Is Hillary in even more trouble?
I don’t know.
As I wrote yesterday, I’m not sure what offense would be enough to cause a significant number of her supporters to turn on her.
But the NY Times is once again covering a story that could harm her:
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. . .
Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown. But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation…
Most of the commentary about the article linked by memeorandum seems to be from the right rather than the left. But I was especially curious how the left would cover it, and this from New York Magazine (not the left, exactly, but it will have to do) seems to set the tone: there’s no smoking gun, so no big deal:
While that sounds fishy, so far there’s no evidence that the donations affected the deal’s approval. In addition to the secretary of State, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) includes the attorney general and the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce, and Energy. It’s also possible that the decision was made by deputies or assistant secretaries in those agencies, not the cabinet members themselves. The Clinton campaign provided a statement from a former assistant secretary of State who said Clinton “never intervened” while he was handling CFIUS matters. Telfer said he made the donations to support his business partner, the Canadian mining executive Frank Giustra, and “the donations started before there was any idea of this takeover.”…
A source with “knowledge of the Clinton Foundation’s fund-raising operation” confirmed the obvious to the Times: Many donors are giving to the Clinton Foundation because they hope the money will advance their cause. “Why do you think they are doing it ”” because they love them?” the source quipped. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they were successful in their efforts to influence the Clintons. If the early reports are any indication, untangling the former (and possibly future) first couple’s professional and charity work is going to be an arduous task for journalists, and the findings may test the limits of America’s interest in Clinton scandals.
Somehow I doubt that journalists are up to that “arduous task.” And note with that final sentence (“the findings may test the limits of America’s interest in Clinton scandals”), I think New York is hoping that its readers, and American voters as a whole, are experiencing enough scandal fatigue that they won’t be up to the arduous task of caring whether or not soon-to-be-Democratic-presidential-nominee Hillary Clinton is corrupt.
Short of a video showing Hillary telling the donor “I didn’t support you before, but now that you’ve given me this money I do,” I can’t see how there would be a smoking gun here to discover. And of course, it goes without saying that if it were a Republican (or a Democratic enemy of Obama’s such as Menendez) being implicated, the reaction to a similar story would be very, very different.
Here’s my question, and it’s mostly a rhetorical one because I know the answer: Whatever happened to the idea of avoiding even the appearance of impropriety? Yes, I know; how quaint, and only for Republicans anyway. But if anything illustrates why it’s best to drop all entanglements that might give that appearance, it’s the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
[NOTE: Oh, and there’s the little matter of tax returns:
For three years in a row beginning in 2010, the Clinton Foundation reported to the IRS that it received zero in funds from foreign and U.S. governments, a dramatic fall-off from the tens of millions of dollars in foreign government contributions reported in preceding years.
Those entries were errors, according to the foundation: several foreign governments continued to give tens of millions of dollars toward the foundation’s work on climate change and economic development through this three-year period. Those governments were identified on the foundation’s annually updated donor list, along with broad indications of how much each had cumulatively given since they began donating.
“We are prioritizing an external review to ensure the accuracy of the 990s from 2010, 2011 and 2012 and expect to refile when the review is completed,” Craig Minassian, a foundation spokesman, said in an email.
The decision to review the returns was made last month following inquiries from Reuters, and the foundation has not ruled out extending the review to tax returns extending back 15 or so years.
Perhaps the IRS was too busy auditing conservative groups to catch the Clinton errors.]
The msm carpet bombing of hrc shows that the left has serious doubts about her ability to win in the general election. VJ has issued the marching orders: destroy the Clinton crime family.
oh well…
“what difference does it make?”
🙂
I think 290 million in misc expenses is a bit much. Especially when only 75 million went to programs. With 25 mill for travel expenses and 110 million for salaries and benefits, this “foundation” slush fund is even more corrupt than the standard Clintonian corruption.
some are now referring to her as the Empress Dowager
but i wondered which one they were referring to as there are quite a number of them, or is she a new one?
Does that make her bubba consort kin?
The “Clinton Foundation” is tax exempt. Maybe because it does good works? Hah!
Courtesy of Coyote Blog, here’s a link to an article in The Federalist:
http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/02/the-u-s-constitution-actually-bans-hillarys-foreign-government-payola/
Money (pun intended) quote:
“Between 2009 and 2012, the Clinton Foundation raised over $500 million dollars according to a review of IRS documents by The Federalist (2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008). A measly 15 percent of that, or $75 million, went towards programmatic grants. More than $25 million went to fund travel expenses. Nearly $110 million went toward employee salaries and benefits. And a whopping $290 million during that period – nearly 60 percent of all money raised – was classified merely as “other expenses.” Official IRS forms do not list cigar or dry-cleaning expenses as a specific line item. The Clinton Foundation may well be saving lives, but it seems odd that the costs of so many life-saving activities would be classified by the organization itself as just random, miscellaneous expenses.”
A Quinnipiac University national poll released today shows voters confused, at best, re Hillary: 54-38% say she’s not honest and trustworthy, while at the same time 62-34% say she’s got strong leadership qualities and 50-45% approve of the job she did as secretary of state. And while 53-43% support a Congressional investigation into her e-mail use, 51-44% say that such an investigation would be politically motivated rather than justified.
Bringing some clarity to such conflicting perceptions is not going to be easy — the Republicans have definitely got their work cut out for them.
“The msm carpet bombing of hrc shows that the left has serious doubts about her ability to win in the general election.” parker
Yes. Obama has also sent out the message that he’d ‘prefer’ someone else, specifically Warren.
Public opinion polls are at best political cover. It is the delegates who shall determine the 2016 democrat nominee. Influencing the delegates is what all the negative attention by the MSM is about.
On the evidence:
HRC may be a (internationally known) whore — but at least she’s not a cheap one.
The miscellaneous expenses must surely cover copious amounts of make up and sexual tort claims. The first for the gals, the second for the Clenis.
&&&&&&&
HRC: our first Third World Corruptocrat as SoS.
As Dr. Peter Venkman put it:
“…no fee is too high…”
Others would grant Hill the sobriquet:
“The 100,000 Dollar Woman.”
The first futures trader to walk away a winner… after never suffering a trading loss. (!)
THAT’S character.
If there was no inheritance tax, there would be no reason for “family foundations.” These family foundations, (Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Gates, Clinton, etc., etc. ad-finitum) have morphed into tax dodges and a source of leftist political finance. It’s readily apparent to anyone who takes a close look at there activities and expenses.
The Clinton Foundation is spending money to solve climate change? I’ll believe it when their travel expenses are reduced way below the $8 million per year they’re currently spending. Just like Obama’s jetting off to Florida for an Earth Day event which pumped 96 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere – reportedly five times as much as the average household uses in a year. I’ll believe there is a problem when the Warmists start changing their behavior.
Why would any foreign company or government give money to the foundation of a family of grifters? Quid pro quo is the only answer that makes any sense. The new book, “CLINTON CASH,” should shed some much needed light on this corrupt enterprise. Of course, lying under oath didn’t sink Bubba when he was the chief law enforcement officer in the nation, so I doubt that a few hundred millions in bribes will affect Hillary all that much.
Limbaugh covered this today with incredulous scorn, pointing out that the Clintoons only spent [per their records, for what that’s worth] 15% of the money they got on actually charity (the pass-through rate).
He also said that the 60% figure has to be the amount they kept for themselves. And added that this is classic: these are people who really do believe that all property is theft, so why not get in on the action?
Just the fact that she approved a Russian takeover of some of the US uranium holdings, I would think would be a close to treasonous charge. Add to that the stink of money being paid for her to do that approval and I think you have the scenario Neo was looking for….in a normal US.
However, Like BHO, there’s not much she could do that would actually turn the press and most people against her. The Dems, in general, can literally get away with anything.
My scorn towards the Clintons, as grasping, hypocritical grifters knows no bounds, but still … I am grimly amused at how suddenly all these unfavorable stories about her are suddenly sprouting up in the establishment media. Why … it’s so convenient to someone.
Back in 2008 I started calling the Obama-Hillary contest the fight between Ebony and Ovary, and intuited that the two of them hated each other with the passion that two grifters can only bring towards each other.
So all this unfavorable Hillary stuff – is it a series of strategic leaks from the Ebony camp, paying off old grudges? What has the Ovary camp got, which they can leak to certain establishment media stooges in retaliation?
If it weren’t so serious – the future and welfare of the nation at stake – it would all be a matter of rather grim and interested amusement.
I blame the idiot voters, cough cough …
I think the dem ticket will end up being the relatively young (52) O’malley and the harvard squaw. Hrc is yesterday’s moldy papers.
Sgt Mom @7:25 —
Oh you made me laugh.
There is a brilliant kernel of devastating satire there.
When these negative stories about Hillary first came out, and appeared in the Times, yet, my theory right off the bat (beginning with the email story) was that Obama was behind it, because she was insufficiently obsequious to him when she was SOS, because he wanted someone even more leftist to carry on his legacy (Warren, for example), and because he still has a grudge towards Hillary for opposing him in 2008 and for certain things Bill said about him back then. I have always felt he would stab her in the back in 2016.
Of course we can’t know, but that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
I suppose the MSM might become interested if/when US-mined uranium ends up in a nuke used against us, or maybe if Russia uses it to annihilate a European target. Maybe. Not holding my breath.
In addition to the MSM’s practiced inattention to Clinton corruption, I continue to find it odd that there’s no real reaction from Obama, or anyone in the MSM asking whether or not Hillary did this with Obama’s knowledge or approval. Even if he didn’t know about the Clinton foundation payoff, did he support her decision to sell the uranium mining rights to Putin? Was it his idea? Interesting that Obama can’t even muster his favorite boilerplate scandal response that the he ‘only just found out from recent news reports’ and ‘no one is more concerned about it than he is.’
Don’t fall for it. Nobody’s paying attention. They’re getting it all out now so it’ll be old hat when the campaigns ramp up.
Besides, I’m still back on last month’s scandal, the unsecure email server in her house.
The messiah wants a weak successor he can control, not the clintonista mafia. Think criminal over lords in Honduras fighting for primacy. That is the messiah vs slick willy wrestling match.
There is so much here now and surely more to uncover. If the Clintons don’t go to jail over all of this, we are finished as a country.
O’Reilly may be onto the best and easiest case: GE’s sale of stuff to Algeria.
But the key here is that the FBI investigate and DOJ prosecute. And I have zero confidence that Lynch will indict unless she gets a direct order from BHO.
I’m already seeing the combination of scandal fatigue and the fact that the uranium deal is fairly complicated. Whitewater was the same way.
Someone also needs to flip in a big and dramatic way.
There are some friends and relations with whom I have an agreement–finally–not to discuss politics.
How on earth they could allow themselves to think I was right is beyond me. Besides, some of them get, I think, a bit of a frisson watching their betters break laws the rest of us must obey.
Conclusion is there won’t be much difference in voting patterns.
I figured it out.
The tip was the denial by the HRC campaign that “there is no evidence….” That’s lawyer talk. I’m a lawyer.
The Clintons’ entire corruption scheme was planned and lawyered up when Bill was in the White House or shortly thereafter.
Not planned in a conspiracy way, but planned like a business with legal implications.
What the Clintons wanted to avoid was jail time like LA Congressman Jefferson or IL Congressman Jackson. The Clintons are way too smart to put cash in their freezer in exchange for some favor, deal or legislation.
What I suspect happened is that Bruce Lindsey or David Kendall drafted an extensive memo. The legal brief set out all the applicable federal statutes and, more importantly, the cases resulting in convictions.
The key phrase is “quid pro quo.” The Clintons have it burned into their brains not to leave any evidence of quid pro quo.
So both of them have book and speaking fees. The price is high, but that’s the market! Same deal with books. They don’t sell but who is to say they would not have sold more at the time the advance was paid.
The Foundation, of course, is the key. Good works done! Bruce Lindsey and other key people mostly in charge and they lawyer up the donations and what the donor really expects to get for it.
The standards regarding the actual good works and charitable activity is loose. The Clintons play on the margins. Who is too say the overhead is too high? The IRS approves of that percentage. Bill and Hillary didn’t draw a salary. Where’s the proof?
When Hillary is at State and Bill is getting speaking fees, what’s the connection? They don’t live together and never talk.
So what if we allowed the uranium company to be sold? Other people approved it. Same deal with Keystone XL.
Are all these millions being paid by idiots to the Foundation and for speaking fees who aren’t getting any value for their money? There is no evidence that they received anything of value. This is not something that would result in a criminal conviction. And that’s the standard and what the Clintons wanted to avoid. They could ride out any other storm. And they got their millions and status anyway, so who cares?
Really. This is the perfect criminal corruption scheme. Too complicated for the average person to follow and probably within the strict confines of the law.
The only weakness I see if the Clintons made a mistake. Considering the millions on the line, I doubt it.
The weak link is the unsecure private email server. I suspect it is on the bottom of Lake Superior now.
And, of course, the DOJ and the FBI won’t do a thing.
My only hope remains that some foreign government hacked into the server and got enough stuff that would document the quid pro quo on a massive and absolutely convincing scale. Long shot, but the Sony people were fairly imprudent in their emails. But they weren’t engaged in a corruption con game.
Last point.
How would the FBI arrest a foreigner?
Could they extradict them to the US?
Key part of the scheme.
neo @ 8:13 – – as I have said before, your theories turn out to be maddeningly true, like a reverse Paul Harvey. The first thing you do is tell the rest of the story. That wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t make your readers jealous.
The astonishing aspect of the current stories is the absolute clarity of detail.
The soviet media has always cooperated with the Clinton spin by writing (if they do write) soupy, unfocused, almost deliberately confusing stories, the gist of which is that all this bad stuff is coming from bad people who hate the Clintons.
The coherent crystal clarity of the current stuff proves the manipulative soviet nature of the media, as well as the presence of some force (could well be BO) behind the stories.
Frightening how Orwellian/Marxist/Hitlerian is the shaping of modern American perceptions. For a third of the audience, there is clueless absorption; for another third, ideological comfort and reliable transmission; for the final third, who point out that the chocolate ration was 30 grams last week, daily vilification.
And the genius of the American soviet propaganda is the practiced normality, the “nothing to see here” chirpiness of it all.
The Clinton Foundation 290 million in misc expenses is a big red flag, but what about the “missing” $6 Billion from State while Clinton was Secretary of State?! That is a lot of money unaccounted for.
Apparently no one in Congress, the WH, or FBI have any interest is this theft from the taxpayers.
Vladimir Putin: Thanks to Hillary, I now own America’s Uranium Future!
“The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”
The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.”
The New York Times:
“Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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.”
she is screwed.
but i wonder, can she fix the bus when under the bus
}}} While that sounds fishy, so far there’s no evidence that the donations affected the deal’s approval.
My, what a remarkably different tone for “sounds fishy”.
Bush:
“While there’s no evidence the White House definitely knew that Saddam’s weapons program did not have any yellow cake, it certainly sounds fishy…”
OMG!!1!!1!!
BUSH LIED PEOPLE DIED!!!
Clinton:
“While that sounds fishy, so far there’s no evidence that the donations affected the deal’s approval.”
What? No, there’s no story here. No, none. Move along. No story. Move. Along.
I mean, seriously?
THESE ARE POLITICIANS, people.
If it APPEARS like there was corruption, probably there WAS.