Suit Sheds Light on Clintons’ Ties to a Benefactor

The New York Times ^ | 5/26/07 | MIKE McINTIRE

[XR7]

When former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton took a family vacation in January 2002 to Acapulco, Mexico, one of their longtime supporters, Vinod Gupta, provided his company’s private jet to fly them there.

The company, infoUSA, one of the nation’s largest brokers of information on consumers, paid $146,866 to ferry the Clintons, Mr. Gupta and others to Acapulco and back, court records show. During the next four years, infoUSA paid Mr. Clinton more than $2 million for consulting services, and spent almost $900,000 to fly him around the world for his presidential foundation work and to fly Mrs. Clinton to campaign events.

Those expenses are cited in a lawsuit filed late last year in a Delaware court by angry shareholders of infoUSA...

The disclosure of the trips and the consulting fees is just a small part of a broader complaint...But for the former president, and for the senator who would become president, it offers significant new details about their relationship with an unusually generous benefactor whose business practices have lately come under scrutiny.

In addition to the shareholder accusations, The New York Times reported last Sunday that an investigation by the authorities in Iowa found that infoUSA sold consumer data several years ago to telemarketing criminals who used it to steal money from elderly Americans. It advertised call lists with titles like “Elderly Opportunity Seekers” or “Suffering Seniors,” a compilation of people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease...

Jay Carson, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton, would not elaborate on what the former president does for infoUSA, but said that he shared the public’s concern about misuse of personal information.

“It goes without saying that any suggestion that seniors are being preyed upon should be fully investigated and addressed by the appropriate agencies,” Mr. Carson said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/us/politics/26clinton.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

[XR7]

[F]or the senator who would become president, it offers significant new details about their relationship with an unusually generous benefactor whose business practices have lately come under scrutiny. In addition to the shareholder accusations, The New York Times reported last Sunday that an investigation by the authorities in Iowa found that infoUSA sold consumer data several years ago to telemarketing criminals who used it to steal money from elderly Americans.

Now the New York Times reports the depths of the corruption.
Could this be what brings "The Legacy" crashing down?

[Darkwolf377]

I think people give Clinton a pass on the corruption because, well, see, they're Baby Boomers, and you know, the economy was so great, and...

The Clintons are a special case, but I think there are just enough voters not enchanted by them that even if they're not rabid Republicans, they just don't feel the need to revisit that particular "co-presidency" again. This story only reinforces feelings already there, it won't turn anyone off to her who isn't already.

[Irish Eyes]

Thanks, interesting that it is from the NYT.

[miliantnutcase]

The Clinton scandals book has to be about as thick has War and Peace by now.

[Goldwater and Gingrich]

Sure they will print it ... on the one day of the year with the lowest readership.

Not one MSM will report this story.

By tusday it is now week old news.

Free pass time.

[jws3sticks]

Where are the freaking cops with these bozos?

[STARWISE]

U.S. actress Sharon Stone waves to the media as she arrives for an Aids-Life Charity Gala for the benefit of The William J. Clinton Foundation under the patronage of the Austrian president at Vienna's Schoenbrunn castle, on Thursday, May 24, 2007

U.S. actress Sharon Stone, Austrian Life Ball organiser Gerry Keszler and former U.S. President Bill Clinton present a one million dollar cheque for the William J Clinton foundation after an Aids Charity Gala Dinner in Schoenbrunn castle in Vienna May 24, 2007.

Barbra At Clinton Breast Cancer Fundraiser

BEVERLY HILLS — Barbra Streisand, Sharon Stone and Brooke Shields turned out at a cocktail party Monday night to hear former President Bill Clinton talk about breasts. Specifically, Clinton spoke about how health care advances and The National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund can eradicate breast cancer, the disease that claimed his mother, Virginia Clinton Kelley, in 1994.

[KAUAIBOUND]

Just more of the same - the royal Clintoons attracting other parasites like fleas on a dog.

Vinod Gupta owns property here on Kauai, right next to Pierce Brosnan in Haena on the North Shore. When Billy visited Gupta here a couple of years ago, he wanted to play golf at the Prince golf course in Princeville, which has been rated as the top course in Hawaii and in the top ten in the US. The entire golf course was shut down for a day for Billy and his cohorts - I have no idea how much that cost, but at a couple hundred bucks a round for the everyday player and maybe 100 players a day, you can make an educated guess in the neighborhood of at $20,000 for the day. What a waste of money - assuming that they even paid anything.

[STARWISE]

Ping ..

[endthematrix]

I’ll never forget the old interview with Sharron Stone when *GASP* she wasn’t ashamed to have SHOTGUNS under her bed.

[endthematrix]

Duplicate
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1840024/posts

[FreedomPoster]

Ping. We’ve *never* seen anything like this before, from the Clintons, have we?

[maica]

This is preemptive damage control, just like the famous 60 Minutes interview in 1992 made discussion of his sexual activities “Old News.”

Any candidate who may challenge the Clintons on this particular perfidy will just be told “we don’t care to discuss it, it is old news.”

[angcat]

These Hollywood sluts are like flies to shit when it comes to ol Bubba.

[pleikumud]

Great analogy!

[Victor]

'......an investigation by the authorities in Iowa found that infoUSA sold consumer data several years ago to telemarketing criminals who used it to steal money from elderly Americans. It advertised call lists with titles like “Elderly Opportunity Seekers” or “Suffering Seniors,” a compilation of people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease......."

Seems like Missus Bill is avoiding the Iowa caucuses; so I've read.

Wonder why...?

[LonePalm]

Oh, it passed War and Peace awhile ago.

It's now so thick they refer to it as the Lieble.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[mewzilla]

I see the paper's running this on a Saturday.

Anyone know where this appeared in the dead tree edition? Just curious.

[mewzilla]

Gupta ping.

[Rockitz]

I heard Dick Morris crowing about this “find” on the Hugh Hewitt show on Thursday.

[zeebee]

old news

It can still make a great campaign commercial.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

paid Mr. Clinton more than $2 million for consulting services

Uh huh, I wonder what they got for their $2 mil. Probably a drunken ex-president telling them how to pick up chicks on diplomatic trips abroad, and how to threaten them if they get cold feet.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

paid Mr. Clinton more than $2 million for consulting services

This is the kind of stuff that makes guys like Randy Cunningham resign in disgrace and do jail time (as it should be). The FEC that is packed with registered DemonRats will give the Klintons a pat on the butt and ask them what's happenin' on the homefront.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Oh, so this is what washed-up ex-actresses do: go slumming around DemonRat campaign events and cocktail parties to feel important.

[randog]

The company, infoUSA, one of the nation’s largest brokers of information on consumers...

I suppose the FBI dossiers weren't enough.

[Rennes Templar]

Interesting re the danmage control. I saw Hardball yesterday, just by chance, beleieve me. Mathews was really hitting this story, and referring to the New York Times article, “why are established writers and the NYT reporting this now, will it affect her campaign”, etc. I’m sure they’re thinking, get this over with now. But when the books come out it will be interesting to see.

When Mathews keptasking Hillarys PR guy if this would affect voters, he just kept saying, people are not interested in what happened 20 yrs ago, it’s old news.

[doug from upland]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hFXgpG0R83U

[maica]

Classic Clinton damage control. Chris Matthews is in love with BJC, and dreams of having him back in the White House. Hillary is just an unavoidable necessity to getting Bill back ‘where he was so wonderful.’

[FreedomPoster]

By the way, do either of you know the origins of “smartest woman in the world”? That came up locally, and I didn’t have
a good answer.

[doug from upland]

She was once on a top 100 list of lawyers. I think our side might have invented “smartest woman in the world” to mock her.

[FreedomPoster]

What’s funny, is I can almost hear Bill Clinton saying it, maybe during a campaign speech, but I can also imagine it being something Rush might have come up with.

I just posted a link to your vid, in a place where some Lefties will see it. I wonder if any will watch. I’ll be curious to see the responses, if any.

[doug from upland]

I’ve already had a few unfriendly responses.

[varon]

When Mathews keptasking Hillarys PR guy if this would affect voters, he just kept saying, people are not interested in what happened 20 yrs ago, it’s old news.

Twenty years ago, my a**, Mr. Mathews (see excerpt below) The $2 million was funneled to Bill Clinton, the husband of a Democrat front runner for candidacy of President during a 4 year time period from 2002 – 2006. Another question, Mr. Mathews, has Senator Clinton disclosed the in-kind contribution of air travel provided for her campaign events?

When former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton took a family vacation in January 2002 to Acapulco, Mexico, one of their longtime supporters, Vinod Gupta, provided his company’s private jet to fly them there.

During the next four years, infoUSA paid Mr. Clinton more than $2 million for consulting services, and spent almost $900,000 to fly him around the world for his presidential foundation work and to fly Mrs. Clinton to campaign events.

[Dad yer funny]

today’s NYC deadtree edition has the story bottomRight front page{2”X6”} , ..
right next to 2 color photos , one of palestinians running as an alleged Israeli Army missile plunges downward ,.. the other , pali boy close to the blast

. . the Clintons’ story ( Bubba & Sir Edmund ) covers more than the entire upper fold on the A section’s back page (sorta unusual)

I’m not gonna try to read any tea leaves on this one ,.. there are 3 other short things on the back page ,. .

Clinton and Obama Face G.O.P. Attacks for War Vote ,..

Ex-Senator Faults ‘86 Law On Immigrants (Fred) ,..

A Stadium Seat , an Investigation Columnist and a Younger , Angrier Giuliani

[NoobRep]

As a former employee of Mr. Gupta’s at InfoUSA, I find this news both extremely satisfying and disgusting at the same time.

The hypocrisy of the left knows no bounds and this case just illustrates the only thing that’s important to them-POWER. The Libs crown themselves as defenders of the little guy all the time. Yet here we see Gupta lavishly shuttling the Clintons around the country for political gain, while his own employees are barely above minimum wage, treated like pieces of meat and offered a benefits package that is so expensive, most can’t even afford it. I’m sure Mr. Gupta, being the fine upstanding Democrat he is, barely flinched when my department was “eliminated” last year, leaving me out of work for almost a year. When I think about the millions he’s given (probably illegally) to a couple of corrupt pigs like the Clintons, that could have been used to save my department, give employees a raise and help us afford benefits, it makes me as angry as I’ve ever been. The company always acted as if they were scraping the bottom of the barrell-after a year of being employed there I was offered a meager $500 yearly raise. I am going to contact all my local news outlets around the Omaha area and tell them my story and let them know the real Vin Gupta. A shameful, despicable HYPOCRITE of the left.

[arasina]

Thanks, interesting that it is from the NYT.

Perhaps they find Obama more to their liking and want to tear Hillary down a notch? Just speculating.

[XR7]

ping.

[Veto!]

I think there are just enough voters not enchanted by them that even if they're not rabid Republicans, they just don't feel the need to revisit that particular "co-presidency" again.

Absolutely correct. The most liberal couple I know are disgusted with the Xlintons and would never vote for Hillary.

Somewhere on FR there are threads about Xlinton's big trip to India while in office, with an entourage of US business leaders in tow. On that trip, Enron proposed building the largest power plant in India. India was forced to buy in under threat of loss of aid money. So, with US taxpayer dollars, India paid Enron hundreds of millions to build this huge power plant that no one ever used. The president of Enron India was an attractive American woman who soon after retired with a $79 million payout.

And just wait until the Chinese connections start unravelling, if you think the India connections are rotten.

Lots of stuff like this we can dig up when Hillary is nominated by the idiot Rats.

[Veto!]

Sorry about your job. Hope you can get yourself heard by the media.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. I hope you enjoy cooling off a lot this coming hot, hot summer.

[NoobRep]

That was last year. I got hired by a new company recently and doubled my salary from where I was before!

[CutePuppy]

This story is a follow-up on an earlier one, that details of infoUSA (NASD: IUSA) operation used in bilking the elderly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/business/20tele.html?pagewanted=print

May 20, 2007
Bilking the Elderly, With a Corporate Assist
By CHARLES DUHIGG

The thieves operated from small offices in Toronto and hangar-size rooms in India. Every night, working from lists of names and phone numbers, they called World War II veterans, retired schoolteachers and thousands of other elderly Americans and posed as government and insurance workers updating their files.

Then, the criminals emptied their victims’ bank accounts.

Richard Guthrie, a 92-year-old Army veteran, was one of those victims. He ended up on scam artists’ lists because his name, like millions of others, was sold by large companies to telemarketing criminals, who then turned to major banks to steal his life’s savings.

Mr. Guthrie, who lives in Iowa, had entered a few sweepstakes that caused his name to appear in a database advertised by infoUSA, one of the largest compilers of consumer information. InfoUSA sold his name, and data on scores of other elderly Americans, to known lawbreakers, regulators say.

InfoUSA advertised lists of “Elderly Opportunity Seekers,” 3.3 million older people “looking for ways to make money,” and “Suffering Seniors,” 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. “Oldies but Goodies” contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list said: “These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change.”

.....

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for your question - and thank you, doug from upland, for the answer!

[FreedomPoster]

Bravo! on that.

[CometBaby]

You know this article made me think about something I saw when the clintons left the white house and bought that house they needed to furnish. Remember there was all this talk about how the Clinton’s had gained so much weight? Well this same guy, this Vinod Gupta sent them a very high quality treadmill. As I recall fat willy was less than grateful .. perhaps they were a bit offended that Gupta thought they needed it. ha!