Clinton Foundation in campaign tailspin (Chelsea rebuked)

A handful of deep-pocketed donors are reconsidering their gifts to the $2 billion Clinton Foundation amid mounting questions about how it’s spending their money and suggestions of influence peddling. One major donor who contributed at least $500,000 last year said a 2015 donation is less likely because of revelations about sloppy record-keeping and huge payments for travel and administrative costs. “There are a lot of factors and the reputational is among them,” said the donor, who did not want to be identified discussing philanthropic plans that have not been finalized. “We had some questions about how the money was being spent — and that was long before the problems were in the press.”

At least three other major donors also are re-evaluating whether to continue giving to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. They say increasing financial pressures and escalating outside scrutiny have sparked sometimes intense internal debates about the priorities and future of a pioneering charitable vehicle that was supposed to cement the family’s legacy.

The uncertainty comes at the beginning of what was supposed to have been a four-month victory lap of sorts — starting with Bill and Chelsea Clinton’s trip to Africa with major donors this week. Next week’s splashy Clinton Global Initiative conference in Marrakesh was originally supposed to have been followed by a lavish reception and conference in Athens in June, and finally a September extravaganza in Manhattan featuring an appearance by Elton John.

Instead, it’s turned into heartburn for Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and for the foundation, which has been under increasing pressure to distance itself from its more controversial partners.

It scrapped early internal conversations about borrowing a private plane owned by Canadian billionaire donor Frank Giustra — whose business ties to Russia have brought recent scrutiny — to fly the delegation to Africa, according to sources with knowledge of the foundation’s planning (the foundation would not say who owns the plane that was ultimately used, which suffered engine problems Wednesday and was forced to make an unscheduled landing).

And it canceled the Athens conference amid what foundation sources describe as concerns about damaging Hillary Clinton’s campaign by collaborating with a Greek government that is increasingly close to Russia’s combative president Vladimir Putin.

Bill Clinton did not want to cancel the meeting, the sources said. They said the foundation had already booked a hotel and secured more than $1 million in funding from former Greek parliamentarian Gianna Angelopoulos, a major foundation donor who is friendly with the former president.

Meanwhile, the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea Clinton, objected to a suggestion that a high-profile program she spearheads, the Clinton Global Initiative University, be scaled back because it is as much as $700,000 in the red, say the sources. At a foundation staff meeting this month the day after her mother stepped down from the foundation board and announced her campaign for president, Chelsea Clinton defended CGI U’s value, calling the program, which holds free college events to encourage student participation in service projects, the most “pure” platform at CGI, according to the foundation sources familiar with the meeting.

This story is based on interviews with more than a dozen donors, staffers and operatives who have interacted with the foundation or continue to do so. Taken together, their accounts portray an organization scrambling to address concerns about its budgeting, fundraising and donor-vetting while being buffeted by a raging political storm.

The paradox is that Bill Clinton’s unparalleled fundraising ability — the secret to the foundation’s extraordinary global growth and programmatic successes — is now fueling the very questions and allegations complicating both the foundation’s efforts and his wife’s presidential campaign. Critics — emboldened by frenzied media scrutiny of the Clinton’s personal and charitable finances and a new book on the subject from a conservative author — are alleging without hard evidence that deep-pocketed individuals, companies and foreign governments wrote checks to the foundation or paid speaking fees to the former president to win favorable treatment from Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Some Clinton allies argue that the former president should dial back his foundation role — even his appearances at CGI meetings, which he has embraced as his signature showcase — during the presidential campaign and any subsequent Clinton presidential administration.

The worst case scenario for the foundation, its allies say privately, would be if Clinton lost her presidential campaign in a manner similar to the way she lost her 2008 race to then-Sen. Barack Obama, which at least temporarily tarnished the family’s political brand. Unlike 2008, a losing 2016 campaign would effectively end the political ambitions of Bill or Hillary Clinton. That would thrust responsibility for the foundation’s future squarely into the hands of their daughter. While she is being groomed to take over the family’s political dynasty, thus far she has not demonstrated her parents’ fundraising prowess or leadership ability, say foundation sources.

In response to questions from POLITICO, Clinton Foundation officials disputed that the foundation is in turmoil or suffering from a budget crunch. They also rejected suggestions that Bill Clinton might limit his CGI role after the September meeting, pointing out he “has publicly said many times he wants to continue his work with CGI and the Clinton Foundation.” They pointed out that Elton John was invited to the New York meeting not to perform, but to collect an award for his two decades of work fighting AIDS.

Additionally, they rejected the idea that concerns about the Greek government played any role in the cancellation of CGI Athens, and said CGI U will continue at college campuses across the country. It “has never been an event designed to generate profit,” they said. “We don’t charge admission fees for students, and sponsors underwrite the ability for over 1,000 students from all 50 states and around the world to attend,” they said, explaining that “through the CGI University Network, the Resolution Project Social Venture Challenge, and other opportunities, more than $900,000 in funding opportunities were made available directly to select CGI U 2015 student commitment makers to help them turn their ideas into action.”

The Clinton spin on the explosive Schweizer book is that there's not a "shred of evidence" of criminal wrongdoing, or as ABC's George Stephanopoulos helpfully repeated over the weekend, "There's no smoking gun."

The party-line is that "it’s extremely difficult to identify a direct quid pro quo"....b/c while Hillary was Secy of State, foreign funny money was moving around from hand to hand with big money deals approved which she could say were going to be approved anyway......at the same time, foreign money was flowing into the charitable Clinton Foundation, not Hillary’s bank account.....

THE CLINTON MO---rather than taking cash from blatantly illegal activities (THAT WE KNOW OF TO DATE) and then cleaning it through legitimate businesses, the cunning Clinton Foundation (1) mops up cash from wealthy foreigners, (2) bundles it within a larger organization to hide the money’s original source, and then (3) funnels the cash from that legitimate charity into the Clinton Foundation coffers....

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LOOKING THROUGH THE WRONG END OF THE TELESCOPE The Buckraking Clinton Foundation sucking up foreign donations is morally reprehensible----but the real crimes are what exactly they are doing with the corporate/foreign monies once its in their Foundation's tax-exempt coffers.

So how'd they do that? Remember, Wall Street makes money disappear faster than a cream puff at a Weight Watchers weigh-in.

EXHIBIT ONE--- Dec 05, 2011---Fox News Report: Bill Clinton Reaped Big Bucks from Corzine Firm Before Collapse--- MF Global Employee Links Clinton to the Bankrupt Firm

A former MF Global employee accused former president Bill Clinton of collecting $50,000 per month through his Teneo advisory firm in the months before the brokerage careened towards its Halloween filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reports Human Events.

Teneo was hired by MF Global’s former CEO Jon S. Corzine to improve his image and to enhance his connections with Clinton’s political family, said the employee, who asked that his name be withheld because he feared retribution, according to Hum/Events. Teneo is a dual-track company with one side devoted to merchant and investment banking and the other side set up to provide image and strategy consulting services. Clinton is the chairman of the company’s advisory board, reports Hum/Events.

SOURCE http://nation.foxnews.com/mf-global/2011/12/05/report-bill-clinton-reaped-big-bucks-corzine-firm- collapse#ixzz1fhH3pHHH

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EXHIBIT TWO--Then-Secy of State Hillary gave her close aide, Huma Abedin, “State Dept special status".....Abedin was working for Hillary at State....... AND simultaneously working for Bill Clinton, as a private contractor for his company, Teneo Holdings.

Abedin, reportedly had private email addresses on the Clinton email server system (underlining Democrats' greatest fear: the intersection of undisclosed foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s secret email address. Huma Abedin's sweetheart deal: (1) an outside private six-figure consultant at the State Department, and, (2) “special government employee” status, and worked a sideline---as a private contractor.

One of Huma's clients was Bill Clinton's Company----Teneo Holdings----self-described as a dual-track political/banking consulting firm that calls itself the “next chapter in strategic advisory.”

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EXHIBIT THREE---An earlier NYT's expose tarred Bill Clinton w/ Teneo's sub rosa dealings. Teneo is run by Clinton aide---Doug Band. Prosecutors found Band and Clinton listed in pedophile's Jeffry Epsteiin's records as having a shocking 21 email addresses and tele nos. Can you say money laundering? L/E recognizes multiple phone nos and email as the classic MO for money- laundering and tax evasion.

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EXHIBIT FOUR---Chelsea's husband runs a hedge fund that gained access to investors who had ties to the Clintons---even as reports surfaced that Mezvinsky's hedge fund had "underwhelming" returns.

The WSJ reports extensively on the fund's underperformance since its inception and Mezvinsky's mediocre investing and strategizing. Back in 2011, Mezvinsky, now 37, and two former Goldman Sachs colleagues — Bennett Grau and Mark Mallon — began raising money for Mezvinsky's Eaglevale Partners LP hedge fund. Some of Eaglevale's investors included Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Blankfein, a slavish Democrat supporter, said he had "always been a fan of Hillary Clinton."

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EXHIBIT FIVE-- The eternal Clinton/Goldman Sachs connection. Then-Pres Clinton's WH aide Rahm Emanuel also worked as a Goldman Sachs lobbyist.....both at the same time

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Here's Hillary cozying up to Goldman Sachs.

Then-US Sens Clinton and Corzine. Corzine was fresh out of Goldman Sachs
executive suite, buying his NJ Senate seat office for $65 million; then buying
the NJ governorship. Out of office, he ran a hedge fund where $1.5 B went missing.

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