With these people, no matter how bad you think they are, they are worse.
Hillary Clinton's seeming refusal to take on corruption in African countries if the political status quo benefited foundation donors is evidence of the former secretary of state's favorable treatment of friends, author Peter Schweizer alleged in his new book, Clinton Cash.
As an example, Schweizer highlights a law Clinton supported when she was a senator from New York in 2006 that would have cracked down on the Democratic Republic of the Congo's illicit mineral trade — if she enforced it as secretary of state three years later. Instead, Clinton's "actions during her tenure as secretary of state came nowhere near the positions she had taken while in the U.S. Senate," the author wrote.. The Congo's corrupt trade of minerals such as copper and cobalt funds rebel groups that perpetuate the violence keeping the country in tatters.
Unrest in the region allows some companies to take advantage of the situation and negotiate lower prices for mining rights. "This kind of business could be enormously profitable if you were willing to look the other way on corruption and human rights," Schweizer wrote. The head of a Canadian company with an enormous stake in the Congo's mining and oil announced a $100 million donation to the Clinton Foundation through his charity on the heels of Clinton's first presidential campaign, the book noted. Lukas Lundin, a Swedish investor whose family had founded the Lundin Group, also personally gave between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation prior to 2013, donor records show.
Lundin's lucrative mining operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were threatened by the piece of legislation Clinton herself had cosponsored in 2006. The Congo Relief, Security and Democracy Promotion Act would have upended the Congolese leadership that allowed Lundin to mine in the country unhindered, Schweizer wrote. When the struggling Congolese government attempted in 2008 to reclaim control over parts of the mine that holds the world's largest deposits of copper and cobalt, Lundin Mining reportedly resisted. The company claimed allowing the government a larger share in the mine would make the project "economically unfeasible," the Globe and Mail reported in 2008.
At the time, Lundin owned a 24.75 percent stake in the mine and another company, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold, owned 57.5 percent, leaving the Congolese government in control of 17.5 percent of the mine. Freeport is also a major Clinton Foundation donor, giving between $250,000 and $500,000, according to donor records. The Congolese government saw its stake in the mine climb by just 2.5 percent in 2010 after talks that were thought to have been conducted by the State Department "in support of Freeport," the Financial Times reported that year. Clinton's agency allegedly intervened in another dispute between a mining company and the Congo's government in 2009, Schweizer noted.
First Quantum Minerals, another Canadian mining corporation, was locked in a dispute with the Congolese government after winning the rights to a profitable mine using "questionable methods," the author wrote, alleging the firm bribed officials in the country to get the contract. Clinton's State Department intervened after the Congolese government stripped First Quantum of its business license, ensuring the company was paid $1.25 billion for its assets in the country, according to the book.
First Quantum's founder, Jean-Raymond Boulle, has had controversial ties to the Clintons for decades. In 1998, he dropped all business with the Congo's existing regime and began heavily bribing the incoming dictator, Laurent Kabila, in an apparent attempt to secure valuable mining property before the country's leadership changed hands, Forbes reported that year. The U.S. still backed the Congo's existing leader at the time.
The report suggested Boulle's ties to Clinton helped him seal the remunerative deal. "Did Boulle have advance knowledge that the U.S. was about to change sides, sealing the fate of the old dictatorship?" the Forbes report said. "We don't know; Boulle denies he had any help from the U.S. government. But we do know that Jean Boulle has interesting Clinton Administration connections."
SOURCE https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-helped-companies-that-donated-to-foundation-profit-off-africa