Posted on 02/10/2008 10:10:16 AM PST by COUNTrecount
Hillary Clinton is coming under growing pressure to be more open about the sources of her family’s wealth after she revealed that she had been forced to loan her cash-strapped campaign $5 million.
Hillary Clinton's advisers 'in a state of panic' In pictures: Michelle Obama Trail Mix: Chelsea Clinton "pimped out" Critics are claiming that her husband Bill Clinton’s lucrative financial dealings since leaving the White House may expose her campaign to conflicts of interest, and are calling for her to publish the full details of her earnings and assets.
advertisementSen Clinton has made more than $9 million from her 2003 memoirs.
But the biggest earner in the family is the former president, who is finalising an estimated $20 million pay-out from a six-year stint as an investment fund advisor, and has raked in many millions more from consultancy deals, speeches and his writings.
The couple left the White House with $2 million in legal debts in 2001 but are now worth between $10 million and $50 million, according to her latest Senate financial disclosure filings, which allow candidates to list their assets in broad ranges.
Mrs Clinton can put half the funds held jointly with her husband towards her presidential bid under campaign finance laws.
By contrast, her rival Barack Obama emphasised last week that he released his annual tax returns, which break down earnings and assets in detail.
“I think the American people deserve to know where you get your income from,” he said pointedly.
The Clinton campaign said that she would make her tax returns public if she won the nomination and that the Senate disclosures provided sufficient information about her finances.
Over the last six years, Mr Clinton has struck lucrative consultancy and advisory contracts with a playboy billionaire and done business with a Gulf emir.
He also courted figures ranging from a Central Asian autocrat to Arab sheikhs, as he built his charitable foundation and financed his glitzy presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas.
In the process he has developed one of the world’s leading philanthropic organisations and made himself and his wife Hillary rich - just six years after they were so saddled in debts from investigations into the Whitewater land deal and Monica Lewinsky affair that they had to borrow money from Democratic fund-raising chief Terry McAuliffe to buy a home near New York.
The colourful cast of friends, donors and business partners accrued by Mr Clinton is now raising questions about potential conflicts of interest as the former First Lady aims to become the next Democratic president.
Mr Clinton has already started to disentangle himself from two high-profile deals.
Most notably, he is expected to receive about $20 million when he severs his ties with the Yucaipa investment funds headed by his friend Ron Burkle, a famously eligible bachelor who appears in the gossip columns as often as the business pages.
The Wall Street Journal reported that one of his partners in the global investment fund is an entity connected to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, also believed to be a major donor to the Clinton presidential library.
Mr Clinton’s ties to the sheikh have already put him at odds with political stances adopted by his wife.
Two years ago, she was outspoken in her denunciation of the Bush administration’s plan to sell control of six major US ports to Dubai Ports World, but it later emerged that her husband was advising the Arab emirate how to handle the furore.
Last month, The New York Times reported that Mr Clinton flew to Kazakhstan on the executive jet of Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining financier and multi-million dollar backer of the Clinton Foundation who was also seeking a contract with the Kazakh government.
Mr Clinton was there to see the work of his Foundation on an Aids project, but also praised President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been widely criticised for human rights violations, for “opening up the social and political life of your country”.
Mr Giustra, who organised a lavish charity dinner for Mr Clinton’s 60th birthday, was subsequently awarded a lucrative uranium mining deal in Kazakhstan ahead of more experienced industry competitors.
Mr Clinton’s aides have denied that he influenced the deal or behaved improperly.
Mr Clinton has also resisted pressure to name donors to his presidential library.
But newspaper investigations have uncovered many foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia, and an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, The New York Times reported.
“The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat, who has introduced legislation requiring the disclosure of donors to presidential libraries.
Dick Morris, the former Clinton strategist who is now a fierce critic of the couple, recently accused Mrs Clinton of facing “a massive conflict of interest” for her family’s financial ties to Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
“The Clintons should be required to divulge the extent of their involvement with foreign interests and exactly how much money their personal bank accounts and their Library/Foundation have received,” he said.
If any of us had done a small fraction of what the clintons have gotten away with we would be in jail for life.
Everything about them reeks of corruption, slime and filth. Neither one of them have an honest bone in their body.
Can you tell I despise them? ;-)
Last month, The New York Times reported that Mr Clinton flew to Kazakhstan on the executive jet of Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining financier and multi-million dollar backer of the Clinton Foundation who was also seeking a contract with the Kazakh government.
Mr Clinton was there to see the work of his Foundation on an Aids project, but also praised President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been widely criticised for human rights violations, for “opening up the social and political life of your country”.
Mr Giustra, who organised a lavish charity dinner for Mr Clinton’s 60th birthday, was subsequently awarded a lucrative uranium mining deal in Kazakhstan ahead of more experienced industry competitors.
Ping, Annie!
Thanks for the ping!
I enjoy your ascerbic sense of humor. It’s great. Tempts me to stop being serious and agree with you. We might be going down anyway so why not go laughing?
cheers
Always most welcome, as you know.
.
OK
Something better move
I’m waiting
I’m still waiting!
Lol, you will fall asleep waiting. I just found that, haven’t done anything with it - yet.
You have a man falling out of your Rush tree! I should adapt them and combine. Stickman, I should use my new drawing pad!!
Dancing money ?....of course !....She got all that from working the pole.....er, poll...
There is nothing more telling about the mood of Dems regarding the Clintons than Waxman coming out in full colors.
We need to keep the PRESSURE on for Hillary and Bill's FINAANCIAL RECORDS!!! Go OBAMA!!
The real money was in the extortion.
Maggie Williams took a $50,000 check from Johnnie Chung IN THE WHITE HOUSE (against the LAW) and NOTHING was done to her and now she is back as Hillary's Manager!!! Where's the LAW?????
Thanks for the ping! We really do need for the media to keep the pressure on.
If Pitbull Pig Waxman goes AFTER the Clintons I will be SHOCKED!!! He will just snort around Reagan and Bush's Libraries, I'm sure.......he wants to LIVE ya know!
“The damn place would put Max Bialystock to shame.”
I love it when I “get” obscure Freeper references. Keep up the good work! :)
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