Millions from Arab nations to influence Hillary? New book

Commentary Mag. blog. 'Clinton Cash' and an Unprecedented Question

Democratic loyalists are reacting in predictable ways to the flurry of publicity for a new book about the way Bill and Hillary Clinton got rich via donations from foreign governments to their charity due out in a few weeks. Their instincts tell them to dismiss the allegations in Peter Schweitzer’s book as just the latest manifestation of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” out to get the Clintons, to use Hillary’s memorable phrase from the 1990s. But the attention being paid to the book by the New York Times and not just Fox News is making it hard to do so. It remains to be seen whether Schweitzer’s charges about foreign entities making massive contributions to the Clinton Global Initiative as well as paying enormous speaking fees to the former president in return for favors from the State Department when the former first lady led it will be substantiated. But what cannot be disputed is that the Clintons have behaved in an unprecedented manner. The real question is whether their pushing of the boundaries of ethical behavior will ultimately be seen as disqualifying or if, instead, be disregarded as just one more set of rules that the once and future first family can ignore with impunity.:" Hillary Clinton’s bane Posted: 20 Apr 2015 08:24 AM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) I have referred to the Clinton Foundation as “Hillary Clinton’s Bain Capital” on the theory that it will connect her to unsympathetic figures and entities who behave badly in something like the way Bain Capital was said to connect Mitt Romney to bad corporate behavior. But now, with word of Peter Schweizer’s new book (to be released on May 5) “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” I should probably just call the Clinton Foundation “Hillary Clinton’s Bane.” The New York Times obtained an advanced copy of Schweizer’s book. Times reporter Amy Chozick offers a sneak preview. We have already discussed one of the three cases Chozick highlights. It involves Frank Giustra, a major donor to the Foundation. As reported by the Times, Schweizer presents Giustra’s case as an instance in which large cash donations coincided with shifts in State Department that favored the donor — namely, a free trade agreement with Colombia that benefited Giustra’s investments in that nation. Previously, Clinton had opposed such an agreement. Another example cited by Chozick involved more than $1 million in payments to Bill Clinton by a Canadian bank and major shareholder in the Keystone XL oil pipeline around the time the project was being debated in the State Department. The third involves development projects apparently awarded to a donor in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake in 2010. To this, we can add as a potential source of even greater embarrassment the case of Victor Pinchuk, which I discussed yesterday. Pinchuk, a major donor to the Foundation, reportedly did business with Iran in violation of the sanctions regime, but was not punished by Hillary Clinton’s State Department. The big picture also holds the potential for major embarrassment: From 2001 to 2012, the Clintons’ income was at least $136.5 million, Mr. Schweizer writes, using a figure previously reported in The Post. “During Hillary’s years of public service, the Clintons have conducted or facilitated hundreds of large transactions” with foreign governments and individuals, he writes. “Some of these transactions have put millions in their own pockets.” Speculating about the impact of Schweitzer’s revelations, the Times says: There is a robust market for books critical of the Clintons. The thinly sourced “Blood Feud,” by Mr. Klein, at one point overtook Mrs. Clinton’s memoir “Hard Choices” on the best-seller list. But whether Mr. Schweizer’s book can deliver the same sales is not clear. He writes mainly in the voice of a neutral journalist and meticulously documents his sources, including tax records and government documents, while leaving little doubt about his view of the Clintons. Put aside the Chozick’s strange view that conservatives prefer thinly-sourced books to those that meticulously document their sources. What the Times is saying in a back-handed way is that Schweizer makes a strong case. If so, Schweizer has probably ensured that the Clinton Foundation will indeed be Hillary Clinton’s bane.

Hillary Clinton’s Bain Capital

Posted: 19 Apr 2015 08:52 PM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff) Newsweek reports that “one of the biggest benefactors to the Clinton Foundation has been trading with Iran and may be in breach of US sanctions imposed on the country.” The “benefactor” in question is Victor Pinchuk, described by Newsweek as a “Ukrainian oligarch [who] has courted the Clintons for at least nine years – in the United States, the Alps and Ukraine.”
Newsweek says it has seen declarations and documents that show a series of shipments from Interpipe, Pinchuck’s company, to Iran in 2011 and 2012. The shipments include railway parts and products commonly used in the oil and gas sectors. For example, one invoice, in the amount of $1.8 million, was for “seamless hot-worked steel pipes for pipelines,” according to Newsweek.
Both the rail and oil and gas sectors are covered by U.S. government imposed sanctions. The sanctions prohibit any single invoice to the Iranian petrochemical industry worth more than $1 million.

Newsweek points out that the person in charge of monitoring compliance with the sanctions by non-US companies is the Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton, of course, held that job from 2009 until 2013 – the period during which Pinchuk’s company traded with Iran but was not sanctioned.

I’ve maintained that, of all the potential scandal allegations Hillary Clinton may face, those relating to the Clinton Foundation could prove to be the most significant. Indeed, the Clinton Foundation may become for Hillary Clinton what Bain Capital was for Mitt Romney.

The analogy is inexact, of course. On the one hand, no whiff of corruption surrounded Bain Capital — there was no allegation that money was ever exchanged for favors. In that sense, the Clinton Foundation can be viewed as more toxic.

On the other hand, the Clinton Foundation indisputably does good work. In this sense, it seems more sympathetic than Bain Capital.

The Clintons do, of course, benefit personally from the Foundation. As Jonathan Allen puts it, “the money pays for the creature comforts of the Clintons and their inner circle.” In addition, “Bill Clinton has a huge personal stake in what he’s built [through the Foundation], a modern post-presidency that has fortified and improved his reputation.”

But this isn’t how most voters will look at it. For them, the presumption will be in favor of the Foundation because it is a charitable institution.

But that presumption isn’t likely to survive evidence that fat cats traded cash for access to the Secretary of State. And it certainly won’t survive evidence that the fat cats in question were advancing sketchy agendas.

If Newsweek’s report is accurate, Pinchuck’s agenda was beyond sketchy. His goal was to make a profit by circumventing sanctions designed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Newsweek’s story notwithstanding, we shouldn’t count on the media to sustain interest in these kinds of stories. Nor do we need to. The Clinton Foundation-based attack ads against Hillary Clinton will write themselves.

The real question is whether the Republicans will keep their nerve and use such ads as ruthlessly as the Democrats did with Mitt Romney and Bain Capital?