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United States News Title: "Scandal Without End: Is The Clinton Foundation A Fraud? Corruption: The Clinton Foundation's questionable money dealings have raised eyebrows for years. Now, a letter circulating in Congress alleges that the Clinton family's supposed do-gooder foundation is in fact a "lawless, 'pay-to-play' enterprise that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years." Those are pretty tough words for a former president and his wife, who happens to be the leading candidate to be our next president. But the congressional letter, which the Daily Caller News Foundation got its hands on, was written by Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who plans on asking the FBI, IRS and Federal Trade Commission to launch a "public corruption" investigation. Is it warranted, or just politics? It sure looks like the former. As Blackburn's letter says, there is a "pattern of dealing that personally enriched the Clintons at the expense of American foreign policy." Blackburn cites the for-profit education business Laureate Education, which paid Bill Clinton some $16.5 million to serve part-time as "honorary chancellor" starting in 2010, a year after Hillary became secretary of state. Laureate, for its part, gave the Clinton Foundation some $1 million to $5 million. Nothing illegal about that, per se. However, the Daily Tennesseean reports that Blackburn's letter also details how "the International Youth Fund, whose board members include Laureate's founder, Douglas Baker, received more than $55 million in grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state." AID is a part of the State Department. Then there's Uranium One. Hillary Clinton, the Daily Tennesseean notes, "was one of several Obama administration officials who approved the sale of uranium to the Russian-operated company, whose chairman also has donated $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation." A number of other people involved in the deal also gave money to the Clintons. "The appearance of 'pay-to-play' transactions involving Laureate and Uranium One also raises serious allegations of criminal conduct requiring further examination," Blackburn's letter says. That's not all of the questionable activities. As we noted back in May, the Clinton Foundation took in some $100 million in donations from a variety of Gulf sheikhs and billionaires who no doubt expected to reap political benefits from a future Hillary Clinton presidency, with Bill serving not just as first gentleman in the White House but also possibly as bagman. Among donors dumping bags of cash on the Clintons include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Lost in the shuffle is Bill Clinton's special "business partnership" from 2003 to 2008 with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the strongman ruler of Dubai. That deal netted Clinton some $15 million in "guaranteed payments," tax records show. And then there's the $30 million delivered to the Clintons by two Mideast foundations and four billionaire Saudis. For the betterment of humankind, no doubt. As national security analyst and writer Patrick Poole said in May, "These regimes are buying access. ... There are massive conflicts of interest. It's beyond comprehension." It took Wall Street financial analyst and investment advisor Charles Ortel -- whom the Sunday Times of London once described as "one of the finest analysts of financial statements on the planet" -- to untangle the mess in a series of ongoing reports. Ortel alleges that contribution disclosures by the foundation often don't fit with what donors' own records say -- big red flag. "This," Ortel summed up, "is a charity fraud." As a reminder, this isn't just some political vendetta. As far back as 2013, an alarmed New York Times warned that the foundation had become "a sprawling concern, supervised by a rotating board of old Clinton hands, vulnerable to distraction and threatened by conflicts of interest." It turns out that's a gross understatement. Testifying last week to Congress, FBI chief James Comey called Hillary Clinton "extremely careless" about her use of a private email server while secretary of state. But, curiously, he refused additional comment "on the existence or nonexistence of any other ongoing investigations." This needs to be disclosed. Americans deserve to know whether the person they're likely to put into the White House this November is merely a misunderstood career public servant -- or a pocket-lining career criminal. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread |
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