As expected, Bill Clinton’s foundation has accepted millions of dollars from numerous governments, companies and private parties that have obvious interests in U.S. foreign policy.
How convenient for the wealthy benefactors that the former president’s beloved wife is about to become the nation’s secretary of state. The list of more than 200,000 donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation has for years been top secret, but the commander-in-chief turned philanthropist gave into Barack Obama’s condition of disclosing it before Hillary’s confirmation.
The idea, according to Camp Obama, is to eliminate any conflict of interest concerns created by an unprecedented situation; the spouse of the cabinet member in charge of foreign policy has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign interests.
The list’s disclosure doesn’t necessarily accomplish Obama’s goal, but rather accentuates that there is indeed a rather large conflict. Of the $500 million the Clinton Foundation has raised over the last decade, big chunks came from the governments of Saudi Arabia, Norway and Oman as well as a variety of shady individuals with business abroad.
Among them is a Vancouver businessman (Frank Giustra) that donated more than $31 million to Clinton’s foundation after the former president helped him seal an unheard of uranium deal with the communist dictator of a former Soviet Republic (Kazakhstan).
A Ukrainian tycoon, Victor Punchuk, who is the son-in-law of that country’s former authoritarian president (Leonid Kuchma) has also given Clinton several millions dollars as has an Israeli media mogul (Haim Saban) who donates big bucks to pro-Israel politicians. (Judicial Watch Blog, 12.18.2008) http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2008/dec/clinton-foundation-reveals-secret-donor-list