Replies

Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005 10:10 a.m. EDT

Clinton Foundation Found At Fault

Former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation failed to meet at least six of 19 accountability standards established by the Better Business Bureau.

A report by the watchdog group said the Clinton Foundation lacks policies requiring performance reviews for its chief executive officer and for the foundation as a whole.

Also, the organization’s annual reports and Web site do not contain detailed financial statements or information about the group’s board of directors, the New York Sun reports.

"There are a number of concerns here,” said Bennett Weiner, head of the Better Business Bureau’s charity evaluation service.

"We didn’t get a copy of the audited financial statement.”

He said nonprofit organizations that solicit money on the Internet should post detailed financial reports online.

"One would have hoped to have seen an organization like this, a charity like this, living up to the highest standards of disclosure,” said Marion Fremont-Smith, a senior research fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Nonprofit Organizations.

The foundation, which was established in 1997, has been focused on raising funds to build and endow Clinton’s $165 million presidential library in Arkansas, which opened last November 18.

Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said some of the procedures recommended by the bureau, such as program reviews, will be facilitated as the foundation turns greater attention to ongoing projects such as efforts to provide HIV/AIDS drugs, according to the Sun.

The Clinton Foundation’s latest report, released on September 23, showed the organization took in $57.7 million in donations last year, and borrowed nearly $38.5 million to cover expenses related to the library.

Donors to the foundation have included the Saudi Royal Family, the governments of Dubai, Kuwait and Qatar and director Steven Spielberg.

Last year’s borrowings included an unsecured, low-interest $10 million loan from Titanium Acquisition Corporation, a firm connected to entertainment industry executive *Haim Saban, a close friend of Clinton.

* Haim Saban, is the billionaire producer of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. He is ranked 78 among The 400 Richest Americans In 2005.

Haim Saban (born March 26, 1944, Alexandria, Egypt) is a television producer who is perhaps best known for bringing the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to the United States of America. He was exiled from his homeland of Egypt because he is Jewish, but later found refuge in Israel. He is also a strong supporter of the United States Democratic Party, and, during the era of soft money, was one of the largest donors to the party. Most other soft-money donors have dropped off the list following the ban on soft money (see campaign finance reform), but Saban adapted to the new fundraising rules and is one of the top bundlers of legal campaign checks as well.

Saban was at one point the CEO of Fox Family Worldwide and remains an influential individual in the Fox organization, although Fox Family Worldwide was eventually sold to Disney.

Saban also worked on music for cartoons like Inspector Gadget, The Get Along Gang, Rainbow Brite, and The Real Ghostbusters

As of August 2003 his Saban Capital Group (which is purely
an investment company: it holds stakes in media owners but doesn't publish or broadcast anything itself) - through its subsidiary - acquired 36 percent of the share capital of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG. Since then, Saban is the chairman of the corporation. ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG is Germany's largest television corporation comprising four free TV stations and many smaller media sales, production, merchandising etc. companies.

Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

Saban is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Brookings Institution. In a NYT interview (Andrew Ross Sorkin, "Schlepping to Moguldom", September 5, 2004) he stated: "In 2002, he pledged $13 million to start a research organization at the Brookings Institution called the Saban Center for Middle East Policy."

The same interview lists this quote: "I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel".

During the Bill Clinton administration, the entertainment executive served on the President's Export Council, advising the White House on trade issues. He also took an unusual pride in being a top contributor. When Saban learned that another donor had topped his contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee by a quarter-million dollars, he immediately sent the DCCC a check for $250,000, with a $1 bill attached to it. 'I hope this guy doesn't find out,' Saban told The Washington Post. 'He may send another two dollars.'

******

07:29 03/10/2005
Clinton to attend Saban dinner, not Rabin commemorative rally
By Yossi Verter, Haaretz Correspondent

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton has been involved - presumably unwittingly - in an ugly power struggle between the heads of the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies and representatives of The Saban Center for Middle East Policy, at the Brookings Institution, Washington. The bone of contention was: Where will Clinton spend the night of November 12? Would he attend the mass rally in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to mark the 10th anniversary of the late prime minister's assassination, or at a fancy dinner with all the country's leaders that is to be held by billionaire Haim Saban in Jerusalem at the same time?

The quarrel between the two organizations ended in a victory for the man with the money: Saban. As a result, the mass rally in Tel Aviv has been rescheduled for November 5, without Clinton as the guest of honor.

The two organizations actually kicked off their contacts in a spirit of cooperation and unity. Saban, a close associate of the Clintons, decided to finance, to the tune of some $600,000, the former president's trip to Israel so that he could participate in the event being organized by The Saban Center. In light of the fact that the Rabin Center is slated to open on November 14, and at the request of Dalia Rabin, the president of the center, Saban arranged for Clinton to arrive in Israel a few days earlier, on November 11, to allow the former president to participate in the official commemoration events - on Mount Herzl, in the Knesset, at the the Rabin Center - all of which are scheduled for November 14.

The date of the mass rally in Rabin Square, as is the case every year, was set for the Saturday night closest to November 4, the date of Rabin's assassination, which this year would be Saturday, November 5. At the same time, the heads of the Saban Center scheduled the dinner in Jerusalem for exactly a week later, on November 12.

All appeared well and good; that is, until a number of the people responsible for organizing the Rabin Square event came up with a brilliant idea, to move the rally to November 12, "steal" Clinton away from the dinner, and thus upgrade the event. The rally organizers thought - and probably correctly so - that Clinton would rather be at the Rabin Square event to fire up the crowd than attend the formal dinner.

Dalia Rabin, however, opposed the idea, as she had already arranged with Saban that the rally would take place on November 5. But Rabin found herself in the minority, and the organizing committee informed Saban of the change in arrangements.

Saban responded harshly, said sources at The Rabin Center, and the two organizations began exchanging harsh words and mutual accusations. According to a source affiliated with The Saban Center, "They [the organizing committee members] wanted to defeat us, but we defeated them."

In the end, The Rabin Center people capitulated, and the rally was moved back to its original date of November 5.

"From the outset, the memorial rally was supposed to take place on November 5," said Moshe Debi, media consultant for The Rabin Center. "Nevertheless, the option of moving the rally to November 12 was indeed examined so as to facilitate the participation of president Clinton. After it emerged that such a move was impossible, it was decided to hold the rally on the original date. The Rabin Center thanks Haim Saban for his assistance in bringing Mr. Clinton to Israel."