Last week, in this space I wrote that Bill Clinton’s business dealings around the world could create a conflict of interest with respect to Hillary’s position in the U.S. Senate and her candidacy for President of the United States. This week, Hillary showed us all why we should be very concerned.
According to the New York Post: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million from her personal bank account late last month, officials acknowledged today -- a surprising twist in the deadlocked race for the Democratic nomination…The move came after Clinton's fundraising for January paled in comparison to rival Sen. Barack Obama's – he raised a staggering $32 million to her $13.5 million, officials said.”
Now, candidates have from time to time drawn significant funds from their personal accounts to cover campaign expenses. But Hillary Clinton is no ordinary candidate and this is no ordinary campaign. Her husband is a former president who uses his history in the White House to leverage business deals in an unprecedented fashion. Since he left office in 2001, the former president has traveled the world accumulating tens of millions of dollars in speaking fees from foreign interests (such as Dubai and Chinese communist interests). He also seems to have struck business deals with companies that don’t require him to work or to assume any financial risk.
For example, The Wall Street Journal reported just a couple of weeks ago that Bill Clinton is due to receive a $20 million buyout from billionaire businessman Ron Burkle as he severs a relationship with Burkle’s Yucaipa Companies. By Burkle’s own estimate, Clinton averaged about 500 hours per year, or 10 hours per week, on the Yucaipa business without making any financial investment. To say that’s a sweetheart deal is a gross understatement.
Question: What does Burkle expect in return for his generosity? And what about Bill Clinton’s other financial angels, many of whom reside overseas?
As we and other critics have noted, given that Hillary shares a bank account with her husband, payments to Bill Clinton are, in effect, payments to her. It was bad enough that she was a senator on the indirect take, but this is especially troubling now that Hillary has decided to use these assets to get elected president. Is there any real doubt that Bill’s business and speaking fee payments were de facto campaign contributions? Back in the 90’s, the Chinese communists gave the money to the campaigns and DNC to help the Clinton gang win and retain office. Now these and other similarly dubious foreign interests just give it to the Clintons directly. And now that money is being laundered, clean as a whistle, into Hillary’s campaign coffers.
We were second to none in going after Cheney on Halliburton and former President Bush for his Carlyle/Saudi ties. The Clintons also need to be held to account.
Corruption Matters
Speaking of unasked questions…Have you noticed that there has been a startling lack of attention paid to the issue of corruption in these presidential debates? We’ve had over two dozen of them. Other than one question from Tim Russert in an early Democratic debate related to Hillary’s White House papers the issue of government ethics has been abandoned. This is despite the fact that corruption was the number one issue on the minds of voters during the last election cycle, ahead of Iraq and ahead of the economy. It was the main reason why the Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress.
So why the deafening silence on what is clearly a hot-button issue for voters? Certainly, it’s not for lack of material. Bill and Hillary Clinton’s moral and ethical bankruptcy has been a focus of Judicial Watch’s work for the last 13 years. (See more here.)
Then there’s Barack Obama and his Rezko problem. First, there was that “boneheaded mistake” Obama made by getting involved in a property deal with Rezko, who as under investigation at the time for taking kickbacks from companies that sought to do business with the state of Illinois. Then there were the news reports of the $150,000 in Rezko-tainted donations that Obama was forced to donate to charity.
And now this, according to The London Times: “An undeclared $3.5 million…payment from a corrupt Iraqi-British businessman has landed Barack Obama’s former fundraiser behind bars.
"The payment, disclosed in court papers, is the first time that Mr Obama’s long-serving bagman Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, a Syrian immigrant to the United States, has been linked to Nadhmi Auchi, the Iraqi-born billionaire who is one of Britain’s richest men. The relationship is a potential embarrassment for Mr. Obama, who has made his opposition to the Iraq war a central plank of his campaign.
"Court papers describe Mr Rezko as a close friend of Mr. Auchi. The two are involved in a large Chicago land development together…”
Incidentally, Obama is referenced indirectly in those court documents. After which, Obama donated some Rezko-related dollars to charity. The more we learn, the worse it looks for Senator Obama and his Rezko connection.
Of course, Republicans have problems of their own. I’ve written before about the 14 ethics complaints filed against Mike Huckabee, who actually sued to shut the ethics process down.
While clearly some of John McCain’s appeal relates to his anti-corruption message, or “straight talk,” as he calls it, check out this gem from The Washington Post last week: “A top political adviser in Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign helped arrange an introduction in 2006 between McCain and a Russian billionaire whose suspected links to anti-democratic and organized-crime figures are so controversial that the U.S. government revoked his visa.”
Judicial Watch is initiating investigations into all of this – but Americans need to hold these politicians’ feet to the fire. Otherwise, things may never change.
Missouri Upholds Anti-illegal Immigration Law
Okay, let’s end on a positive note.
The Dallas Morning News reported this week: “An ordinance in a suburban St. Louis town that penalizes businesses that hire illegal immigrants has been upheld by a federal judge.
“U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber ruled late Thursday that the ordinance adopted by the city of Valley Park, Mo., is not pre-empted by federal law, does not discriminate against Hispanics and does not violate due-process rights or Missouri law.
“The ordinance ‘is not pre-empted by federal law; to the contrary, federal law specifically permits such licensing laws as the one at issue,’ Judge Webber wrote.”
(Amen to that.) We’ve been supportive in court of a similar law put in place by Hazleton, Pennsylvania. (That legal fight is now before a federal appeals court.)
As if that wasn’t enough good news from Missouri, there was also this from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Although Missouri is not a national hotbed for illegal immigration, the state is taking the lead in training local law officers on how to help federal immigration authorities.
“The training includes tips for working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and information about specific programs, such as allowing local police to be deputized to enforce federal immigration law or helping identify illegal immigrants in county jails and state prisons.”
As the federal government continues to fail miserably to secure the border, more and more local police departments are taking advantage of this training, and this never would have happened were it not for the work of Judicial Watch.
In July, 2006, Judicial Watch uncovered documents from the Department of Homeland Security related to 287(g) training, showing that local governments have the authority to help enforce immigration law. By publicizing these documents, Judicial Watch pressured local officials, who have tried to wash their hands of illegal immigration, claiming it is purely a federal problem. The efforts to enforce our nation’s immigration laws continue to gain steam at the local level. You can be sure that we’ll continue to play an active role pushing this movement along.
Until next week…
