Posted on 07/13/2015 8:40:02 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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, 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.”
Another for the list.
Together they founded Sadara, a corporate alliance seeking Ex-Im Bank financing for a $20 billion petrochemical plant in the Saudi desert.
—
You can bet where this $20 came from.
The Clintons and these folks have sold their souls.
Thanks afraidfortherepublic.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
We should also be asking the question:
Why are we paying for the development of industries in nations directly competing with us while our own industries are languishing?
It is the Leftist beneficiaries (manipulators) of the Export-Import Bank IMO that are behind the course the World much less the USA have taken. They I believe are the ones behind the curtain.
I have stated before, and I still believe we the people, not only of this nation, but the World are paying our way to slavery.
Thoughts on the Export-Import Bank anyone? I don’t know much about it.
Their charted expired, no new business unless it’s renewed.
Conservative organizations oppose it. The far left opposes it. Obama flip flopped, called it “corporate welfare” when he ran, supports it as President, douchebag.
I heard they make a profit. But if something goes wrong, it could add to the deficit.
“Thoughts on the Export-Import Bank anyone?”
Nearly free money for big biz, and political cronies. If the biz goes bust, the loans are non-recourse. Helluva deal!
The newly released Abedin emails also contain additional instances of the Clinton State Department’s granting special favors to major contributors to the Clinton Foundation. A July 27, 2009, exchange of emails begins with Abedin advising Clinton scheduler Lona Valmoro that “wjc” (William Jefferson Clinton) wants special treatment for high-dollar Foundation donor and Dow Chemical’s CEO Andrew Liveris. Dow donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, making it one of the largest corporate donors in Foundation history.
From: Huma Abedin Huma@clintonemail.com.
To: Valmoro, Lona J
Sent: Monday, Jul 27 06:02:01 2009
Subject:
Wjc wants to be sure hrc sees Andrew Liveris, ceo of dow tomorrow night. Apparently he is head of us china business council. Is he definitely going to be there?
From: Valmoro, Lona J [VlamoroLJ@state.gov.
Sent: July 27, 2009 6:03:54 AM
To: Huma Abedin
Subject: Re:
I will check. He declined our invitation to dinner tonight at State.
From: Valmoro, Lona J
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 9:24:08 AM
To: Huma Abedin; Narain, Paul F [Clinton aide]
Subject: Re: CEO of dow
Paul, Andrew Leveris, CEO of Dow Chemical, is going to be at the dinner tomorrow night. We would like HRC to see him, perhaps they can do a brief pull aside upon arrival. Huma, would that work for you?
From: Huma Abedin [AbedinH@state.gov.]
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 9:24:55 AM
To: Valmoro, Lona J, Huma Abedin, Narain, Paul F
Subject: Re: CEO of dow
Yes pull aside on arrival
From: Narain, Paul F
Sent, Monday, July 27, 2009 7:56 PM
To: Valmoro, Lona, Abedin Huma
Subject: RE: CEO of dow
Lona, I have arranged this pull aside for on the arrival in the Hold Room across the hall from the ballroom, immediately prior to the Secretary’s entrance and remarks.
-— Judicial Watch: New Abedin Emails Reveal Top Clinton Foundation Executive Doug Band Sought Diplomatic Passport from Clinton State Department, SEPTEMBER 01, 2016, JudicialWatch
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-abedin-emails-reveal-top-clinton-foundation-executive-doug-band-sought-diplomatic-passport-clinton-state-department/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.