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WHERE DID THAT $5 MILLION COME FROM?
MARC COOPER, HUFFINGTON POST - This newest episode in the Clinton
finances opens up a field of questions that could make Whitewater and
Hillary's long-forgotten but near-magical touch in commodity trading
look like kid's stuff. . . It puts front and center the question of just
how rich are the Clintons, and how did they get so rich? Current
estimates of their joint wealth range from $10 million up to $50 million
or more, a long way to come from when they first got married and they
struggled to make the $14,000 mortgage on their first modest Arkansas
home.
Quite a nice pay-off for a supposed career of 35 years, as Hillary
repeats every day, "working to bring positive change to people's lives."
. . . In fairness, though, the bulk of the money earned by the Clintons
has been acquired since Big Dawg left office and started socking away
huge book, speaker and, um, consulting fees. Indeed, their entire
fortune has been made since leaving the White House. Renting out the
Lincoln Bedroom was but a Ma and Pa operation compared to what came in
its wake.
Let's be very clear about this. We're not just talking about Bill
cashing in by smoking some cigars and telling some good stories to a
bunch of banquet goers. It also means such smelly deals as him serving
as an "advisor" to Dubai, when he coached their government on how to
swing a port deal with the U.S. (that failed). That's after the oil
sheiks shelled out $300,000 in 2002 to have Bill address one of their
summits (There was also a direct link between Dubai and the investment
fund with which Burkle and Clinton were partnered).
Then there was that revoltingly sleazy little deal revealed by The New
York Times in which the former president served as a broker fixer
between a Canadian mining entrepreneur and the dictator of Kazakhstan,
greasing through a multi-billion dollar uranium deal. Mr. Clinton's fee?
A previously undisclosed "donation" of more than $30 million to his
charitable Clinton Foundation from the grateful Canadian capitalist.
A honcho at a Canadian bank specialized in mining said the deal was a
result of a "fantastic network" with Bill Clinton at its top.
None of this illegal, we think. And the money given to Clinton's
foundation is not supposed to be the same personal funding that was used
as a bridge loan to Hillary's campaign. And there's nothing against the
law about a former president serving as a high-end errand boy for Arab
Sheiks. Nor is it illegitimate to make a stack of dough fronting for
dictators, pushing ghost-written books, or serving as hired jester for
private corporate banquets. Except with the Clintons, of course, there's
always the slippery questions of definition. Whose money is whose? Where
does Bill's end and Hillary's begin? What's the line between personal
funding and political funding? Charitable versus political donations?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-cooper/hillarys-5-million-dump_b_85534.html
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WHERE DID THAT $5 MILLION COME FROM?
MARC COOPER, HUFFINGTON POST - This newest episode in the Clinton
finances opens up a field of questions that could make Whitewater and
Hillary's long-forgotten but near-magical touch in commodity trading
look like kid's stuff. . . It puts front and center the question of just
how rich are the Clintons, and how did they get so rich? Current
estimates of their joint wealth range from $10 million up to $50 million
or more, a long way to come from when they first got married and they
struggled to make the $14,000 mortgage on their first modest Arkansas
home.
Quite a nice pay-off for a supposed career of 35 years, as Hillary
repeats every day, "working to bring positive change to people's lives."
. . . In fairness, though, the bulk of the money earned by the Clintons
has been acquired since Big Dawg left office and started socking away
huge book, speaker and, um, consulting fees. Indeed, their entire
fortune has been made since leaving the White House. Renting out the
Lincoln Bedroom was but a Ma and Pa operation compared to what came in
its wake.
Let's be very clear about this. We're not just talking about Bill
cashing in by smoking some cigars and telling some good stories to a
bunch of banquet goers. It also means such smelly deals as him serving
as an "advisor" to Dubai, when he coached their government on how to
swing a port deal with the U.S. (that failed). That's after the oil
sheiks shelled out $300,000 in 2002 to have Bill address one of their
summits (There was also a direct link between Dubai and the investment
fund with which Burkle and Clinton were partnered).
Then there was that revoltingly sleazy little deal revealed by The New
York Times in which the former president served as a broker fixer
between a Canadian mining entrepreneur and the dictator of Kazakhstan,
greasing through a multi-billion dollar uranium deal. Mr. Clinton's fee?
A previously undisclosed "donation" of more than $30 million to his
charitable Clinton Foundation from the grateful Canadian capitalist.
A honcho at a Canadian bank specialized in mining said the deal was a
result of a "fantastic network" with Bill Clinton at its top.
None of this illegal, we think. And the money given to Clinton's
foundation is not supposed to be the same personal funding that was used
as a bridge loan to Hillary's campaign. And there's nothing against the
law about a former president serving as a high-end errand boy for Arab
Sheiks. Nor is it illegitimate to make a stack of dough fronting for
dictators, pushing ghost-written books, or serving as hired jester for
private corporate banquets. Except with the Clintons, of course, there's
always the slippery questions of definition. Whose money is whose? Where
does Bill's end and Hillary's begin? What's the line between personal
funding and political funding? Charitable versus political donations?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-cooper/hillarys-5-million-dump_b_85534.html
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