companies that lobbied the State Department during her tenure donated a total of more than $26 million, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of public and foundation disclosures. The Journal went on to say that “As Mrs. Clinton prepares to embark on a race for the Presidency, she has a web of connections to big corporations unique in American politics—ties forged both as Secretary of State and by her family’s charitable interests. Those relationships are emerging as an issue for Mrs. Clinton’s expected Presidential campaign as income disparity.”542
According to an article in the Federalist posted on March 2, 2015, by Sean Davis, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and Algeria all funneled cash to the Clinton Foundation while each country had business pending before the U.S. government. The Post went on to report that “In one instance, Foundation officials acknowledged they should have sought approval in 2010 from the State Department ethics office, as required by the agreement for new government donors, before accepting a $500,000 donation from the Algerian government.” The money was given to assist with earthquake relief in Haiti, the foundation said. At the time, Algeria, which has sought a closer relationship with Washington, was spending heavily to lobby the State Department on human-rights issues. Most of the contributions were possible because of exceptions written into the foundation’s 2008 agreement, which included limits on foreign-government donations.
As secretary of state, Hillary devoted much of her time in 2010 to the Haitian recovery and the Clinton Foundation led the fundraising efforts for relief in the third-world country. Millions upon millions of dollars were raised, yet only 900 homes were rebuilt. Protesters later gathered at the Clinton Foundation to complain of missing money from the Haiti recovery. Daniel Halper, author of Clinton Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, wrote that the protesters were angry that the money “meant to help rebuild Haiti did little to help the country after the devastating earthquake. And that much of the money went to non-Haitian companies.”
If one looks closely at the Clintons’ work in Haiti, the promises they have made, the money that has been thrown around, who it benefits, and what makes Haiti so important, you’ll see that the small, destitute island country is a victim of the Clinton agenda. As Politico magazine’s Jonathan M. Katz has exhaustively documented, both Clintons have had their unsavory hands buried deep in Haiti’s politics.
“The island nation, in many ways, represents ground zero for the confusing and often conflict-ridden intersection of her State Department, the Clinton family’s foundation, and both of their foreign policies,” wrote Katz. “Five years after the hemisphere’s deadliest single natural disaster, when both Clintons assumed leading roles in the rebuilding efforts, little progress has been made on many core problems in Haiti, and the government that Hillary Clinton helped put in power during that January 2011 trip—and that both Clintons have backed strongly since—has proven itself unworthy of that trust. Economic growth is stalling, and the nation’s politics look headed for a showdown in the next year that could once again plunge the country into internal strife.”
The Clintons were the crucial brokers of the response effort. They were involved in every phase of the relief attempt including a UN donors conference at which 150 nations and organizations pledged an astonishing $9 billion.543 The Clintons set themselves up to have control of this vast fortune and use it to benefit their foundation and their friends. By controlling the money flow, the Clintons controlled who received lucrative contracts on the small island. It was a cash grab.
As Fox News reported, “What quickly became apparent to many people was that if you … wanted to do business in Haiti, you had to have relationships with a Clinton.” One of the big investments was the new Caracol Industrial Park, a $300 million investment the Clinton State Department projected to create 65,000 jobs. To date the project has delivered fewer than ten thousand jobs. The Clintons also neglected to reveal that the anchor tenant of the park, a Korean manufacturer, is a Clinton supporter. The company VCS Mining received a gold permit to extract mineral wealth in Haiti. After the permit was issued, VCS put Hillary Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, on its board and in position to profit. It should be noted that Rodham did not have a background in mining or a history in Haiti. The global communications provider Digicel, run by Irish billionaire and Clinton confidant Denis O’Brien, made millions in revenue in Haiti. Not surprisingly, O’Brien subsequently plied the Clinton Foundation with money and facilitated profitable speeches for Bill.544
Hillary’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation worked together to enrich the few insiders with capital enough to curry favor with both agencies.
“You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that foreign companies and countries expected something in return for donating to the Clinton foundation rather than the countless other charities not connected to the US presidency. You don’t have to be a lawyer to know the Clintons violated ethics rules. You don’t have to be a historian to know their ethical blind spot has decades-old roots. You don’t have to be a political scientist to know this behavior contributes to the public’s declining trust in its leaders,” wrote Ron Fournier.545
Governments and corporations involved in arms deals approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department have given between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family. This is according to the International Business Times. These figures far surpass anything that involved the Bush administration.
Between 2009 and 2012, Hillary’s State Department approved of $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to twenty nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation.546 In addition, the Clinton State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon brokered deals for sixteen countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation.547
Many of these arms deals went to countries whose human rights abuses have been publicly criticized by the very same State Department. Countries like Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar, all donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation and were given clearance to buy caches of American-made weapons.
Under federal law, foreign governments seeking to buy weapons from the United States are prohibited from making campaign contributions. The Clintons have been using the foundation as a conduit to accept these illegal payments under the guise of their charitable foundation.
In addition, the Clinton Foundation accepted donations from six companies benefiting from U.S. State Department arms export approvals. They are as follows:
Defense Contractor Donation Min. Boeing $5,000,000
General Electric $1,000,000
Goldman Sachs (Hawker Beechcraft) $500,000
Honeywell $50,000
Lockheed Martin $250,000
United Technologies $50,000548
One arms contractor that got millions from Hillary was General Electric. General Electric owned 49 percent of NBC. NBC hired Chelsea Clinton for $600 thousand just prior to their enormous contract, approved by the State Department. Chelsea, who is a fully matured adult, has become a grifter like her mother. Those who are shocked by the likelihood that she is Webb Hubbell’s daughter must also realize that she is in on the scam. Loud and demanding, she has offended top staff at the Clinton Foundation, causing substantial turnover. She is opinionated and aggressive. Staff
ers call her “the Princess” behind her back.
The cooperation between the foundation and the State Department provided a financial windfall for the Clintons. In one particular case, this conflict of interest led to a dangerous agreement, where a Russian state-owned energy company acquired a major foothold in the nuclear energy market with the State Department-sanctioned sale of major U.S. uranium deposits. Because of this deal, over 20 percent of U.S. uranium is now owned by the Kremlin. Treason, anyone?
viii This recent connection with Chinese donations brings to mind former President Bill Clinton’s many campaign finance scandals involving illegal Asian money. The Democratic National Committee was ultimately forced to return $2,825,600 after the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, led by then chairman Senator Fred Thompson, uncovered strong evidence of illegal or improper donations from the People’s Republic of China.