We know that the Clinton Foundation has been drawn into the ongoing investigation over the Clinton emails. The State Department issued the family nonprofit a subpoena last fall, asking for all documents relating to the Foundation’s ventures that might have required approval from the government while she was our top diplomat in the Obama administration. Moreover, documents related to Huma Abedin, Clinton’s trusted aide who worked for both her office at State and other areas of the family’s operations, are included in this subpoena (via WaPo):
Investigators with the State Department issued a subpoena to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation last fall seeking documents about the charity’s projects that may have required approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state, according to people familiar with the subpoena and written correspondence about it.The subpoena also asked for records related to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide who for six months in 2012 was employed simultaneously by the State Department, the foundation, Clinton’s personal office, and a private consulting firm with ties to the Clintons.
The full scope and status of the inquiry, conducted by the State Department’s inspector general, were not clear from the material correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post.
[…]
There is no indication that the watchdog is looking at Clinton. But as she runs for president in part by promoting her leadership of the State Department, an inquiry involving a top aide and the relationship between her agency and her family’s charity could further complicate her campaign.
Of course, the Clinton camp and the State Department Inspector General declined to comment on this investigation, but it once again pours salt in the former first lady’s rather wide wound–which is that she’s untrustworthy, unethical, and secretive. The emails have already painted the former Secretary of State as dishonest, which was explicitly detailed during New Hampshire’s primary Tuesday night; virtually no one trusts her.
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Moreover, it opens another front, and one that might have even more legs than the email fiasco, which are the questionable dealings surrounding the Clinton Foundation. Guy has been thorough reporting on the many sketchy details, especially the one involving a Russian-led purchase of a mining company that was in America’s national security priority.
In short, millions of dollars flowed into the Clinton Foundation, while Rosatom, a Russia’s energy state corporation, was in the process of buying majority holdings in Canadian-based Uranium One, the company’s chairman used his family foundation to make hefty donations to the Clinton Foundation. In the meantime, since Russia would oversee one-fifth of all uranium production in the U.S., this deal had to go through an approval process via the State Department which was heads by guess who–Hillary Clinton.
There are other issues as well. A watchdog has called the Foundation a slush fund, one of the nonprofits biggest benefactors had done business in Iran, and there’s the little issue of failing to disclose 1,100 foreign donors.
Lastly, it’s been reported that 181 donors actively lobbied Clinton’s State Department, along with Bill accepting millions from some of those entities while the politicking was ongoing. This controversy was rehashed again last December, where the Wall Street Journal reported that the United Arab Emirates had given Bill Clinton $1 million for two speeches that were approved by Clinton State Department around the time the country was asking for a facility to clear passengers prior to traveling into the U.S.
Spoiler Alert: the facility was approved, despite labor unions, U.S.-based airlines, pilots, and flight attendants opposing it, saying it was “a giveaway to the government-owned airline, Etihad Airways.”
The coincidence that good things happen to people, and other moneyed interests, who give to the Clinton Foundation cannot be ignored. With this new layer in the investigation, it’s guaranteed that Clinton will have to field another marathon round of questioning over her foundation’s dealings, and her probable mishandling on classified information with her email scandal. This will carry into the general, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), nipping at her heels over her progressive credentials, ties to Wall Street, and being her party’s establishment candidate for a status quo that the vocal left wing of the Democratic Party does not want. Talk about being besieged on all fronts.
Last Note: Friendly Reminder; there was no inspector general at the State Department when Hillary Clinton was there.
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