Kremlin In Turmoil After Clinton Foundation CEO Requests “Urgent And Immediate” Asylum

Western Sentinel October 23, 2016 (link to original story)

An extraordinary Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today says this morning President Putin was “officially presented” with a Main Directorate for Migration Affairs (GUVM) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) “file for review” relating to a request for “urgent and immediate” political asylum requested by an American citizen named Eric Braverman—who was the former CEO of the Clinton Foundation, and is known as the man who can expose “The Real Hillary Clinton Scandal”. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.

Requests for the granting of political asylum in the Federation, this report explains, is regulated by a separate government resolution rather than the Law on Refugees and is issued to those seeking “asylum or protection from persecution or a real threat of becoming a victim of persecution” in their home country for “social-political activities or convictions that do not contradict the democratic principles recognized by the international community and norms of international law”—and though Russia has the world’s highest number of asylum applications, political asylum requests are very rarely granted.

IRS investigating Clinton Foundation

Responding to several Republican congressmen who requested a review of potential criminal conduct involving pay-to-play practices Koskinen wrote the issue has been forwarded to IRS Exempt Organizations Examinations program in Dallas, also known as the Different IRS Rules for Clintons Department.

Fox News.

"Hillary Clinton oversaw US arms deals to Clinton Foundation donors"

Hillary Clinton oversaw US arms deals to Clinton Foundation donors https://t.co/HJnbb5TbeQ

— Lionel (@LionelMedia) July 2, 2016

Wall Street 'Whistleblower' Analyst Exposes Clinton Foundation As "Charity Fraud"

The Washington Free Beacon:  The Wall Street analyst who uncovered financial discrepancies at General Electric before its stock crashed in 2008 claims the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has a number of irregularities in its tax records and could be violating state laws.

Charles Ortel, a longtime financial adviser, said he has spent the past 15 months digging into the Clinton Foundation’s public records, federal and state-level tax filings, and donor disclosures. That includes records from the foundation’s many offshoots—including the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the Clinton Global Initiative—as well as its foreign subsidiaries.

According to Ortel’s reports, the contribution disclosures from the Clinton Foundation don’t match up with individual donors’ records. He also argued that the foundation is not in compliance with some state laws regarding fundraising registration, disclosure requirements, and auditing rules.

This week, Ortel is starting to release his findings in the first of a series of up to 40 planned reports on his website. His allegation: “this is a charity fraud.”

“Starting almost 20 years ago in 1997, the Clinton Foundation spread its activities from Little Rock, Arkansas, to all U.S. states and to numerous foreign countries without taking legally required steps to function and solicit as a duly constituted public charity,” wrote Ortel, in a letter posted on his website. (read more)

Is the FBI looking even at this? The shady Clinton charity story has been out for well over a year. Charity watchdog: Clinton Foundation a ‘slush fund’ 

The Clinton Foundation’s finances are so messy that the nation’s most influential charity watchdog put it on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits last month.

The Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.

The group spent the bulk of its windfall on administration, travel, and salaries and bonuses, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.

"Obama admin, big businesses abandon Clinton Global Initiative"

"On Sept. 26, CGI, a branch of the Clinton Foundation, convenes its 11th annual meeting with a star-studded cast. Bill and Chelsea Clinton will be joined by Ashley Judd, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Ted Danson, Tina Brown, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates and George Soros. What will be missing is more than a million dollars from a who's who of corporate behemoths that sponsored the meeting last year. Six high-profile firms ended their cash donations, to be replaced with only one similar high-profile corporate donor so far."

"USA TODAY has confirmed that sponsors from 2014 that have backed out for this year include electronics company Samsung, oil giant Exxon Mobil, global financial firms Deutsche Bank and HSBC, and accounting firm PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers). Hewlett-Packard, which just announced major layoffs, will be an in-kind donor instead of a cash contributor, and the agri-chem firm Monsanto has cut back its donation. Dow's name is missing from the donor list as well, but the chemical company's exit is not confirmed."

"£50 million of British taxpayer-funded foreign aid money has gone to Clinton charities"

"Some claim charity is inefficient and taxpayers could simply be funding management charges"

British politicians – including Gordon Brown – stand accused of diverting huge amounts of cash through the organisations after falling under the spell of the US presidential candidate and her husband Bill.

The UK is one of the biggest donors, handing over more than £20 million last year alone to the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), an organisation chaired by former President Bill, 68, and whose board includes the couple's daughter Chelsea, 35. Since 2011, a total of £48.9 million has gone into the coffers of this charity alone.

Tory backbenchers say the revelation is symptomatic of the fact that the Department for International Development has so much money to spend that large amounts have to be simply handed to global charities, often leading to huge amounts of waste.

"'Big 4' Firm 'Let Clintons Skim Millions From AIDS Charity'"

'Big 4' Firm 'Let Clintons Skim Millions From AIDS Charity'💰‼️ http://t.co/3j2BPEgnnV #OhHillNo #WakeUpAmerica #PJNET pic.twitter.com/Jv9MGiCVgn

— Leah (@LeahR77) June 17, 2015

"Ortel says the Clintons siphoned tens of millions of dollars annually from funds received by the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Health Access Initiative from UNITAID, a global health initiative to fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis that is financed mostly by a levy on airline tickets. UNITAID, which negotiates low prices for drugs and diagnostics, implements its work through groups like the Clinton Health Access Initiative, also known as CHAI."

"Favors to foundation donors stretch back to Hillary Clinton’s Senate days"

"Earmarks, legislative action benefited husband’s benefactors"

For instance, Mrs. Clinton introduced a bill when she was New York’s junior senator that allowed a donor to the Clinton Foundation to use tax-exempt bonds to build a shopping center in Syracuse, New York, public records show. 

She also went to bat for Freddie Mac, working to defeat legislation that would have subjected the mortgage giant to tougher regulations before the housing bubble burst and led to a major recession. That same year, Freddie Mac donated $50,000 to $100,000 to her husband’s charity, originally called the William J. Clinton Foundation records show.

“It seems like the Clinton Foundation operates as a slush fund for the Clintons,” Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog group, told the New York Post in April after conflict-of-interest reports started surfacing between the Clinton Foundation and Mrs. Clinton’s political work.

"Clinton’s foundation cashed in as Sweden lobbied Hillary on sanctions"

"As the money flowed to the foundation from Sweden, Mrs. Clinton’s team in Washington declined to blacklist any Swedish firms despite warnings from career officials at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm that Sweden was growing its economic ties with Iran and potentially undercutting Western efforts to end Tehran’s rogue nuclear program, diplomatic cables show."

“Sweden does not support implementing tighter financial sanctions on Iran” and believes “more stringent financial standards could hurt Swedish exports,” one such cable from 2009 alerted Mrs. Clinton’s office in Washington.

Separately, U.S. intelligence was reporting that Sweden’s second-largest employer, telecommunications giant Ericsson AB, was pitching cellphone tracking technology to Iran that could be used by the country’s security services, officials told The Times.

By the time Mrs. Clinton left office in 2013, the Clinton Foundation Insamlingsstiftelse had collected millions of dollars inside Sweden for his global charitable efforts and Mr. Clinton personally pocketed a record $750,000 speech fee from Ericsson, one of the firms at the center of the sanctions debate.

Bottom line, The Clintons collected money from a Swedish company who wanted to continue doing business in Iran. The same Iran Hillary was tasked with rallying the world to sanction as result of their nuclear ambitions. Hillary put the Foundation interest ahead of US national interests.

George Stephanopoulos Donated to the Clinton Foundation

Univision news reports fails to disclose ties to the Clinton Foundation

"The ties between the Clintons and the Spanish language television network run deep."

There was no mention of the network’s partnership with the Clinton Foundation in a May 4 segment on Univision’s nightly news program about allegations that donations to the foundation affected Hillary Clinton’s decisions during her tenure as secretary of state.

Talan [Univision spokeswoman] declined to respond specifically to questions about disclosing the network’s relationship with the foundation in its reporting.

Domenzain [a liberal strategist who was a founding producer on Univision’s Sunday news show “Al Punto” and who ran Obama’s Hispanic media outreach in the 2012 election] said she thought the network should always note the partnership whenever covering the Clinton Foundation.

“Even if it’s apolitical, for childhood education … given that the foundation most likely will be a center theme in this campaign, that yes, these are alliances that should be put out in the open,” Domenzain said. “When covering the political aspect of it, yes they should, and they’re going to be much more under the microscope because of that.”

Then there’s the subject of Univision’s owner, billionaire media mogul [Haim] Saban, who purchased Univision in 2007 along with a group of investors. Saban has donated as much as $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, and his wife sits on its board. He has said it’s a dream of his to see Hillary Clinton elected. The week before Bill Clinton’s Univision appearance, Saban hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in California.

“As much as is needed,” Saban said in July when asked by Bloomberg Politics how much he’d give to the Clinton campaign. “I think she would be great for the country and great for the world.”

Despite Saban’s Clinton fandom, a firewall exists between editorial and corporate, Univision’s Talan wrote in an email.

Bill Clinton: "I've got to pay our bills"

"Foundation's done nothing 'knowingly inappropriate'"

 

Clinton: “I love this guy, and you should too,”

"1,100 donors to a Canadian charity tied to Clinton Foundation remain secret"

A charity affiliated with the Clinton Foundation failed to reveal the identities of its 1,100 donors, creating a broad exception to the foundation’s promise to disclose funding sources as part of an ethics agreement with the Obama administration.

The number of undisclosed contributors to the charity, the Canada-based Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, signals a larger zone of secrecy around foundation donors than was previously known...

“Clearly, there was an expectation and a commitment that large donations to the Clinton Foundation would be disclosed,” Lugar said via e-mail.

A spokeswoman for the Canadian group said the majority of the 1,100 donors gave small, one-time gifts while attending a 2008 fundraising gala.

Hillary Clinton accepted money from foreign governments for the Clinton Foundation while Secretary of State

The Clinton Foundation accepted money from seven foreign governments while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. This is actual corruption and not merely the perception of a conflict of interests.

This is a Washington Post story, one of many bastions of right wing conspiracy. </snark>

It causes problems. One such is with Algeria. A 2010 State Department report on human rights in Algeria cited several serious problems with Algerian government including restrictions on freedom of association and assembly, arbitrary killings, lack of transparency and widespread corruption, along with restrictions on labor and women's rights.

Following the Haiti earthquake the Algerian government donated half million dollars to the foundation. The foundation admits they should have sought State Department approval.

At the time the Algerian government was lobbying Washington heavily in an attempt to build a better relationship with Washington regarding the human rights issues.

The Washington Post story goes into the number of meetings between Hillary at the State Department and members of the Algerian government during this time of the Haiti earthquake. They note a steady history of donations directly to State with a bump in Algerian donation to the foundation coinciding with a bump in the number of meetings between Hillary and Algerian lobbyists.

It doesn't look good because it isn't good. My little portion of the twitterverse is calling this 'open air corruption.' Their point of view is, if you and your husband and your family foundation don't give a shit about what people might think, and reporters really don't care to cover it, then we've reached the point where corruption is expected from the Clintons. There is really nothing there to discuss because all that is already accepted.

Defending the foundation, a spokesperson said that all the donations went to work around the world. Some foreign government donations are part of multiyear grants awarded before Clinton's appointment. These pay for efforts to lower cost of HIV and AIDs drugs and to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The spokesperson was doing so well up to that last part. Nothing says 'fraud shop' quite like handing out global climate change religious indulgences.

The spokesperson continued talking about how they rely on the support of individuals, organizations, corporations, and governments who share the goal of addressing critical global challenges in meaningful ways.

When anyone contributes to the Clinton Foundation, it goes towards foundation programs that help save lives.

Wow. In that case, carry on.

Some of the donations come from countries with complicated diplomatic, military and financial relationships with the U.S., including Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.

Foreign individuals and governments are prohibited from giving money to presidential candidates for a very good reasons having to do with influence peddling. The Clinton Foundation has provided foreign individuals and governments a means to gain favor with the Clintons apart from the legal limitations.

The Washington Post report goes into greater detail about all the trouble this holds for Hillary Clinton as candidate and how Republicans might exploit it. So far the Clinton team's response is all these things happened before Hillary became Secretary of State.

In the progressive liberal line of thinking there is no conflict of interest legal or otherwise.

Secretary of State = save the world (from the United States, from hunger, from Republicans, from overpopulation, from environmental destruction, from CO2, from asteroids, from what have you)

Clinton Foundation = save the world (from the United States, from hunger, from Republicans, from overpopulation, from environmental destruction, from CO2, from asteroids, from what have you)

See? They're the same. No conflict. And as our media will agree, journalistically nothing to pursue.

This Washington Post article being an exception, what is really important to journalists is can the apparently front-running  opposition candidate affirm the president's sense of religious depth and patriotism. He was elected twice, you know. And that is all the investigative curiosity we can expect from them.

Dowd: Chelsea Clinton unseemly

"Chelsea Clinton never acted out during the eight years she came of age as America’s first daughter. 

No ditching of her Secret Service detail. No fake IDs for underage tippling. No drug scandal. No court appearance in tank top and toe ring. Not even any dirty dancing. 

Despite a tough role as the go-between in the highly public and embarrassing marital contretemps of her parents, Chelsea stayed classy. 

So it’s strange to see her acting out in a sense now, joining her parents in cashing in to help feed the rapacious, gaping maw of Clinton Inc. 

...As the 34-year-old tries to wean some of the cronies from the Clinton Foundation — which is, like the Clintons themselves, well-intended, wasteful and disorganized — Chelsea is making speeches that go into foundation coffers. She is commanding, as The Times’s Amy Chozickozick reported, up to $75,000 per appearance. 

Chozick wrote: “Ms. Clinton’s speeches focus on causes like eradicating waterborne diseases. (‘I’m obsessed with diarrhea’ is a favorite line.)” 

There’s something unseemly about it, making one wonder: Why on earth is she worth that much money? Why, given her dabbling in management consulting, hedge-funding and coattail-riding, is an hour of her time valued at an amount that most Americans her age don’t make in a year? (Median household income in the United States is $53,046.) 

If she really wants to be altruistic, let her contribute the money to some independent charity not designed to burnish the Clinton name as her mother ramps up to return to the White House and as she herself drops a handkerchief about getting into politics.   Or let her speak for free. After all, she is in effect going to candidate school. No need to get paid for it, too. 

...The Clintons were fiercely protective of Chelsea when she was a teenager, insisting on respect from the media and getting it. They need to protect their daughter again, this time from their wanton acquisitiveness."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chelsea should definitely make speeches for free. I hope Ms. Dowd lead by example in the speech above. And in this one, where the presenter says Dowd will sign books after the speech.

Why is Chelsea Clinton worth that much money per speech? Because people are willing to pay it.

It's not a reach to conclude that the Clinton Foundation is designed mainly for campaign purposes, be it for Hillary or one of her heirs. But hopefully Dowd knows how the game is played and is aware of how soft money is shifted around in vehicles such as think tanks:

Nowadays, many Washington think tanks effectively serve as unregistered lobbyists for corporate donors, and companies strategically contribute to them just as they hire a PR or lobby shop or make campaign donations. And unlike lobbyists and elected officials, think tanks are not subject to financial disclosure requirements, so they reveal their donors only if they choose to. That makes it impossible for the public and lawmakers to know if a think tank is putting out an impartial study or one that’s been shaped by a donor’s political agenda. “If you’re a lobbyist, whatever you say is heavily discounted,” says Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University and an expert on political ethics. “If a think tank is saying it, it obviously sounds a lot better. Maybe think tanks aren’t aware of how useful that makes them to private interests. On the other hand, maybe it’s part of their revenue model.”

Money is everywhere, and to begin and end her article concern trolling about Chelsea is just too cute.