As Hillary Clinton’s bid for The White House ramps up, contributions to The Clinton Foundation charities have come under increased scrutiny.
First, a Reuters investigation revealed that contributions from foreign governments had inexplicably disappeared from tax documents starting in 2010, prompting the charity to refile five years worth of returns. The ‘omission’ was characterized as a ‘mistake’ by the foundation’s acting CEO who, in a lengthy blog post, promised that the organization had been careful to avoid conflicts of interest when Clinton was Secretary of State. It later turned out that Clinton may not have kept all of her promises to the Obama administration when it came to avoiding such conflicts.
Further investigative reports from the IBTimes outlined two particularly interesting cases where payments to the Clintons and/or their charities may have influenced policy decisions.
In one case, Goldman Sachs paid Bill Clinton $200,000 for a speech before lobbying the Clinton-led State Department on Export-Import Bank legislation and on multiple occasions, foreign government donors to the Clinton Foundation were awarded arms deals which, when taken together, were worth more than $150 billion.
Now, the IBTimes is back at it, with a look at the Clinton State Departments’ chemical arms sales to Middle Eastern governments who gave to Clinton family charities. Here’s more via IBTimes:
The Clinton-run State Department’s approval of chemical and biological exports to the Egyptian government increased in volume just as dollars flowed from Mubarak-linked entities into the coffers of Clinton family concerns. A group closely associated with the Mubarak government paid Bill Clinton a $250,000 speaking fee in 2010, less than 4 months before the Egyptian revolution began. In 2012, a firm with an ownership stake in the company that manufactured the tear gas reportedly used by Egyptian security forces against the uprising paid $100,000 to $250,000 for another Bill Clinton speech.
The approval of American chemical weapons sales to Egypt as Mubarak’s associates were stocking Clinton family interests with cash is but one example of a dynamic that prevailed though Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 06/03/2015.
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