State Department: Naah, we’re not interested in looking into Clinton Foundation donors

Hotair ^ | 05/08/2015 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

Who can blame them? It took months just for Hillary Clinton to cough up the e-mails that should have gone through their system in the first place, and that happened only because of the probe by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Investigating the confluence of money and connections at the Clinton Foundation might take too much work, and the only evidence would have to come from the Clintons themselves. Besides, what difference at this point does it make, or something?

The State Department said Thursday it has no plans to review previously undisclosed donations to a branch of the Clinton Foundation that some say raise questions about potential conflicts of interest during former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s time in office.

Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said the contributions in question, made to the Clinton Health Access Initiative by private donors, would not have been reviewed even if they had all been disclosed under the terms of ethics agreements Clinton signed before she took office. That’s because only donations to the foundation from foreign governments or speaking fees for former President Bill Clinton were subject to vetting.

The agreements did require that private donations be made public and the health initiative has acknowledged it did not do so in all cases. Rathke said the State Department welcomes the steps the foundation and its arms are now taking to address the issue and won’t pursue the matter.

That’s a rather shaky leg on which to stand. First, the Clinton Health Access Initiative did get cash from foreign governments, according to the Boston Globes’ story from last week, emphasis mine:

The Clinton Health Access Initiative never submitted information on any foreign donations to State Department lawyers for review during Clinton’s tenure from 2009 to 2013, Maura Daley, the organization’s spokeswoman, acknowledged to the Globe this week. She said the charity deemed it unnecessary, except in one case that she described as an “oversight.”

During that time, grants from foreign governments increased by tens of millions of dollars to the Boston-based organization.

Next, one of the problems with the Clintons’ confluence of cash and power is precisely those speaking fees to Bill Clinton. The Uranium One deal that ended up putting a significant amount of American uranium into the control of Vladimir Putin came coincidentally while the State Department reviewed one of the stages of the deal — and also at the time that the banker at the center of it paid Bill Clinton $500,000 to speak for an hour or so in Moscow.

That may not have been directly paid from a foreign government, but isn’t that close enough to interest State as to whether the Clintons were selling influence? Apparently not, even though the Department of Justice is currently pursuing a case against Senator Robert Menendez with fewer such coincidences, and a lot less money, Andrew McCarthy explained to Bill O’Reilly last night:

On top of that, the Kazakh government alleges that one of its officials broke the law in part by buying favor with the Clintons:

Mukhtar Dzhakishev, the Kazakh official in charge of the country’s uranium and nuclear industry, claimed then-Sen. Hillary Clinton had “pressured Kazakh officials to secure a deal for the Canadians” by refusing to meet with the prime minister when he was in the U.S., according to Schweizer.

In 2008, Dzhakishev also said Bill Clinton, Frank Giustra and Kazakh President Nazarbayev discussed the mining deal at a banquet just days before UrAsia acquired significant stakes in three mines, although both Giustra and Bill Clinton deny those conversations.

Dzhakishev was among the key officials whose approval UrAsia would have needed to complete the transaction. …

The deal faced renewed scrutiny in May 2009 when Dzhakishev was arrested for arranging corrupt uranium transactions with foreign companies.

“Authorities singled out the sale of a 30-per-cent stake in Kyzylkum that was allegedly sold for little more than $100,000 in 2005,” the Globe and Mail reported the week after Dzhakishev was arrested.

That 30 percent stake was among the assets UrAsia acquired with Bill Clinton’s alleged assistance, and belonged to Uranium One at the time Hillary Clinton’s State Department allowed it to be bought by the Russian government.

This appears to rebut a “fact check” issued by the Clinton campaign about the foundation, writes Sarah Westwood at the Washington Examiner. The supposed “fact check” was just another way of saying, “Trust us!”, a remarkable statement given the history of broken promises of transparency, and a quarter-century of spin and outright lies coming from the Clintons in regard to both personal and professional behavior.

Still, it seems to be good enough for the State Department. Must be good to be king … and queen.

[Liz]

This squinty-eyed imbecile is actually monitoring our ntl security.

In the squinty-eyed face of Marie Harf, America is witnessing the tragic consequences of a mindless generation inculcated with moral relativity and situation ethics.

The ghost of Saul Alinsky lurks behind the Progressive Poison spewed by Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the rest of their ilk.

The Dumbos clearly see themselves as "deconstructionists"----savagely committed to tearing down America's traditions. Every maniacal official govt act is dedicated to chipping away at the bulwark of American freedoms.

[Liz]

The buzz is Marie's on her way out---looking into govt.......and non-govt jobs.

THIS JUST IN Marie Harf and Susan Rice submitted
resumes for the only available job they are qualified for:
cleaning toilets at the Greyhound bus station.