The Largest Loan in Ex-Im History Is Covered in the Clintons’ Fingerprints

National Review ^ | 07/13/2015 | by BRENDAN BORDELON

[SeekAndFind]

Few in the odd coalition of Left and Right pushing for reauthorization of the 81-year-old Export-Import Bank have been louder than Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“It’s wrong that candidates for president, who really should know better, are jumping on this bandwagon,” she said at a May 22 campaign stop in New Hampshire. “It’s wrong, it’s embarrassing. . . . The idea that we would remove this relatively small but vital source of funding for our businesses to compete is absolutely backwards.”

Clinton’s defense of Ex-Im may be motivated by more than mere concern for American businesses. Critics have argued that her family’s byzantine network of political and business interests benefits tremendously from the bank’s low-interest loans, and previous investigations have raised questions about the bank’s independence from the Clintons’ political pressure.

One Ex-Im deal in particular stands out in this regard, both for its sheer size and for its remarkable number of connections to Clinton friends, donors, organizations, and acolytes. From a secretive consulting stint by a top Hillary Clinton aide that’s raised conflict-of-interest concerns, to the Clintons’ close personal and business relationship with the receiving firm’s CEO, the largest loan in the bank’s 81-year history appears covered in Clinton-family fingerprints.

One Ex-Im deal in particular stands out, both for its sheer size and for its remarkable number of connections to Clinton friends, donors, organizations, and acolytes.

The story begins with an alliance between Dow Chemical, a corporation tied closely to the Clintons, and a Saudi Arabian oil company. Dow joined forces with Aramco, a firm owned by the Saudi royal family, in 2011. Together they founded Sadara, a corporate alliance seeking Ex-Im Bank financing for a $20 billion petrochemical plant in the Saudi desert.

Dow CEO Andrew Liveris is a close friend of the Clintons. He first brought his company’s money and clout to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2007, during the charity’s early stages. Dow donated between $1 million and $5 million to the CGI in 2014 alone, making it one of the foundation’s top corporate donors, and Liveris is a perennial speaker at annual CGI meetings. When Bill Clinton flew to North Korea to negotiate the release of two captive U.S. journalists, it was Liveris who provided him with transportation.

The former president returned the favor when Liveris launched his own charity, the Hellenic Initiative, in 2012, traveling to Athens to deliver a speech praising the Dow CEO at his charity’s inaugural ball. A year earlier, he had publicly touted Liveris’s book, Make It In America, which argued for an alliance of business and government to reinvigorate American manufacturing.

Liveris’s business ethics have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. He was accused by Dow’s internal fraud investigators of spending nearly $1 million in company money on personal expenses — including a family safari, a $218,000 Super Bowl trip, and a $300 flower arrangement for Hillary Clinton. Liveris’s family eventually paid most of that money back, but he is now under investigation by the SEC.

Dow Chemical is a client of Teneo Holdings, a powerful consulting firm founded by former Bill Clinton “body man” Doug Band and ex-Hillary Clinton envoy Declan Kelly and staffed heavily with former Clinton Foundation employees. Dow signed with Teneo for $2.8 million shortly after the consultancy set up shop in 2011, the same year that Sadara was founded.

In June 2012, Hillary Clinton’s top confidante, her deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin, quietly arranged to begin work as a “special government employee,” going part-time at Foggy Bottom in order to work simultaneously at Teneo, Dow’s consulting firm. No announcement was made, and State Department officials played along with media outlets still referring to her as Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. The New York Times finally broke the story in May 2013, three months after Abedin had left the consulting firm. (Abedin’s time at Teneo is now under investigation by the State Department, and Iowa Republican senator Chuck Grassley has asked that the department provide all e-mails related to her employment there.)

Around the same time in 2012 that Abedin — who grew up in Saudi Arabia — joined Teneo, Dow’s Saudi subsidiary Sadara began lobbying the U.S. Export-Import Bank for a taxpayer-subsidized loan.

Fred Hochberg, the chairman of the Ex-Im Bank, is a close associate of the Clintons. A long-time friend of the family, he was a political appointee during President Clinton’s tenure and a campaign bundler during Hillary Clinton’s 2008 run, and he’s been a long-time private donor to both Clintons’ political campaigns and the Clinton Foundation. He’s also frequently shared the stage and panel tables with Dow’s Liveris at Clinton Global Initiative conferences.

The Ex-Im Board voted to approve Sadara’s request for a loan on August 22, 2012. By September 27, they had decided on an amount — $4.975 billion, the largest loan in the Ex-Im Bank’s history. Heritage Foundation scholar and Ex-Im Bank expert Diane Katz is surprised by the loan’s size, particularly considering the beneficiaries. “Dow Chemical hardly needs to benefit from subsidies,” she says, “and I suspect that the House of Saud really doesn’t need U.S. taxpayer subsidies.” The Ex-Im Bank describes itself as a “lender of last resort,” providing financing only to companies that cannot fund themselves or earn private financial banking.

Hochberg recused himself on both Sadara votes, something Katz says she’s never seen before. But even so, she says his influence was likely felt in the boardroom. “He’s a player, for sure,” she says. “If he told the board that this is something they ought to do — I certainly think he has influence.”

Some months after the 2012 Ex-Im loan, Dow auditors noticed something peculiar: The company’s payments to Teneo Holdings shot up nearly 600 percent, from $2.8 million in 2011 to $16 million in 2012. Kimberly Wood, the fraud investigator who first discovered the change, said a “lack of required detail” in invoices to Teneo meant it was impossible to discern how the company money was spent. She suspected some of it was being improperly funneled through Teneo to Leveris’s charity, which listed Teneo as a sponsor in 2014. But it’s unclear whether that accounted for the sudden increase in Dow’s payments to the consulting firm.

Neither Teneo Holdings, Dow, nor the Clinton campaign had responded to requests for comment at press time. The Ex-Im Bank initially offered to provide a statement on the circumstances surrounding the loan but hadn’t done so at the time this story was published.

Ex-Im is currently facing the biggest crisis in its history. The federal credit agency’s congressional authority lapsed on June 30, felled by a strange alliance of tea-party Republicans and anti-corporate Democrats arguing relentlessly that it provides the world’s richest companies with corporate welfare and is ridden with fraud, abuse, and crony-capitalist impropriety.

Even some Ex-Im defenders admit that the optics of the Dow deal and the Clintons’ full-throated support for the bank are less than ideal.

The Clintons have faced similar criticism in recent months, amid questions raised by Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash about the Clinton Foundation’s extensive ties to foreign governments before, during, and after Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state. The scrutiny has even extended to the foundation’s apparently intimate ties with the Saudi Royal family. In light of all the media attention, even some Ex-Im defenders admit that the optics of the Dow deal and the Clintons’ full-throated support for the bank are less than ideal.

Stan Veuger, an economic scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and an Ex-Im Bank supporter, isn’t convinced that the ties between the Clintons and their staff, Dow Chemical, and the Ex-Im Bank show a clear conflict of interest. “I’m not surprised that all these guys know each other,” he says, adding that many recent stories involving Clinton Foundation finances and donations have been “overplayed a bit.”

But Veuger also understands how the bank’s loan to Sadara looks particularly suspicious. “I can certainly see how you can paint a picture to make the parties involved look bad,” he says. “Even the appearance of a conflict of interest is bad in and of itself, you could argue, even if there’s no actual quid-pro-quo transactions going on.”

— Brendan Bordelon is a political reporter for National Review.

[Gaffer]

That even her involvement in such dealings and the conjecture resulting from the investigations is published is a good thing. There is a chink in her armor and some of the loyals are starting to see “there are no clothes.”

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Great example of another Clinton scandal that is just too complicated after 4 paragraphs to get any public attention. The Export-Import Bank should be shuddered once and for all, as should all crony-capitalism/socialism.

[Liz]

The biggest Ex-Im Bank assistance goes to Hillary's pal----defense contractor Boeing----which enjoys a whopping 40 percent of the entire Ex-Im’s assistance! Does Boeing really need corporate welfare? Massive corruption and fraud usually accompany such humongous federal outlays.

SURPRISE GUESS WHO ELSE WAS POCKETING BIG-TIME FROM BOEING DEALS?

Clinton Foundation Donors Got Lucrative Weapons Deals From Hillary's State Dept
International Business Times ^ | May 26, 2015 | By David Sirota / FR Posted by Oldeconomybuyer

Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 BILLION worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States' oil-rich ally in the Middle East.

Under then Sec-of State Clinton, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data.

That figure -- derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) -- represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

American defense contractors also donated to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and in some cases made personal payments to Bill Clinton for speaking engagements.

Such firms and their subsidiaries were listed as contractors in $163 billion worth of Pentagon-negotiated deals that were authorized by the Clinton State Department between 2009 and 2012. (Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com ...

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WASHINGTON EXAMINER--Boeing reportedly wrote a check for $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation just after the State Department intervened in a multi-billion dollar deal between the Russian government and the aerospace company.

While Boeing lobbied the agency during that time, it had given a total of between $1 million and $5 million to the foundation.

"Boeing's contributions to the Clinton Foundation were primarily for school rebuilding programs in Haiti following the devastating earthquake in that country," said Boeing spokesman Tim Neale. Neale noted some of the company's contributions went through the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, a charitable effort that he said "transcended politics and recognized the work that needed to be done."

NOTE--At last report, Boeing was refusing to handover its email exchanges w/ Hillary.

interesting aside below

[Liz]

INTERESTING ASIDE

Anti-2nd Amendment Democrat Leland Yee,
headed to prison--was gun-running arms, missiles to China
canadafreepress.com ^ | 7/3/2015 | Robert Laurie / FR Posted by rktman

Secret FBI meetings w/ Democrat Leland Yee contain details you'd expect of a mob thriller: murder for hire, gun running and missile sales to China, marijuana farming, truckloads of contraband cigarettes and stolen liquor and political pay-for-play.

The story is stranger still given that Democrat Yee holds a doctorate in child psychology and has held elected posts on the San Francisco school board and Board of Supervisors, and has sat in both the California Assembly and Senate.

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THAT'S STRANGE State Sen Leland Yee, a child psychologist, knew where to get missiles, launchers, machine-guns etc....how'd he know that?

ARE THE CLINTONS INVOLVED? Hillary engineered some $126 millions worth of arms deals as Secy of State.

===================================================

Did Lee get any help from Hillary's State Dept...and his Cali colleague in Congress....Sen Di/Fi?

SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/t/pm/rsat/c14027.htm

CONGRESSIONAL NOTIFICATION OF ARMS TRANSFERS
Third party transfers are subject to requirements for Congressional notification under AECA, §3(d) (reference (c)), using guidelines similar to those for AECA, §36(b) (reference (c)) notifications (see Chapter 5, section C5.6).

A 30-day prior Congressional notification is required for third-party transfer requests that involve defense articles and services with original acquisition values that fall in one of the following categories: Major Defense Equipment (MDE) with an acquisition value equal to or greater than $14,000,000 for non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) recipients and $25,000,000 if the recipient is a member of NATO, Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand or Republic of Korea; or any other defense article or related training or defense service with an acquisition value of $50,000,000 or more for non-NATO recipients and $100,000,000 or more for NATO, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand recipients.

Approval is granted after the 30-day (including weekends) period has expired if no objections are raised.

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BACKSTORY: Back in Sept 2014, Senate intel head Di/Fi was whining about the CIA looking through her computers and taking documents. Clearly, the CIA had plenty on her----even BEFORE the shocking Chi/Com missile scandal broke.

Di/Fi's known aversion to guns did not prevent her from honoring jailbird Lee's co-defendant, Raymond Chow---Chow is the key figure in Cali's Demorat state Sen Leland Yee's shocking missile deal w/ China (Yee is a notorious grabber of American guns).

INCONVENIENT FACTOIDS:

<><>Feinstein heads the Senate Intel Committee;

<><> Her hubby Richard Blum made million as the lawyer for Chinese interests;

<><> gun-grabber Leland Yee knew where to get missiles, launchers, machine-guns etc;

<><> Co-conspirator Raymond Chow was jailed, then freed when he professed to be a “really nice guy”.... honored by Di/Fi for working with local Chinese youths.

====================================================

THE DI/FI STORY COULD DWARF YEE'S ARMS DEAL: Taxpayers demand and investigation of Di/Fi's intel activities.

<><> Did Di use her access to valuable US security data improperly?

<><> Hubby Richard Blum made millions in China deals in past years. How'd he do that?

<><> Is hubby cutting new deals w/ the Chi/Coms?

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FBI TIP PAGE https://tips.fbi.gov

[cpdiii]

Reporter talking to bank robber Willie Sutton:
Reporter: Why do you rob banks?
Sutton: Because that is where the money is.

Reporter talking to Hillary Clinton:
Reporter: Why are you in politics?
Hillary: Because that is where the money and power is and
Willie Sutton was a rank amature.