Posted on 11/19/2007 5:36:32 PM PST by KayEyeDoubleDee
Three years after the William J. Clinton Presidential Library opened its doors, the list of donors who helped the former president build his $165 million complex remains a secret from the public.
Yet the Blotter on ABCNews.com has learned that the Clinton Foundation sold portions of the list through a data company headed by a longtime friend and donor.
"The fact that they've sold the list and then turned around and said that these names must be kept anonymous completely undercuts their argument," said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C.-based government watchdog group that tracks the influence of money in politics.
An employee of Walter Karl, a subsidiary of the data company InfoUSA, told ABCNews.com that the company made a list of more than 38,000 donors to the Clinton presidential library available for sale to foundations and other nonprofit groups from June 2006 to May 2007. A spokesman for the company would not say how the profits from the sale of the partial list were distributed.
There is no legal requirement for presidential libraries to disclose the identities of their contributors. Donors, including corporations and foreign governments, can give unlimited amounts while the president is still sitting in office.
Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.
"This is one of the few places that remain under the veil of secrecy, and there is really no good reason for it," says Krumholz. "Disclosure is important because the money is often being raised while the president is in office, and in this case and with the Bush family, they can be given for currying favor with persons other than the president being honored."
"I don't think I should disclose it unless there is some conflict of which I am aware of, and there is not," said former President Bill Clinton at a news conference in September after his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, was questioned about the donor list at a presidential debate. "A lot of people gave me money with the understanding that they could give anonymously. And if they gave publicly, they would be the target for every other politician in America."
The Clinton Foundation did not return calls requesting comment for this story.
The former foundation chairman Skip Rutherford says that when the foundation started soliciting funds, it adopted the policy of the Reagan library to leave disclosure up to donors.
"People were told that we would not disclose their gifts," said Rutherford. "Disclosure was up to the donor; if the donors chose to do so, it was their prerogative. Some did; others didn't."
The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum voluntarily disclosed a list of donors giving more than $10,000 at its opening, with the exception of a "few" who asked to remain anonymous, according to the library's executive director Dr. Roman Popadiuk.
Rutherford, who left the Clinton Foundation in May of 2006, said he did not know about the list being sold by InfoUSA, but doubted that any of the top donors names would have been on the InfoUSA list.
"Most of those lists are people who have given $100 or $200 or less," he said.
The little that is known about the identities of the donors to the Clinton library was reported by the New York Sun in 2004, after a reporter discovered the names on a touch-screen computer on the third floor of the library after its opening.
Members of the Saudi royal family, Arab businessmen, the governments of Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei and Taiwan, and Hollywood celebrities, were among the 57 individuals or foundations who gave $1 million or more to the library, according to the Sun.
The computer with the list of donors was disconnected after the Sun article ran. At the time, Clinton officials said that a permanent list of donors contributing $100,000 or more would eventually be installed on a wall at the library.
Bill Rollnick, the former chairman of Mattel and a longtime Clinton supporter who was among those contributing $1 million or more, said he didn't think the donor list was "anybody's business."
"If they want to make it public, that's their business," said Rollnick. "There's nothing nefarious about it -- it's just a library."
Another top donor, Patricia Hotung, was dismayed to learn that the list had been for sale.
"It should be kept private to protect people's privacy," said Hotung. "They shouldn't be selling it."
A contribution from Hotung to the Democratic National Committee generated controversy in 1997 when it was reported that Democratic officials had arranged for her husband, Hong Kong businessman Eric Hotung, to meet with President Clinton's top national security advisers after she contributed $100,000 to the committee.
Vin Gupta, CEO of InfoUSA, was also on the list of donors giving $1 million or more.
His ties to the Clintons came under scrutiny earlier in the year when a lawsuit filed by InfoUSA shareholders accused Gupta of wasting millions of dollars of the company's money to "ingratiate himself" with the Clintons and other personal friends.
Separately, a New York Times article in May revealed that InfoUSA was involved in an investigation in Iowa for selling mailing lists of elderly Americans to criminals. In response to the investigation, the company released a statement saying, "While InfoUSA can not manage what a client does with the publicly available information InfoUSA provides, the company has a strict policy about not selling data to companies who act illegally."
Gupta has donated and raised millions of dollars for the Clintons' political campaigns and charities over the last decade. InfoUSA spent millions more paying the former president as a consultant and flying him and his wife to events around the country and family vacations in Hawaii and Acapulco, Mexico on the company's private jet, according to the court documents.
InfoUSA officials have stated that the expenses were "legitimate business expenses."
A spokesman for Sen. Clinton said in May that InfoUSA had been reimbursed for her flights, though ethics rules at the time only required the reimbursement be equal to the cost of first-class airfare.
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Just look at his pardon list and the Chinese phone book.
Bump for reference to shoot down leftist useless idiots.
Great work.
It’s more than a library. It has an apartment there for Clinton. Does any other Presidential library have an apartment?
Gupta is part of this YouTube expose - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFXgpG0R83U
Year’s ago Info USA was just about the only place to go for info. The info. that Gupta got from the user’s has to be enormous. My thinking is that this money laundering. Clinton’s get Info USA user’s list, Clinton’s sell list back to Gupta? You are doing a great job staying on this. Have you notified officials to investigate what you have so far? And stay safe.
I would review that list but I can’t read Chinese.
What’s to stop Gupta from cleansing these files of any and all questionable information. He could then release them to the public all nice and shiny. The Clintons could then say,”See?”.
Just stuff them in Sandy Burgular’s pants until after the election, then put them on a coffee table in the WH living quarters.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1766672/posts
FR EXCLUSIVE - CNN hires Clinton-controlled Opinion Research Corp. for 2008 Presidential Polling
FreeRepublic.com Exclusive | January 12, 2007
Exactly. Just tell the marketing at InfoUSA to call the list ‘donors to Presidential libraries’. Then have the brokers sell it multiple times. The real concern should be what would InfoUSA/Gupta get in return that helps propel his companies demographic postal and email list rental revenues? Perhaps some sensitive health data? How about your credit score obtained from the government and then sold as ‘poor, fair, good, excellent’ credit data file? That’s the key guys. I know because I am in this space. Some big players are honest. I give Experian a lot of credit for example. The only good news is the senior management and board are constantly at war causing chaos to the business. Otherwise, you can bet bottom dollar your personal private info was traded for campaign contributions to the Clintons in one way shape or form.
It's the "Gullible Democrats" list.
bookmark.
I wonder how many will read this, and not understand fully what you are saying.
The candidate who, in the Senate, tried to claim President Bush authorized listening into everyone’s phones and violating their privacy, is selling your private info , to help her win the election.
Isn’t that just i...r...o...n...i...c ?
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