The Clinton Foundation’s $20 million off-the-books mystery
New York Post By Isabel Vincent November 5, 2016
The inner workings of a mysterious off-the-books arm of the Clinton Foundation were partially revealed in the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
The little-known Haiti Development Fund, an LLC incorporated in Delaware in August 2010, was created by the Clinton Foundation with an initial endowment of $20 million from shady Canadian mining mogul Frank Giustra and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
The Fund was supposed to supply desperately needed seed money to Haitian entrepreneurs after an earthquake devastated the country in January 2010.
But The Post found only one project that it funded with a fraction of the start-up cash.
Since the Fund is incorporated as a private entity and not a non-profit, it is not subject to the same disclosure rules as a public charity.
And the Clinton Foundation never disclosed the Fund as a “related entity” on its tax filings as required by IRS rules. It was only after the Clinton Foundation, under mounting scrutiny and media pressure, “voluntarily” decided to refile five years’ worth of tax returns in 2015 that the Fund appears on the forms.
The for-profit Fund was managed by Jean Marc Villain, who was going through a bankruptcy in 2010 when he was working for the Clinton Foundation. The non-profit paid him an annual salary of $100,000 to oversee the Fund, according to pay records attached to the Podesta emails.
The Florida Elections Commission found that Villain also had violated state laws in 2001 when he did not file donation reports for the Haitian-American Political Caucus, a political committee where he was listed as treasurer.
“This cries out for an audit or an investigation,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center a Virginia-based watchdog group. “Its director was in bankruptcy and there’s almost nothing in the public record showing what happened to the millions of dollars it supposedly was going to use to help poor Haitians.”
Giustra, one of the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation, is also no stranger to controversy. In 2005, he and President Clinton traveled together to Kazakhstan to meet with the former Soviet republic’s authoritarian leader. Days after that meeting, Giustra acquired uranium assets in three of the country’s state-run mines — a venture valued at more than $3 billion. Both Giustra and Clinton have denied that the former US president helped him cement the Kazakh deal.
At least some of the Haiti Fund cash ended up with Haitian entrepreneurs. According to a Clinton Foundation press release, the Fund made its first investment of $415,000 in a group of artisans in the Caribbean country, in August 2011. That year, the Clinton Foundation’s tax filings show $307,000 going to the Fund.
But in that same year Villain had bigger projects in mind requiring more than $12 million, the emails show. In November 2011, he requested a meeting with Podesta, who was filling in as head of the Clinton Foundation.
“I planned to send notice to the [Investment] Committee to schedule a meeting to consider taking action on a pending transaction and the presentation of 8 investment opportunities … totalling $12.3 million with a potential of 2,775 prospective new jobs,” writes Villain in an email to Podesta’s secretary.
In a return email, Podesta said he would get Villain an answer the next day.
But it’s not clear from Clinton Foundation tax filings if the cash ever made it to Villain’s projects, or what those projects were.
Villain left the Clinton Foundation in 2013 and now works for a hospital in South Carolina, according to his LinkedIn page. He could not be reached for comment.
The Clinton Foundation did not return repeated requests for comment.
(More of the same corruption that you get with the Clintons, De Blasio, Weiner and Schumer. This is what the Nevertrumpers tell us is better than Trump. Why doesn't anyone ask the New York Times about this? Because it is all rigged? )
11 comments:
Jean Marc Villain, sounds like somebody out of Dudley Do-Right, but it's just what you'd expect.
No wonder the Haitians hate her.
As for rigged, Willie had another slip of the mind and said as much.
Someone should look into Carlos Svelte. Normally, I'd expect the newspaper of record to jump right on it...
Clinton Cash should be required reading in our schools. The hack press should read it, not that they will - they are part of it.
It's too bad Trump didn't capitalize on their corruption for the last several months.
Gotta hand it to the DNC press and the corrupt democrat machine. They fooled the GOP base into doing their work for them.
Crooked Hillary didn't "capitalize on their corruption"?
Besides, she wants to run as SOS. That material's new, but some people don't seem to see through their own hate.
Trump's been pounding her for months on that stuff.
i'm wondering about the timing of the Comey revelation. for trump to have a better chance at election shouldnt it have been a tad earlier? was the best case scenario from assanges viewpoint to get hillary in, and then have the country go into massive turmoil? to have her crimes so ingrained in the american mind, that we actually start doing something about the banksters, etc.
or will something so shockingly egregious come out today or tomorrow that will blow everyone away?
data point, i know someone who's detested trump all along, say yesterday they didnt know who they should vote for.
That's the point.
One of the things to keep in mind here is the Ozark Mafia denial machine. Granted, this worked a lot better when Morris was running things for them, but they can co-ordinate with the media a deflection strategy if given enough time.
We've seen it before. So maybe they factored that into their thinking.
YMMV
the LAT poll is fascinating today. every day it polls the same 3000 carefully-selected people (a representative sample). the 'who will you vote for' has spread to 5+ for trump. but the 'who do you think will win' has hillary almost +11. the 'do you intend to vote' is exactly the same, 85.7. scroll down for breakdown by demogr. not one demogr thinks trump will win. link at drudge.
That's because they figure Trump is right and the Demos will bring out the vote fraud machine.
yep.
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