Don Crawford

Don Crawford

President of Crawford Broadcasting and the voice of the STAND Podcast

The Clinton Foundation

70% of Americans do not trust Hillary Clinton!
7 out of 10 Americans do not trust Hillary Clintons!

The Clintons says Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal are “unique in the minds of American politics. They are protected from charges of corruption by their reputation for corruption. It’s not (their corruption) news anymore.”

The Clintons are indeed unique, uniquely above the law and not subject to it as we the people are. They do what they want, both Bill and Hillary, to get what they want. In the case of the Clinton Foundation for example, they operate, the Clintons do, that Foundation as what Peggy Noonan calls:

“A kind of high-class philanthropic slush fund.”

Writer Peter Schweitzer, in his book CLINTON CASH writes regarding “the flow of tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments, corporations and financiers.” It is illegal of course for foreign nationals and nations to give to U.S. political campaigns. But foreign money, given as donations to the Clinton Foundation for speaking fees or consulting services seems to be legal. So, the Clintons have setup the Clinton Foundation where these tens of millions of dollars are given and the Clintons have their own unique way of returning the favor. Foreign nations, corporations, financiers and other individuals get what they want, something in return.

“No one (says Schweitzer) has even come close in recent years to enriching themselves on the scale of the Clintons while they or a spouse continued to serve in public office.”

For example, the speaking fees Bill Clinton commands are enormous and unprecedented sometimes as high as $750,000 a speech. And of course, says Schweitzer:

“They have been paid by nations or entities that had matters of importance sitting on
Hillary’s desk when she was Secretary of State.”

Small wonder 7 out of 10 Americans don’t trust either Clinton. The Wall Street Journal in an editorial said of the Clinton Foundation the following:

“This supposedly philanthropic operation has become a metaphor for the Clinton business model of crony politics.”

This nominal nonprofit has served as a “Shadow Super PAC” designed, says the Wall Street Journal, “to keep the Clintons in the national headlines, cover their travel expenses and keep their retinue of employees working between elections.”

Like author Schweitzer, the Wall Street Journal has identified some individuals on the Clinton Foundation payroll. That payroll includes Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s Chief Advisor who managed the politics of the foundation even as she drew a salary and other compensation from the United States Department of State working under Clinton. Cheryl Mills, Hillary’s Chief of Staff at the State Department, sat on the foundation board and was paid accordingly. Perhaps that may have been technically legal, but it was clearly a major conflict of interest. No problem for the Clintons, as long as they got what they wanted. The Clinton Foundation is no normal non-profit but indeed, as the Wall Street Journal so well states, little more than a shadow Super PAC, funding in so many ways the political operations and aspirations of the Clintons personally. Some estimate that the Clinton Foundation is as much as a $2 billion operation. The funding for this political operation, this Shadow Super PAC has come from nearly every country and major company in the world. These contributors have the cover of giving to charity when everybody knows the gifts are political tribute to, as the Wall Street Journal states, “a woman determined to be President.” The Clintons rant and rail against the wealthy and plead for wealth distribution while at the same time amassing fortunes for themselves. Hypocrisy at its best, don’t you think? Small wonder that 7 out of 10 Americans do not trust Hillary Clinton.

The giving was so flagrant and the reasons and motivations so obvious that even President Obama intervened. Obama pressed the Clintons for a Memorandum of Understanding in which the Clintons would agree to submit speeches to States Ethics Office before delivery, disclose the names of major donors to the Foundation, and seek Administration approval before accepting direct contributions to the Foundation from foreign government. The substance of that memorandum was dead on arrival, and violated almost immediately by the Clintons. The Clintons, as Mr. Obama soon learned, do what they want when they want, any agreement especially one with the Obama Administration notwithstanding.

According to the Washington Post, Bill Clinton received $105 million for 542 speeches between January 2001 when he left the White House and January 2013 when Hillary stepped down from the State Department. Many of those speeches delivered by Bill Clinton were made to companies and countries who paid him handsomely and at the same time, did business with the United States and the Department of State, Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of State. Time and again, those countries and companies got what they wanted from the United States government soon after those speeches and contributions were made. The Clinton Foundation was indeed little more than a slush fund for the benefit of Bill and Hillary Clinton and little more.

The columnist Charles Krauthammer was even more blunt in his description of the Clinton Foundation. He described it as fraudulent, at its very essence and in virtually all of its actions. Contributions would be funneled to a Canadian non-profit corporation, which would then distribute funds and contributions to the United States non-profit and the monies utilized for their ultimate purpose, namely the benefit of the Clintons. The Clintons employed every technicality possible in order to remain legal, so they said. But Krauthammer, piercing the corporate veil, thinks quite clearly that the Clinton Foundation was little more than a fraudulent operation. There are any number of examples of these clearly conflict of interest if not fraudulent gifts made by the Clinton Foundation but as the Wall Street Journal says:

“There are no doubt other examples we (the Journal) don’t know about because the Clintons have hidden foundation details until they are exposed in the press.”

Even the Clinton Foundation itself had to admit that it continued to accept donations from foreign governments while Mrs. Clinton was Secretary of State although she had promised not to do so.

The Clinton Foundation, operating with several billions of dollars, hardly gave more than 10% of the proceeds to legitimate charities. The other 90% was kept and utilized for other purposes, those which would aid and abet the Clintons personally and with regard to their political ambitions.

The Wall Street Journal cites yet another incredible incident of conflict of interest on the part of Hillary Clinton. When she was Secretary of State, Russia moved for a bigger piece of the world’s uranium market. The Russians wanted to acquire URANIUM ONE, which had significant holdings in the United States. That meant the acquisition would require federal approval (read Secretary of State Hillary Clinton). Many had serious reservations about the Russian acquisition. Would, they ask, Russian control of so much United States uranium be in America’s best interests, they asked. The deal had to have State Department approval. So, as Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal states:

“Money from interested parties rolled into the Foundation.  The deal was approved. The result?  Half of projected American uranium production was transferred to a private company controlled by Russia, which soon after acquired all of the company outright.”

Russia got its uranium and the Clintons got their millions. Small wonder 7 out of 10 Americans do not trust either Bill or Hillary Clinton. I can only wonder who the other 3 out of 10 are and whether or not they know these facts.

In 2013, the Better Business Bureau reported that the Clinton Foundation failed to meet “minimum standards of accountability and transparency.” In other words, the Foundation failed to produce records, details of activities and giving and otherwise covered up or failed in a transparent way to reveal the facts of the Foundation. But they got away with it. No IRS audit because the IRS was too busy chasing
conservatives. But author Peter Schweitzer (he of Clinton Cash) states the following:

“At least four Clinton Foundation trustees have either been charged or convicted of financial crimes including bribery and fraud.”

That of course mattered little or nothing to the Clintons who went about their business as usual, operating “a kind of high-class philanthropic slush fund.”

Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel who had previously uncovered corruption in General Electric, called the Clinton Foundation:

A CHARITY FRAUD.

Tax records show that only 10% of the Foundation’s donations went to charitable grants in 2013. 10%! What happened to the other 90%, Bill and Hillary, what happened? Some of that 10%, 10% was given to some good causes including preventing obesity and alleviating AIDS suffering but again, Mrs. Clinton, now the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, what happened to the other 90%? I will bet you a copy of Bill Clinton’s $750,000 speech that you and I will never know and the IRS will never ask.

7 out of 10 Americans do not trust Hillary Clinton. If that is so, then how can any of those 7 out of 10 American citizens, voters, even contemplate the possibility of voting for Hillary Clinton as President of the United States. Can you vote for a President for whom you do not trust? No matter how jaded and jaundiced the American political scene today, can any conscientious American in good conscience vote for someone who can not be trusted? Apparently so, for as one woman told me:

“They (the politicians) are all corrupt! Hillary is no different nor is she any worse. I intend to ignore all of that, and I will vote for Hillary because she will be the first female President of the United States.”

And I suppose, sadly so, that there are many, many like her, male and female who will vote for Clinton simply because she is female. Sort of tragic, don’t you think? There are so many other qualified women in this country who are better suited for the job than Hillary Clinton, Obama’s endorsement notwithstanding. Barack Hussein Obama has told America that in his opinion, there has never been someone more qualified to be President of the United States than Hillary Clinton. Obama gave his endorsement even though he and his Administration, knowing of the Clinton Foundation, demanded that Memorandum of Understanding requiring the Clintons to submit speeches to the State Department’s Ethics Office, disclose the names of major donors to the Foundation (never done) and seek Administration approval before accepting direct contributions to the Foundation from foreign governments (never done). But politics and power roll on, trump everything, even integrity and let the Clintons and their slush fund foundation get away with anything. And maybe they can, operating and living above the law, indifferent to legal or criminal consequences and doing what they want, when they want. The Wall Street Journal states that the lessons the Clintons learned from the 1990s, when Bill was President is that:

“They (the Clintons) can get away with anything.”

And, maybe they can. MAYBE THEY CAN!

Mark Twain, the great early American writer said the following:

“No man’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”

Mr. Twain could have just as easily said the same while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. Goodbye American uranium and so much more. Would that American voters would say goodbye to Hillary Clinton in November 2016. And a very special goodbye to husband Bill Clinton who wants so desperately to be the First Gentleman ever in the White House. Eight years of the Clintons in the White House was more than enough. Even if Hillary Clinton is not elected President of the United States, she with Bill will have more than enough to fall back upon. They will always have the millions and millions of dollars of the Clinton Foundation and the sure knowledge that:

THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING

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