I don’t think democrats have thought this through. It’s not a question of if she would do it. She already has.
Via Wikileaks release of Podesta emails it has been made exceedingly clear that hillary and bill clinton used hillary’s position at State to funnel cash into their own pockets and into the Clinton Foundation.
“Throughout the past almost 11 years since President Clinton left office, I have sought to leverage my activities, including my partner role at Teneo, to support and to raise funds for the Foundation,” Band wrote. “This memorandum strives to set forth how I have endeavored to support the Clinton Foundation and President Clinton personally.”
Under a section titled “For-Profit Activity of President Clinton (i.e., Bill Clinton, Inc.),” Band wrote that he and Clinton aide Justin Cooper “found, developed and brought” to Clinton all four of his advisory arrangements at the time – arrangements that “yielded more than $30 million for him personally, with $66 million to be paid out over the next nine years should he choose to continue with the current engagements.” The memo also included a footnote explaining how Clinton’s speaking agent estimated that during a 10-year period, “$20 million in speeches for the President have derived … from Justin and my efforts.”
What’s more, Band and Cooper apparently helped make Clinton wealthy – and “solicited and obtained … in-kind services … for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like” – at no extra charge.
The clinton’s rode the Teneo horse:
Band wrote that Teneo was solely responsible for negotiating numerous speeches and speaking fees for Clinton, including $1.15 million from Ericson, $900,000 from UBS and $700,000 from Barclays.
Band also used his position at Teneo, which was established in June 2011, to solicit the company’s clients to donate to the Foundation. That roster of contributors included The Coca-Cola Company giving $4.33 million over six years and Barclays Capital paying $1.1 million over four years.
This isn’t a question of whether the clinton’s used hillary’s position at State to enrich themselves. They did. bill clinton had so many egregious conflicts of interest that even Band was put off:
“I signed a conflict of interest policy as a board member of cgi,” Band wrote in a Nov. 17 email to Podesta in which he referred to Clinton by his initials, WJC. “…Oddly, wjc does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc.”
He added: “I could add 500 different examples of things like this.”
Over time, things got rocky between Band and Teneo:
In late 2011, several events changed Band’s association with CGI: (1) Chelsea Clinton was appointed to the CGI board; (2) A CGI corporate audit was ongoing; (3) It was reported that Teneo was paid $125,000 per month by MF Global, a brokerage firm that lost $600 million of investors’ money; and (4) Hillary Clinton worried about the perception that Teneo’s overseas clients influenced her judgment as Secretary of State, according to The New Republic.
But if Band couldn’t beat them, he joined them:
Eventually, Band’s official relationship with the Foundation was severed, though he remained an adviser to Clinton, and Clinton stepped back from his Teneo adviser role, but became a client of the company.
Yesterday a for Assistant Director of the FBI confirmed that there is an active investigation into pay for play in the Clinton Foundation. James Kallstrom, another former Assistant Director of the FBI, calls the Clinton’s a “crime family”:
“The Clintons, that’s a crime family, basically,” Kallstrom said. “It’s like organized crime. I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool.”
Does anyone seriously believe that any of this would change with the clinton’s back in the White House?
“You know what I think? I’m going to be more judgmental than Beth who’s a straight reporter. I’ll make a judgment. Every time I watch a politician engage in a certain pattern of behavior before they go to the White House, they continue to engage in that pattern afterwards. People don’t change because we swear them into the White House. They become that person big-time. And the Clintons were raising money like this hand over hand, hand over fist, back in 1996, using—we called it Motel 6. They were hoarding them in, pulling them in by train loads of contributors and then letting them sit in the Lincoln bedroom for a while and charging them by the hour. You can still vote for Hillary Clinton, but remember, you’re getting this as part of the package, because that’s been their pattern.”
And neither do I. As Al Gore once famously said:
“A zebra doesn’t change its spots”
No it doesn’t. So here’s how it would go: You want an audience with the Queen? You want a Bill signed?
Put a million dollars in Bill’s pocket and another few million into CGI- just like when she was Secretary of State, but the buy-in might be raised. If you don’t have the money, you’re out of luck. Saudi, Qatar, Apple, GE, Google- they’ve got the bucks and their interests will be in the game. All coincidental-like. Wink, wink.
I agree completely with Glenn Reynolds when he says
The truth is, neither one of our leading candidates for president is a paragon of virtue. But only one of them has already made a habit of flouting the law while in office, selling favors and escaping the consequences, and only one of them is likely to be able to pull it off from the White House.
And that’s the problem. If Secretary of State Clinton, serving under a president and with an eye on winning a second term in the White House, wasn’t constrained by the rules, who will constrain her if she’s president?
Indeed. Pay to play, baby, but on a scale like you’ve never seen. If I’m Trump, that the message I pound.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.