"People should and do trust me" - Hillary Clinton

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Associated Press  /  August 24, 2016

More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.

At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.

Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton's help with a visa problem and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm's corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa.

The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors.

The AP's findings represent the first systematic effort to calculate the scope of the intersecting interests of Clinton foundation donors and people who met personally with Clinton or spoke to her by phone about their needs.

The 154 did not include U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives. Clinton met with representatives of at least 16 foreign governments that donated as much as $170 million to the Clinton charity, but they were not included in AP's calculations because such meetings would presumably have been part of her diplomatic duties.

Last week, the Clinton Foundation moved to head off ethics concerns about future donations by announcing changes planned if Clinton is elected.

On Monday, Bill Clinton said in a statement that if his wife were to win, he would step down from the foundation's board and stop all fundraising for it. The foundation would also accept donations only from U.S. citizens and what it described as independent philanthropies, while no longer taking gifts from foreign groups, U.S. companies or corporate charities. Clinton said the foundation would no longer hold annual meetings of its international aid program, the Clinton Global Initiative, and it would spin off its foreign-based programs to other charities.

Those planned changes would not affect more than 6,000 donors who have already provided the Clinton charity with more than $2 billion in funding since its creation in 2000.

"There's a lot of potential conflicts and a lot of potential problems," said Douglas White, an expert on nonprofits who previously directed Columbia University's graduate fundraising management program. "The point is, she can't just walk away from these 6,000 donors."

Former senior White House ethics officials said a Clinton administration would have to take careful steps to ensure that past foundation donors would not have the same access as she allowed at the State Department.

"If Secretary Clinton puts the right people in and she's tough about it and has the right procedures in place and sends a message consistent with a strong commitment to ethics, it can be done," said Norman L. Eisen, who was President Barack Obama's top ethics counsel and later worked for Clinton as ambassador to the Czech Republic.

Eisen, now a governance studies fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that at a minimum, Clinton should retain the Obama administration's current ethics commitments and oversight, which include lobbying restrictions and other rules. Richard Painter, a former ethics adviser to President George W. Bush and currently a University of Minnesota law school professor, said Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton should remove themselves completely from foundation leadership roles, but he added that potential conflicts would shadow any policy decision affecting past donors.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon did not respond to the AP's questions about Clinton transition plans regarding ethics, but said in a statement Tuesday the standard set by the Clinton Foundation's ethics restrictions was "unprecedented, even if it may never satisfy some critics."

Some of Clinton's most influential visitors donated millions to the Clinton Foundation and to her and her husband's political coffers. They are among scores of Clinton visitors and phone contacts in her official calendar turned over by the State Department to AP last year and in more-detailed planning schedules that so far have covered about half her four-year tenure. The AP sought Clinton's calendar and schedules three years ago, but delays led the AP to sue the State Department last year in federal court for those materials and other records.

S. Daniel Abraham, whose name also was included in emails released by the State Department as part of another lawsuit, is a Clinton fundraising bundler who was listed in Clinton's planners for eight meetings with her at various times. A billionaire behind the Slim-Fast diet and founder of the Center for Middle East Peace, Abraham told the AP last year his talks with Clinton concerned Mideast issues.

Big Clinton Foundation donors with no history of political giving to the Clintons also met or talked by phone with Hillary Clinton and top aides, AP's review showed.

Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering low-interest "microcredit" for poor business owners, met with Clinton three times and talked with her by phone during a period when Bangladeshi government authorities investigated his oversight of a nonprofit bank and ultimately pressured him to resign from the bank's board. Throughout the process, he pleaded for help in messages routed to Clinton, and she ordered aides to find ways to assist him.

American affiliates of his nonprofit Grameen Bank had been working with the Clinton Foundation's Clinton Global Initiative programs as early as 2005, pledging millions of dollars in microloans for the poor. Grameen America, the bank's nonprofit U.S. flagship, which Yunus chairs, has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the foundation — a figure that bank spokeswoman Becky Asch said reflects the institution's annual fees to attend CGI meetings. Another Grameen arm chaired by Yunus, Grameen Research, has donated between $25,000 and $50,000.

As a U.S. senator from New York, Clinton, as well as then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and two other senators in 2007 sponsored a bill to award a congressional gold medal to Yunus. He got one but not until 2010, a year after Obama awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Yunus first met with Clinton in Washington in April 2009. That was followed six months later by an announcement by USAID, the State Department's foreign aid arm, that it was partnering with the Grameen Foundation, a nonprofit charity run by Yunus, in a $162 million commitment to extend its microfinance concept abroad. USAID also began providing loans and grants to the Grameen Foundation, totaling $2.2 million over Clinton's tenure.

By September 2009, Yunus began complaining to Clinton's top aides about what he perceived as poor treatment by Bangladesh's government. His bank was accused of financial mismanagement of Norwegian government aid money — a charge that Norway later dismissed as baseless. But Yunus told Melanne Verveer, a long-time Clinton aide who was an ambassador-at-large for global women's issues, that Bangladesh officials refused to meet with him and asked the State Department for help in pressing his case.

"Please see if the issues of Grameen Bank can be raised in a friendly way," he asked Verveer. Yunus sent "regards to H" and cited an upcoming Clinton Global Initiative event he planned to attend.

Clinton ordered an aide: "Give to EAP rep," referring the problem to the agency's top east Asia expert.

Yunus continued writing to Verveer as pressure mounted on his bank. In December 2010, responding to a news report that Bangladesh's prime minister was urging an investigation of Grameen Bank, Clinton told Verveer that she wanted to discuss the matter with her East Asia expert "ASAP."

Clinton called Yunus in March 2011 after the Bangladesh government opened an inquiry into his oversight of Grameen Bank. Yunus had told Verveer by email that "the situation does not allow me to leave the country." By mid-May, the Bangladesh government had forced Yunus to step down from the bank's board. Yunus sent Clinton a copy of his resignation letter. In a separate note to Verveer, Clinton wrote: "Sad indeed."

Clinton met with Yunus a second time in Washington in August 2011 and again in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka in May 2012. Clinton's arrival in Bangladesh came after Bangladesh authorities moved to seize control of Grameen Bank's effort to find new leaders. Speaking to a town hall audience, Clinton warned the Bangladesh government that "we do not want to see any action taken that would in any way undermine or interfere in the operations of the Grameen Bank."

Grameen America's Asch referred other questions about Yunus to his office, but he had not responded by Tuesday.

Earlier this month, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau acknowledged that agency officials are "regularly in touch with a range of outside individuals and organizations, including nonprofits, NGOs, think tanks and others." But Trudeau said the State Department was not aware of any actions that were influenced by the Clinton Foundation.

In another case, Clinton was host at a September 2009 breakfast meeting at the New York Stock Exchange that listed Blackstone Group chairman Stephen Schwarzman as one of the attendees. Schwarzman's firm is a major Clinton Foundation donor, but he personally donates heavily to GOP candidates and causes. One day after the breakfast, according to Clinton emails, the State Department was working on a visa issue at Schwarzman's request. In December that same year, Schwarzman's wife, Christine, sat at Clinton's table during the Kennedy Center Honors. Clinton also introduced Schwarzman, then chairman of the Kennedy Center, before he spoke.

Blackstone donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Eight Blackstone executives also gave between $375,000 and $800,000 to the foundation. And Blackstone's charitable arm has pledged millions of dollars in commitments to three Clinton Global aid projects ranging from the U.S. to the Mideast. Blackstone officials did not make Schwarzman available for comment.

Clinton also met in June 2011 with Nancy Mahon of the MAC AIDS, the charitable arm of MAC Cosmetics, which is owned by Estee Lauder. The meeting occurred before an announcement about a State Department partnership to raise money to finance AIDS education and prevention. The public-private partnership was formed to fight gender-based violence in South Africa, the State Department said at the time.

The MAC AIDS fund donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In 2008, Mahon and the MAC AIDS fund made a three-year unspecified commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. That same year, the fund partnered with two other organizations to beef up a USAID program in Malawi and Ghana. And in 2011, the fund was one of eight organizations to pledge a total of $2 million over a three-year period to help girls in southern Africa. The fund has not made a commitment to CGI since 2011.

Estee Lauder executive Fabrizio Freda also met with Clinton at the same Wall Street event attended by Schwarzman. Later that month, Freda was on a list of attendees for a meeting between Clinton and a U.S.-China trade group. Estee Lauder has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The company made a commitment to CGI in 2013 with four other organizations to help survivors of sexual slavery in Cambodia.

MAC AIDs officials did not make Mahon available to AP for comment.

When Clinton appeared before the U.S. Senate in early 2009 for her confirmation hearing as secretary of state, then- Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, questioned her at length about the foundation and potential conflicts of interest. His concerns were focused on foreign government donations, mostly to CGI. Lugar wanted more transparency than was ultimately agreed upon between the foundation and Obama's transition team.

Now, Lugar hopes Hillary and Bill Clinton make a clean break from the foundation.

"The Clintons, as they approach the presidency, if they are successful, will have to work with their attorneys to make certain that rules of the road are drawn up to give confidence to them and the American public that there will not be favoritism," Lugar said.

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New York Times

Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal

By JO BECKER and MIKE McINTIRE   APRIL 23, 2015

 

 

A Uranium One sign that points to a 35,000-acre ranch owned by John Christensen, near the town of Gillette, Wyo. Uranium One has the mining rights to Mr. Christensen’s property.

The headline on the website Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”

The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

 

Frank Giustra, right, a mining financier, has donated $31.3 million to the foundation run by former President Bill Clinton, left.

At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.

The New York Times’s examination of the Uranium One deal is based on dozens of interviews, as well as a review of public records and securities filings in Canada, Russia and the United States. Some of the connections between Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation were unearthed by Peter Schweizer, a former fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and author of the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash.” Mr. Schweizer provided a preview of material in the book to The Times, which scrutinized his information and built upon it with its own reporting.

Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown. But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed by a former president who relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250 million in assets even as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state, presiding over decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation’s donors.

In a statement, Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, said no one “has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.” He emphasized that multiple United States agencies, as well as the Canadian government, had signed off on the deal and that, in general, such matters were handled at a level below the secretary. “To suggest the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless,” he added.

American political campaigns are barred from accepting foreign donations. But foreigners may give to foundations in the United States. In the days since Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy for president, the Clinton Foundation has announced changes meant to quell longstanding concerns about potential conflicts of interest in such donations; it has limited donations from foreign governments, with many, like Russia’s, barred from giving to all but its health care initiatives. That policy stops short of a more stringent agreement between Mrs. Clinton and the Obama administration that was in effect while she was secretary of state.

Either way, the Uranium One deal highlights the limits of such prohibitions. The foundation will continue to accept contributions from foreign sources whose interests, like Uranium One’s, may overlap with those of foreign governments, some of which may be at odds with the United States.

When the Uranium One deal was approved, the geopolitical backdrop was far different from today’s. The Obama administration was seeking to “reset” strained relations with Russia. The deal was strategically important to Mr. Putin, who shortly after the Americans gave their blessing sat down for a staged interview with Rosatom’s chief executive, Sergei Kiriyenko. “Few could have imagined in the past that we would own 20 percent of U.S. reserves,” Mr. Kiriyenko told Mr. Putin.

Donations to the Clinton Foundation, and a Russian Uranium Takeover

Uranium investors gave millions to the Clinton Foundation while Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s office was involved in approving a Russian bid for mining assets in Kazakhstan and the United States.

Now, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine, the Moscow-Washington relationship is devolving toward Cold War levels, a point several experts made in evaluating a deal so beneficial to Mr. Putin, a man known to use energy resources to project power around the world.

“Should we be concerned? Absolutely,” said Michael McFaul, who served under Mrs. Clinton as the American ambassador to Russia but said he had been unaware of the Uranium One deal until asked about it. “Do we want Putin to have a monopoly on this? Of course we don’t. We don’t want to be dependent on Putin for anything in this climate.”

A Seat at the Table

The path to a Russian acquisition of American uranium deposits began in 2005 in Kazakhstan, where the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra orchestrated his first big uranium deal, with Mr. Clinton at his side.

The two men had flown aboard Mr. Giustra’s private jet to Almaty, Kazakhstan, where they dined with the authoritarian president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. Mr. Clinton handed the Kazakh president a propaganda coup when he expressed support for Mr. Nazarbayev’s bid to head an international elections monitoring group, undercutting American foreign policy and criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, his wife, then a senator.

Within days of the visit, Mr. Giustra’s fledgling company, UrAsia Energy Ltd., signed a preliminary deal giving it stakes in three uranium mines controlled by the state-run uranium agency Kazatomprom.

If the Kazakh deal was a major victory, UrAsia did not wait long before resuming the hunt. In 2007, it merged with Uranium One, a South African company with assets in Africa and Australia, in what was described as a $3.5 billion transaction. The new company, which kept the Uranium One name, was controlled by UrAsia investors including Ian Telfer, a Canadian who became chairman. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Giustra, whose personal stake in the deal was estimated at about $45 million, said he sold his stake in 2007.

Soon, Uranium One began to snap up companies with assets in the United States. In April 2007, it announced the purchase of a uranium mill in Utah and more than 38,000 acres of uranium exploration properties in four Western states, followed quickly by the acquisition of the Energy Metals Corporation and its uranium holdings in Wyoming, Texas and Utah. That deal made clear that Uranium One was intent on becoming “a powerhouse in the United States uranium sector with the potential to become the domestic supplier of choice for U.S. utilities,” the company declared.

 

Ian Telfer was chairman of Uranium One and made large donations to the Clinton Foundation.

Still, the company’s story was hardly front-page news in the United States — until early 2008, in the midst of Mrs. Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, when The Times published an article revealing the 2005 trip’s link to Mr. Giustra’s Kazakhstan mining deal. It also reported that several months later, Mr. Giustra had donated $31.3 million to Mr. Clinton’s foundation.

(In a statement issued after this article appeared online, Mr. Giustra said he was “extremely proud” of his charitable work with Mr. Clinton, and he urged the media to focus on poverty, health care and “the real challenges of the world.”)

Though the 2008 article quoted the former head of Kazatomprom, Moukhtar Dzhakishev, as saying that the deal required government approval and was discussed at a dinner with the president, Mr. Giustra insisted that it was a private transaction, with no need for Mr. Clinton’s influence with Kazakh officials. He described his relationship with Mr. Clinton as motivated solely by a shared interest in philanthropy.

As if to underscore the point, five months later Mr. Giustra held a fund-raiser for the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a project aimed at fostering progressive environmental and labor practices in the natural resources industry, to which he had pledged $100 million. The star-studded gala, at a conference center in Toronto, featured performances by Elton John and Shakira and celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Robin Williams encouraging contributions from the many so-called F.O.F.s — Friends of Frank — in attendance, among them Mr. Telfer. In all, the evening generated $16 million in pledges, according to an article in The Globe and Mail.

“None of this would have been possible if Frank Giustra didn’t have a remarkable combination of caring and modesty, of vision and energy and iron determination,” Mr. Clinton told those gathered, adding: “I love this guy, and you should, too.”

But what had been a string of successes was about to hit a speed bump.

Arrest and Progress

By June 2009, a little over a year after the star-studded evening in Toronto, Uranium One’s stock was in free-fall, down 40 percent. Mr. Dzhakishev, the head of Kazatomprom, had just been arrested on charges that he illegally sold uranium deposits to foreign companies, including at least some of those won by Mr. Giustra’s UrAsia and now owned by Uranium One.

Publicly, the company tried to reassure shareholders. Its chief executive, Jean Nortier, issued a confident statement calling the situation a “complete misunderstanding.” He also contradicted Mr. Giustra’s contention that the uranium deal had not required government blessing. “When you do a transaction in Kazakhstan, you need the government’s approval,” he said, adding that UrAsia had indeed received that approval.

 

Bill Clinton met with Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow in 2010.

But privately, Uranium One officials were worried they could lose their joint mining ventures. American diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks also reflect concerns that Mr. Dzhakishev’s arrest was part of a Russian power play for control of Kazakh uranium assets.

At the time, Russia was already eying a stake in Uranium One, Rosatom company documents show. Rosatom officials say they were seeking to acquire mines around the world because Russia lacks sufficient domestic reserves to meet its own industry needs.

It was against this backdrop that the Vancouver-based Uranium One pressed the American Embassy in Kazakhstan, as well as Canadian diplomats, to take up its cause with Kazakh officials, according to the American cables.

“We want more than a statement to the press,” Paul Clarke, a Uranium One executive vice president, told the embassy’s energy officer on June 10, the officer reported in a cable. “That is simply chitchat.” What the company needed, Mr. Clarke said, was official written confirmation that the licenses were valid.

The American Embassy ultimately reported to the secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton. Though the Clarke cable was copied to her, it was given wide circulation, and it is unclear if she would have read it; the Clinton campaign did not address questions about the cable.

What is clear is that the embassy acted, with the cables showing that the energy officer met with Kazakh officials to discuss the issue on June 10 and 11.

Three days later, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rosatom completed a deal for 17 percent of Uranium One. And within a year, the Russian government substantially upped the ante, with a generous offer to shareholders that would give it a 51 percent controlling stake. But first, Uranium One had to get the American government to sign off on the deal.

Among the Donors to the Clinton Foundation

Frank Giustra

$31.3 million and a pledge for $100 million more

He built a company that later merged with Uranium One.

Ian Telfer

$2.35 million

Mining investor who was chairman of Uranium One when an arm of the Russian government, Rosatom, acquired it.

Paul Reynolds

$1 million to $5 million

Adviser on 2007 UrAsia-Uranium One merger. Later helped raise $260 million for the company.

Frank Holmes

$250,000 to $500,000

Chief Executive of U.S. Global Investors Inc., which held $4.7 million in Uranium One shares in the first quarter of 2011.

Neil Woodyer

$50,000 to $100,000

Adviser to Uranium One. Founded Endeavour Mining with Mr. Giustra.

GMP Securities Ltd.

Donating portion of profits

Worked on debt issue that raised $260 million for Uranium One.

 

The Power to Say No

When a company controlled by the Chinese government sought a 51 percent stake in a tiny Nevada gold mining operation in 2009, it set off a secretive review process in Washington, where officials raised concerns primarily about the mine’s proximity to a military installation, but also about the potential for minerals at the site, including uranium, to come under Chinese control. The officials killed the deal.

Such is the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The committee comprises some of the most powerful members of the cabinet, including the attorney general, the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, and the secretary of state. They are charged with reviewing any deal that could result in foreign control of an American business or asset deemed important to national security.

The national security issue at stake in the Uranium One deal was not primarily about nuclear weapons proliferation; the United States and Russia had for years cooperated on that front, with Russia sending enriched fuel from decommissioned warheads to be used in American nuclear power plants in return for raw uranium.

Instead, it concerned American dependence on foreign uranium sources. While the United States gets one-fifth of its electrical power from nuclear plants, it produces only around 20 percent of the uranium it needs, and most plants have only 18 to 36 months of reserves, according to Marin Katusa, author of “The Colder War: How the Global Energy Trade Slipped From America’s Grasp.”

“The Russians are easily winning the uranium war, and nobody’s talking about it,” said Mr. Katusa, who explores the implications of the Uranium One deal in his book. “It’s not just a domestic issue but a foreign policy issue, too.”

When ARMZ, an arm of Rosatom, took its first 17 percent stake in Uranium One in 2009, the two parties signed an agreement, found in securities filings, to seek the foreign investment committee’s review. But it was the 2010 deal, giving the Russians a controlling 51 percent stake, that set off alarm bells. Four members of the House of Representatives signed a letter expressing concern. Two more began pushing legislation to kill the deal.

Senator John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, where Uranium One’s largest American operation was, wrote to President Obama, saying the deal “would give the Russian government control over a sizable portion of America’s uranium production capacity.”

 

President Putin during a meeting with Rosatom’s chief executive, Sergei Kiriyenko, in December 2007.

“Equally alarming,” Mr. Barrasso added, “this sale gives ARMZ a significant stake in uranium mines in Kazakhstan.”

Uranium One’s shareholders were also alarmed, and were “afraid of Rosatom as a Russian state giant,” Sergei Novikov, a company spokesman, recalled in an interview. He said Rosatom’s chief, Mr. Kiriyenko, sought to reassure Uranium One investors, promising that Rosatom would not break up the company and would keep the same management, including Mr. Telfer, the chairman. Another Rosatom official said publicly that it did not intend to increase its investment beyond 51 percent, and that it envisioned keeping Uranium One a public company

American nuclear officials, too, seemed eager to assuage fears. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wrote to Mr. Barrasso assuring him that American uranium would be preserved for domestic use, regardless of who owned it.

“In order to export uranium from the United States, Uranium One Inc. or ARMZ would need to apply for and obtain a specific NRC license authorizing the export of uranium for use as reactor fuel,” the letter said.

Still, the ultimate authority to approve or reject the Russian acquisition rested with the cabinet officials on the foreign investment committee, including Mrs. Clinton — whose husband was collecting millions in donations from people associated with Uranium One.

Undisclosed Donations

Before Mrs. Clinton could assume her post as secretary of state, the White House demanded that she sign a memorandum of understanding placing limits on the activities of her husband’s foundation. To avoid the perception of conflicts of interest, beyond the ban on foreign government donations, the foundation was required to publicly disclose all contributors.

To judge from those disclosures — which list the contributions in ranges rather than precise amounts — the only Uranium One official to give to the Clinton Foundation was Mr. Telfer, the chairman, and the amount was relatively small: no more than $250,000, and that was in 2007, before talk of a Rosatom deal began percolating.

 

Uranium One’s Russian takeover was approved by the United States while Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state.

But a review of tax records in Canada, where Mr. Telfer has a family charity called the Fernwood Foundation, shows that he donated millions of dollars more, during and after the critical time when the foreign investment committee was reviewing his deal with the Russians. With the Russians offering a special dividend, shareholders like Mr. Telfer stood to profit.

His donations through the Fernwood Foundation included $1 million reported in 2009, the year his company appealed to the American Embassy to help it keep its mines in Kazakhstan; $250,000 in 2010, the year the Russians sought majority control; as well as $600,000 in 2011 and $500,000 in 2012. Mr. Telfer said that his donations had nothing to do with his business dealings, and that he had never discussed Uranium One with Mr. or Mrs. Clinton. He said he had given the money because he wanted to support Mr. Giustra’s charitable endeavors with Mr. Clinton. “Frank and I have been friends and business partners for almost 20 years,” he said.

The Clinton campaign left it to the foundation to reply to questions about the Fernwood donations; the foundation did not provide a response.

Mr. Telfer’s undisclosed donations came in addition to between $1.3 million and $5.6 million in contributions, which were reported, from a constellation of people with ties to Uranium One or UrAsia, the company that originally acquired Uranium One’s most valuable asset: the Kazakh mines. Without those assets, the Russians would have had no interest in the deal: “It wasn’t the goal to buy the Wyoming mines. The goal was to acquire the Kazakh assets, which are very good,” Mr. Novikov, the Rosatom spokesman, said in an interview.

Amid this influx of Uranium One-connected money, Mr. Clinton was invited to speak in Moscow in June 2010, the same month Rosatom struck its deal for a majority stake in Uranium One.

The $500,000 fee — among Mr. Clinton’s highest — was paid by Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin that has invited world leaders, including Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, to speak at its investor conferences.

Renaissance Capital analysts talked up Uranium One’s stock, assigning it a “buy” rating and saying in a July 2010 research report that it was “the best play” in the uranium markets. In addition, Renaissance Capital turned up that same year as a major donor, along with Mr. Giustra and several companies linked to Uranium One or UrAsia, to a small medical charity in Colorado run by a friend of Mr. Giustra’s. In a newsletter to supporters, the friend credited Mr. Giustra with helping get donations from “businesses around the world.”

 

John Christensen sold the mining rights on his ranch in Wyoming to Uranium One.

Renaissance Capital would not comment on the genesis of Mr. Clinton’s speech to an audience that included leading Russian officials, or on whether it was connected to the Rosatom deal. According to a Russian government news service, Mr. Putin personally thanked Mr. Clinton for speaking.

A person with knowledge of the Clinton Foundation’s fund-raising operation, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about it, said that for many people, the hope is that money will in fact buy influence: “Why do you think they are doing it — because they love them?” But whether it actually does is another question. And in this case, there were broader geopolitical pressures that likely came into play as the United States considered whether to approve the Rosatom-Uranium One deal.

Diplomatic Considerations

If doing business with Rosatom was good for those in the Uranium One deal, engaging with Russia was also a priority of the incoming Obama administration, which was hoping for a new era of cooperation as Mr. Putin relinquished the presidency — if only for a term — to Dmitri A. Medvedev.

“The assumption was we could engage Russia to further core U.S. national security interests,” said Mr. McFaul, the former ambassador.

It started out well. The two countries made progress on nuclear proliferation issues, and expanded use of Russian territory to resupply American forces in Afghanistan. Keeping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was among the United States’ top priorities, and in June 2010 Russia signed off on a United Nations resolution imposing tough new sanctions on that country.

Two months later, the deal giving ARMZ a controlling stake in Uranium One was submitted to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for review. Because of the secrecy surrounding the process, it is hard to know whether the participants weighed the desire to improve bilateral relations against the potential risks of allowing the Russian government control over the biggest uranium producer in the United States. The deal was ultimately approved in October, following what two people involved in securing the approval said had been a relatively smooth process.

Not all of the committee’s decisions are personally debated by the agency heads themselves; in less controversial cases, deputy or assistant secretaries may sign off. But experts and former committee members say Russia’s interest in Uranium One and its American uranium reserves seemed to warrant attention at the highest levels.

 

Moukhtar Dzhakishev was arrested in 2009 while the chief of Kazatomprom.

“This deal had generated press, it had captured the attention of Congress and it was strategically important,” said Richard Russell, who served on the committee during the George W. Bush administration. “When I was there invariably any one of those conditions would cause this to get pushed way up the chain, and here you had all three.”

And Mrs. Clinton brought a reputation for hawkishness to the process; as a senator, she was a vocal critic of the committee’s approval of a deal that would have transferred the management of major American seaports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates, and as a presidential candidate she had advocated legislation to strengthen the process.

The Clinton campaign spokesman, Mr. Fallon, said that in general, these matters did not rise to the secretary’s level. He would not comment on whether Mrs. Clinton had been briefed on the matter, but he gave The Times a statement from the former assistant secretary assigned to the foreign investment committee at the time, Jose Fernandez. While not addressing the specifics of the Uranium One deal, Mr. Fernandez said, “Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any C.F.I.U.S. matter.”

Mr. Fallon also noted that if any agency had raised national security concerns about the Uranium One deal, it could have taken them directly to the president.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, the State Department’s director of policy planning at the time, said she was unaware of the transaction — or the extent to which it made Russia a dominant uranium supplier. But speaking generally, she urged caution in evaluating its wisdom in hindsight.

“Russia was not a country we took lightly at the time or thought was cuddly,” she said. “But it wasn’t the adversary it is today.”

That renewed adversarial relationship has raised concerns about European dependency on Russian energy resources, including nuclear fuel. The unease reaches beyond diplomatic circles. In Wyoming, where Uranium One equipment is scattered across his 35,000-acre ranch, John Christensen is frustrated that repeated changes in corporate ownership over the years led to French, South African, Canadian and, finally, Russian control over mining rights on his property.

“I hate to see a foreign government own mining rights here in the United States,” he said. “I don’t think that should happen.”

Mr. Christensen, 65, noted that despite assurances by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that uranium could not leave the country without Uranium One or ARMZ obtaining an export license — which they do not have — yellowcake from his property was routinely packed into drums and trucked off to a processing plant in Canada.

Asked about that, the commission confirmed that Uranium One has, in fact, shipped yellowcake to Canada even though it does not have an export license. Instead, the transport company doing the shipping, RSB Logistic Services, has the license. A commission spokesman said that “to the best of our knowledge” most of the uranium sent to Canada for processing was returned for use in the United States. A Uranium One spokeswoman, Donna Wichers, said 25 percent had gone to Western Europe and Japan. At the moment, with the uranium market in a downturn, nothing is being shipped from the Wyoming mines.

The “no export” assurance given at the time of the Rosatom deal is not the only one that turned out to be less than it seemed. Despite pledges to the contrary, Uranium One was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange and taken private. As of 2013, Rosatom’s subsidiary, ARMZ, owned 100 percent of it.

Correction: April 23, 2015

An earlier version of this article misstated, in one instance, the surname of a fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is Peter Schweizer, not Schweitzer.

An earlier version also incorrectly described the Clinton Foundation’s agreement with the Obama administration regarding foreign-government donations while Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state. Under the agreement, the foundation would not accept new donations from foreign governments, though it could seek State Department waivers in specific cases. It was not barred from accepting all foreign-government donations.

Correction: April 30, 2015
An article on Friday about contributions to the Clinton Foundation from people associated with a Canadian uranium-mining company described incorrectly the foundation’s agreement with the Obama administration regarding foreign-government donations while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Under the agreement, the foundation would not accept new donations from foreign governments, though it could seek State Department waivers in specific cases. The foundation was not barred from accepting all foreign-government donations.

Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting. Sarah Cohen contributed research.

[kscarbel2]

WikiLeaks to release 'significant' Clinton campaign data

Reuters  /  August 24, 2016

WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange said on Wednesday his organization planned to release "significant" information linked to the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton before the Nov. 8 election.

Asked if the data could be a game-changer in the election, the Assange said, "I think it’s significant. You know, it depends on how it catches fire in the public and in the media.”

WikiLeaks released files in July of what it said were audio recordings pulled from the emails of the Democratic National Committee that were obtained by hacking its servers.

That release, during the Democratic National Convention where Clinton was officially named the party's presidential nominee, was the second batch in a series that deeply rattled the party and prompted the committee's chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to step down.

"I don’t want to give the game away, but it’s a variety of documents, from different types of institutions that are associated with the election campaign, some quite unexpected angles, some quite interesting, some even entertaining," Assange said when asked how the next revelations would compare with those in July.

[kscarbel2]

Chelsea Clinton Plans to Stay on Board of Family Foundation

The Wall Street Journal  /  August 24, 2016

The Clinton Foundation is considering exceptions to its plan to stop accepting corporate and foreign donations and reduce family involvement as a way to insulate Hillary Clinton from potential conflicts of interest if elected president.

As recently as this summer, the foundation was discussing with some allies plans for Chelsea Clinton to leave the board, along with former President Bill Clinton, if Mrs. Clinton should win. But on Wednesday, foundation spokesman Craig Minassian said Chelsea Clinton plans to stay on the board. Mr. Clinton told donors he still plans to leave.

While the parent Clinton Foundation will stop accepting money from foreign governments and corporations, the foundation’s largest project, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, might continue to accept foreign government and corporate funding, Clinton health initiative officials said Wednesday.

The moves are unlikely to appease critics who say the family should sever itself entirely to inoculate Mrs. Clinton from appearances of conflicts. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has ramped up his criticism of the Clinton Foundation in the past few days, accusing the Clintons of running a “pay for play” operation that grants political access to donors.

Mr. Clinton, speaking to reporters Wednesday, defended the foundation’s work. “If there is something wrong with creating jobs and saving lives, I don’t know what it is,” he said.

Mr. Clinton launched the foundation after leaving the White House in 2001. It has raised as much as $2 billion, mostly from corporations, wealthy donors, governments and other foundations. Its latest tax return showed it raised $338 million in 2014 and spent $250 million that year.

The foundation’s aim is to form partnerships between governments, companies and other nonprofits to tackle projects that focus mostly on climate change, economic development, global health and opportunities for women and girls.

A spokeswoman for Chelsea Clinton said she plans to remain on the board because she “is committed to ensuring that those benefiting from the foundation’s work will be able to continue receiving that often life-changing help.” Left unclear was whether she would continue to raise money for the foundation, which would be scaled back significantly if Hillary Clinton wins in November. A statement from the spokeswoman said Chelsea Clinton was remaining on the board to “steward the implementation of changes,” including “new fundraising policies.”

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, which is run by longtime Clinton associate Ira Magaziner, hasn’t decided whether it will participate in the ban on foreign government and corporate gifts, a spokeswoman for the Clinton health program said. The health initiative, which has its own board of directors, will convene the board soon to decide its next steps, the spokeswoman said.

The health initiative relies heavily on government donations to fund its public health programs. The possible exception to the new ethics rules was previously reported by the Boston Globe.

Bill Clinton plans to resign from the health initiative’s board if his wife is elected, but it isn’t clear whether Chelsea plans to do so.

Last year, when facing criticism for foreign government donations, the Clinton Foundation said it would restrict donations to six Western countries. However, the Clinton Health Access Initiative adopted a more lenient policy that could potentially permit any foreign government to donate.

News of Chelsea Clinton’s plans, which NPR reported on Tuesday, is likely to intensify concerns about the potential for conflicts of interest if her mother wins the White House. Critics have raised questions about whether donors to the Clinton Foundation received special access at the State Department.

Ray Madoff, a Boston College Law School professor and director of the Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good, said ordinarily it might make sense for Chelsea to remain on the board. However, in this case, it is complicated by its history.

“The Clinton Foundation has been way too inattentive to the appearance of impropriety,” she said. “Chelsea clearly has access to her parents so the appearance of impropriety continues.”

Ms. Madoff added, “If the Clintons didn’t have this ongoing problem, then it is a more difficult case. After all, Chelsea is a working adult and it makes sense that she would work on the Clinton Foundation.”

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said the exceptions demonstrate that the new policies are merely “window dressing.”

An Associated Press report Tuesday based on a partial release of State Department calendars showed that at least 85 of 154 people outside government who met or spoke on the phone with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state donated up to $156 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Mr. Trump is himself a donor to the Clinton Foundation, having given between $100,000 and $250,000, according to the organization’s disclosures. His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said in a CNN interview Tuesday that Mr. Trump’s donations weren’t a bid for access to the former secretary of state, and she praised the foundation’s efforts. “The Clinton Foundation does a lot of good work,” Ms. Conway said.

Mr. Clinton told supporters in a letter sent Monday he would resign from the board and stop raising money for the foundation and that he and Chelsea had decided the foundation would “raise money only from U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and U.S.-based independent foundations.” Foreign government and corporate gifts, which have raised ethical questions in the past, wouldn’t be accepted.

The purpose of these changes, Mr. Clinton said, was to eliminate “legitimate concerns about potential conflicts of interest.” Mr. Clinton also said that while leaving the board, “I will continue to support the work of the foundation.”

People who have been briefed on the foundation’s plans said that the organization and Chelsea Clinton don’t intend to say whether she would raise money for the foundation until after the election. “They don’t think it makes sense to decide right now,” one person familiar with the plans told The Wall Street Journal.

As recently as earlier this month, friends of the foundation told the Journal that there were plans for both Bill and Chelsea Clinton to stop fundraising. Those plans remain under discussion, however, and no final decisions have been made or announced.

Mr. Clinton also said the foundation is changing its name from the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation back to the Clinton Foundation. The name changed when Mrs. Clinton left the State Department and began raising money for the foundation in the period before she launched her presidential bid.

Bill Clinton told staff in a meeting on Friday that the foundation would discontinue, after this year, one of its signature events—the Clinton Global Initiative. Next month’s annual meeting, the 12th Clinton Global Initiative, aims to draw commitments from corporations, philanthropies and others to seek to remedy global problems such as poverty and AIDS.

Before the 2016 election, Bill and Hillary Clinton had collected $250 million in pledges for an endowment intended to secure the foundation’s financing in the future. That fund is managed by Summit Rock Advisors, where Nicole Fox, Chelsea Clinton’s maid of honor at her wedding, is managing director. Ms. Fox’s husband, Michael Fox, was managing director of Chelsea’s husband’s investment firm.

Summit Rock and Mr. and Ms. Fox declined to comment.

A foundation official said Summit Rock was “one of the most respected firms” and was selected from among 13 fund managers that had submitted proposals.

The official added that it is customary for foundations to continue to raise money even after they have amassed sizable endowments.

[HeavyGunner]

The Clinton machine at work again, I guess we're only allowed to speculate on the things they approve of.

Dr. Drew’ show canceled days after his negative speculation about Hillary Clinton’s health - The Washington Post
https://apple.news/Au1wAR6mYRH6qioyz-jZtdw 

[kscarbel2]

Fundraising drive underlines Clinton’s reliance on wealthy backers

The Financial Times  /  August 31, 2016

It was a typically lazy August day on the holiday island of Martha’s Vineyard. Children were playing by the ocean, families were dining by the waterfront, and President Barack Obama and his family were enjoying the penultimate day of their holiday and relaxing on the beach. Lazy, that is, for everyone except Hillary Clinton.

Following a quick stop on neighbouring Nantucket, the Democratic presidential candidate was barrelling across the island in a motorcade as she made her way from one event to the next — a one-woman, selfie-taking, fundraising machine.

It was one part of a multi-stop tour that has taken her to wealthy enclaves across the country. In the 10 days to August 30, Mrs Clinton devoted seven full days to the endeavour, attending 20 separate events, some yielding seven-figure sums in two-hour windows.

In the final days of summer, Mrs Clinton is racing to raise the $1bn her advisers say she needs to defeat Donald Trump in November’s election, an amount comparable to what Mr Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney each raised in the 2012 contest.

Dennis Cheng, Mrs Clinton’s finance director, told campaign staff this month that they were halfway towards meeting their target, the Associated Press reported.

Building on the successful grass roots tactics used by primary rival Bernie Sanders, the Clinton campaign has stepped up its campaign to attract money from small donors, sending daily emails to supporters in recent days warning that the campaign was not “hitting [its] goals” in August.

The Clinton camp is keen to stress that the average donation size in July was just $44. But the whistle-stop tour of wealthy Martha’s Vineyard and the other big-name fundraisers underline how Mrs Clinton continues to rely heavily on establishment Democratic donors from the financial, technology and entertainment industries.

In California, she visited the home of Earvin “Magic” Johnson, the former basketball star, and his wife Cookie, before dropping in at the Hollywood mansion of celebrity couple Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake, who at a 100-person event complete with a photo booth raised more than $3.3m.

Later, a select group of about 20 guests paid more than $200,000 each to dine with Mrs Clinton at the home of Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. On Nantucket, they paid up to $27,000 to nibble on hors d'oeuvres at Innisfree, the estate owned by Elizabeth Bagley, the former US ambassador to Portugal.

By contrast Mr Trump has attended just a handful of fundraising events so far, despite raising $80m in July — only $10m less than Mrs Clinton. 

Unlike Mrs Clinton’s, Mr Trump’s campaign has not given details of his fundraising schedule. It is known that he attended an event at the Cape Cod home of Bill Koch, the billionaire businessman. (Mr Koch’s better-known brothers Charles and David have declined to endorse the candidate.) While Mr Trump was set to hold a fundraiser in Rhode Island this week, that event was cancelled, the Providence Journal reported. 

This lack of fundraisers has freed Mr Trump up to spend more time on the campaign trail, including recent appearances in Florida, Ohio and Mississippi. Mrs Clinton, by contrast, hosted just one public campaign rally between August 18 and 30.

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, chief executive of E.L. Rothschild and a prominent Clinton donor, said it was unfair to criticise Mrs Clinton for her use of high-end fundraisers, especially as the Democratic candidate was a vocal critic of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which overturned campaign financing limits. 

“She has to raise the money that is necessary in this environment, until Citizens United is repealed and there’s the comprehensive campaign finance reform that Hillary has promised. You have to play by the rules and excel on every level. And one level is fundraising,” Lady de Rothschild said.

Mr Trump, she claimed, would have adopted a similar tactic had he been more successful in wooing wealthy donors. “He doesn’t have the kind of supporters that she has. He would have fundraisers all day long if he could fill a room,” she added.

Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, a Democratic think-tank, said Mrs Clinton was following a path well trodden by previous presidential nominees, both Democratic and Republican.

“This [fundraising] is what you do in August. Voters aren’t paying attention. They're not watching television, they’re not going to rallies, they're not thinking about politics. And all your donors cluster in places that are easy to access, like The Hamptons,” Mr Bennett said.

The Hamptons is where Mrs Clinton has spent the past few days, attending six different fundraisers on Sunday and Monday, pulling in an estimated $14 million.

On Tuesday evening, she appeared at another Hamptons fundraiser, this one at the home of singer Jimmy Buffett, where VIP tickets, including premium seating and a private reception with the presidential candidate, cost $100,000 a piece. Jon Bon Jovi and Paul McCartney both gave performances.

According to one former aid, this week could be the last chance for Mrs Clinton to meet en-masse with rich donors before the campaign really kicks off following September’s Labor Day holiday. “It is a lot harder to do that after Labor Day when [the candidates] actually have to go to real places,” he quipped.

.

[41chevy]

I assume a large part of the monies raised will be to buy off pay off the psychologists she needs to review Trumps past 40 years to find his "trigger points' for a melt down at the debate.

Seeing as she apparently has nothing else in her arsenal like a plan for jobs, immigrants, taxes and such. (well she does have a tax plan. . . raise them) Seems it will be Bills plan to "Homestead the Syrian refuges" in Detroit and Chicago giving them 10,000 +  abandoned houses and cash grants to rebuild them into new vibrant neighborhoods.

[kscarbel2]

Some celebrities have bad taste in politicians. One wonders what the potential paybacks are.

I note they continually appear to be holding Hillary up.

[kscarbel2]

The Emerging Clinton Doctrine?

The National Interest  /  September 1, 2016

Hillary Clinton enjoys a long record on foreign policy as a senator, a presidential candidate in 2008, and a secretary of state during the first term of the Barack Obama administration. Now, as the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, she is articulating a revised foreign policy doctrine, one which both builds on her previous views and incorporates adjustments made during the current campaign.

This electoral season has already demonstrated that in this era of globalization, international issues—trade, terrorism, immigration and others—often shape domestic politics in a decisive fashion. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders upended the expectations of the political establishment by recognizing in a profound way how large segments of Americans perceive these questions. Clinton has had to adapt in response. She has thus arrived at a doctrine composed of the following elements:

U.S. Global leadership. Particularly since 9/11, Clinton has been a centrist on foreign policy, taking positions to the right of President Obama. Clinton believes that international stability and progress require the United States to lead, sometimes echoing the sentiments of her husband who in his second Inaugural Address famously described the U.S. as standing alone “as the world’s indispensable nation.” She has been unequivocal in articulating support for the U.S.-led alliance structures in Europe and East Asia formed after World War II and her belief America has a central role in catalyzing progress on major global issues like climate change. She views the alliances with developed democracies as the foundation for projecting American influence, which she sees as a positive force in the world. She has remained true to this liberal-internationalist credo during the campaign.

Globalist agenda. Clinton remains loyal to Obama’s policies of global economic integration. She continues to defend expanded free trade in principle, though under the current campaign’s political pressure she has pulled back on support for the Trans Pacific Partnership and equivocated in her views on the North American Free Trade Agreement. As secretary of state, she was an advocate of larger development-assistance budgets. Her support of the Obama climate-change agreements means she is willing to see Americans bear a disproportionate economic burden, at least in the near term, to address this threat. Her advocacy of the military intervention in Libya demonstrates a willingness to wage a war for humanitarian objectives, detached from a direct connection to U.S. security and economic interests. She also believes in the use of military to achieve diplomatic goals.

Support for a permissive immigration regime. Clinton’s support for legalization of illegal immigrants, both those who crossed borders illegally and those who overstayed visas, is not paired with proposals to enhance security at the border or in the visa process. Her campaign talking points say little about immigration enforcement, and she endorses Obama’s executive actions to limit the scope of deportations. She also advocates allowing 65,000 Syrian refugees into the United States and is silent on how to respond to potential large-scale movements of migrants in the future. What she calls her comprehensive immigration-reform program focuses almost exclusively on legalization and citizenship for illegal immigrants, although she does (like President Obama), favor expelling those who have committed crimes.

Engagement with great and adversarial powers. As Obama’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton embraced and implemented a national security strategy including engagement with adversaries and hostile powers. She designed the “reset” with a Russia led by President Dmitry Medvedev, which entailed early concessions on missile defense in Europe and in the New START agreement. These concessions went largely unrequited as President Vladimir Putin later adopted aggressive policies toward Ukraine. She sought a “new kind of great power relations” with China, even soft pedaling U.S. human rights concerns. China’s assertiveness in the East and South China Seas, limited response on North Korea’s nuclear program, cyber espionage and intellectual property theft, and economic mercantilism remained unresolved. Regarding Iran, Clinton supports the nuclear agreement, with its uneven verification provisions and restrictions on enrichment activities that lapse over time. While she continues to describe China as part friend and part adversary, she has taken a hard confrontational line against Putin’s Russia, including calls to provide lethal military assistance to Ukraine.

Confronting radical Islamism and terror. When I served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, I met Hillary Clinton as part of congressional delegations. She showed a sophisticated understanding of the issues and a genuine passion for the risks to the Afghan people, and particularly Afghan women, if the Taliban and other extremists came to power. Yet, as part of the Obama administration, she was unwilling to speak of the threat of radical Islamist movements in those terms. Her efforts at State—programs designed to “counter violent extremism”—did not explicitly address the radical Islamist challenge. Nor did they amount to a sufficiently robust approach to countering extremists ideologically. Now, she is talking about Islamic extremism but she has not yet outlined a strategy for confronting this challenge beyond emphasizing the need for an intelligence surge and defeating ISIS. Important questions remain unaddressed, such as what to do with states that support extremism and terror like Pakistan, how to end the Iraqi and Syrian civil wars that feed extremism and terror, how to nurture improved relations between the Sunni Arab states and Israel because of their common opposition to ISIS and Iran, and how to strengthen ties with traditional allies and quell regional rivalry and proxy warfare between regional powers in the Middle East.

Skeptical on nation building. While Clinton supported the use of force to topple regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, she has not taken a clear stand on what is needed in the post-conflict phase. In Afghanistan she supported an enduring commitment and programs for state building. In Iraq, she ultimately went along with Obama’s decision to disengage from Iraq against the advice of top military leaders, which combined with the civil war in Syria contributed to rise to the Islamic State. As the driver of the Libya operation, she undertook no effective measures for reconstituting the political order and security after Qaddafi, resulting in Somalia-like chaos. Even President Obama has conceded that this was a mistake. In Syria, she urged an incremental increase in involvement through arming proxies and air strikes but without developing a campaign plan and identifying the needed resources to achieve a reasonable end state. As a result, unsuccessful U.S. interventions in Libya and Syria have damaged our prestige and left swaths of the region in turmoil, with important effects on the region and beyond—increased terror and extremist problems in Europe and enhanced Russian role in the region.

Given the unpopularity of nation building among the American public and the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, comprehensive large-scale nation building effort are unlikely for the foreseeable future. But there is a need for state building in post-conflict areas if are to avoid the need for U.S. occupation and control of those territories or the rise of new terrorist groups. Assisting in institution building is best done multilaterally, with the U.S. playing a leading role. Clinton has not expressed herself on this issue—and is unlikely to do so because she may not see any political upside to it.

Status quo on defense spending and forces. Clinton stresses the value of “smart power,” which calls for diminished reliance on military hard power and greater use of political and economic soft power. This was appealing during the unipolar moment of American power in the 1990s. However, is it the right mix and do we have the right force structure for the coming years given the rising challenges of today’s world, which is seeing the adoption of adversarial strategies and the development of increased military capabilities by Russia and China and a number of regional powers?

Clinton’s support for the architecture of U.S. commitments in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East is encouraging because she understands that the U.S. role in the world has produced a prolonged period of great power peace. She sees the unique ability of the United States to unite and lead the world’s democratic powers and that the U.S. role as the ultimate guarantor of the balance of power in key regions is crucial to maintaining peace.

Nevertheless, the shifts in her policies, partly to remain loyal to Obama and partly to attract Sanders supporters, have created a gap between her goals and aspirations and the means she advocates to achieve them. This gap was evident when she called for military intervention in Libya without state building even if on smaller scale than Afghanistan and Iraq. It is evident now as she temporizes about the ideological component in the fight against radical Islam, and fails to address the need for stepping up defense and international affairs spending. She embraces ambitious goals but is unwilling to accept the need for the required means. In practice, this means her policies may be inadequately resourced and consequently fall short of the mark.

Clinton faces a difficult challenge: the globalist agenda is out of step with significant portions of both political parties. She is now defensive on free trade, and has not found a way to articulate how, if elected, she would counter mercantilist trade practices and currency manipulators. Without such a balance, she would risk further deepening the disillusionment with trade among a large segment of the American people. The need for her to articulate an approach to leveling the playing field in trade remains.

Clinton’s support for liberal immigration policies will be divisive absent an explanation of how the continued arrival of low-skilled illegal immigrants will not put further pressure on wages at the lower end of the economy. Many Americans are angry that establishment figures advocate a repeat of the failures of the 1986 immigration reform, which gave legal status to millions of illegal immigrants but failed to deliver on the promise to secure the border. Persuading Congress to go along with her current immigration proposals appears problematic. And there is a need to articulate for America and perhaps more broadly the limits of the American capacity to absorb newcomers in an age when mass migration threatens to overwhelm even the wealthy countries of Europe.

Clinton’s current vision for how to deal with major adversarial powers needs greater clarity. The “reset” with Russia appeared to make Putin less risk averse. The “pivot to Asia” was widely perceived as implying pivoting away from Europe and the Middle East and allowing a freer hand to Russia and Iran.

For Clinton, the question is what comes next. How will she restore deterrence and check the increasingly assertive policies of Russia, China and Iran? How would she balance engagement and containment? How can we rebuild confidence in U.S. commitments when many leaders, especially in the Middle East, believe the current administration at times puts placating adversaries ahead of the interests of our allies and friends?

On defeating radical Islam, Clinton has not outlined or explained how she would mobilize our greatest allies in the fight—the many millions of Muslims abroad who oppose extremism and who wish to make common cause with us. She may need to adjust her approach and speak more forcefully and directly about the threat of radical Islamists and set forth a strategy for mobilizing and working with our allies in Muslim-majority countries.

It is questionable that the ambitious national-security agenda Clinton has put forward can be pursued successfully with the current means. The risk of a gap between ends and means on defense and international-affairs spending exists, and she needs to address it. The gap can be closed either by a diplomatic accommodation with China and/or Russia or by specifying what added resources would be needed to deter or counter their aggressive actions. However, to date she has not endorsed either approach. If she opts for countering adversarial powers, she needs to support spending at the levels of the last defense program set forth by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. However, she should do even more to explain what it takes to provide the capabilities needed to ensure deterrence and stability in a world of rising threats.

Her domestic policies should be judged in part whether they would strengthen the economic underpinnings of U.S. power. Slow economic growth and continued growth in entitlement and domestic discretionary spending threatens to reduce the resources needed to implement an ambitious foreign policy. Clinton should do more to address this vital issue.

A final issue in Clinton’s advocacy of globalism is its inadequate differentiation between those things we must do—and those we would like to do. We are in an era of constrained resources. Demands at home to jumpstart our economy means some things we would like to do abroad are beyond our means. In this sense, globalism, as a paradigm, is too unselective and undiscriminating. It commits the United States to engage and devote resources to issues that are peripheral, not essential, interests. It further risks frittering away U.S. power at a moment when it must be preserved to address graver security issues.

Clinton’s campaign thus leaves important questions unanswered. Is she the centrist Clinton of her days in the Senate and her first run for president? Is she a disciple of President Obama, with his reticent view about the American role in the world?

Or is she to the left of President Obama, rejecting his trade agreements, and concerned most with placating Sanders supporters? A great deal rides on the nature of Clinton’s evolving foreign-policy doctrine. It is a test of her leadership to articulate where she stands and persuade the American people of the wisdom of that course.

This is the second in a series of articles on foreign policy in 2016 by Ambassador Khalilzad. The first essay, “The Emerging Trump Doctrine?”, appeared in July; a third, on whether a bipartisan foreign-policy consensus is still possible, will come out closer to the election.

Zalmay Khalilzad is a Counselor at CSIS. He was the US Ambassador in Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN.

[kscarbel2]

Clinton had no concerns on emails’ sensitivity, says FBI

The Financial Times  /  September 2, 2016

Hillary Clinton said she did not have any concerns about the sensitivity of emails sent to her private email system and did not recall anyone raising legal questions about its existence, according to the FBI.

On Friday the FBI disclosed Mrs Clinton’s comments by releasing two documents from its investigation into her use of a personal email server — a summary of the probe and notes on its interview with the Democratic presidential candidate.

Republicans said the documents underscored Mrs Clinton’s “reckless” handling of classified information when she was secretary of state, an issue that has dogged her campaign and fuelled concern among Democrats that she is seen as untrustworthy.

“Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system,” said the FBI report on its interview with the candidate on July 2, 2016.

“She relied on State [department] officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address.”

The FBI’s investigation is now closed. On July 5 James Comey, the bureau’s director, issued a harsh verdict on the way Mrs Clinton handled secret information over email, but said he would not push for a prosecution because there was no evidence that she “intended to violate laws”. The Department of Justice then opted not to prosecute her.

Mrs Clinton has previously defended her actions by saying that while she received emails she never herself emailed any information that had been marked “classified”.

The FBI’s summary of its investigation said that intelligence agencies had identified 81 email chains on Mrs Clinton’s unclassified server that contained information ranging from confidential to top secret at the time they were sent between 2009 and 2013.

It said it found no evidence of Mrs Clinton’s email being compromised by cyber hackers, but it did find that “hostile foreign actors” had obtained emails she sent or received by gaining access to the personal email accounts of people with whom she was in regular contact.

From Donald Trump’s campaign, Jason Miller, senior communications adviser, said: “Hillary Clinton is applying for a job that begins each day with a Top Secret intelligence briefing, and the notes from her FBI interview reinforce her tremendously bad judgment and dishonesty.”

“Clinton’s reckless conduct and dishonest attempts to avoid accountability show she cannot be trusted with the presidency and its chief obligation as commander-in-chief of the US armed forces.”

One partially redacted section of the interview with Mrs Clinton refers to the way targets are nominated for drone strikes, an indication that some of the emails addressed that issue.

“Clinton stated deliberation over a future drone strike did not give her cause for concern regarding classification,” the document said. “Clinton understood this type of conversation as part of the routine deliberation process. Moreover, she recalled many conversations about future strikes that never occurred.”

Mrs Clinton repeatedly told the FBI that she did not know much about the email server in the basement of the Clinton family home in Chappaqua, New York.

“Clinton was not aware of the specific details regarding the hardware, software, or security of the server hosting clintonemail.com,” the FBI said.

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “Clinton’s answers either show she is completely incompetent or blatantly lied to the FBI or the public. Either way it’s clear that, through her own actions, she has disqualified herself from the presidency.”

The interview report runs to 11 pages and the summary of the investigation is 47 pages long, although 14 of them are fully redacted in the version released on Friday.

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FBI releases Hillary Clinton email report

CNN  /  September 2, 2016

Hillary Clinton repeatedly told the FBI she couldn't recall key details and events related to classified information procedures, according to notes the bureau released Friday of its July interview with the Democratic presidential nominee, along with a report on its investigation into her private email server.

Clinton told the FBI she "could not recall any briefing or training by State related to the retention of federal records or handling classified information," according to the bureau's notes of their interview with Clinton. The documents indicate Clinton told investigators she either does not "recall" or "remember" at least 39 times — often in response to questions about process, potential training or the content of specific emails.

Much of the report reiterated what FBI Director James Comey testified in open hearings before Congress, including that more than six dozen email chains contained classified information at the time they were sent and that there appeared to have been hacking attempts on her server, though there is no evidence they were successful. Still, the report added fuel to the criticisms of Clinton and the narrative that her team acted "extremely careless," as Comey said.

GOP nominee Donald Trump and other Republicans have stepped up their attacks connecting the emails to questions over whether Clinton gave preferential treatment to donors to her family's foundation. The release of the documents Friday comes as Clinton's lead over Trump has been cut in half since her post-convention bounce last month, according to CNN's Poll of Polls released Thursday.

The bureau is making the information public in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, including from CNN.

"Today the FBI is releasing a summary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's July 2, 2016 interview with the FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal e-mail server she used during her tenure," the agency said in a statement. "We also are releasing a factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter."

Presidential campaign ramifications

The publication of the FBI report is likely to give a new burst of political life to the controversy over Clinton's private server.

The episode plays directly into Republican claims that Clinton is dishonest, abhors transparency and lacks the ethical standards required of someone who sits in the Oval Office. It also allows Trump's campaign to suggest to voters that they will be setting up a repeat of the cycle of scandals, controversy, and investigations that dragged on through the entire presidency of Bill Clinton and which tainted Hillary Clinton at the same time.

"Hillary Clinton's answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief," Trump said in a statement. "I was absolutely shocked to see that her answers to the FBI stood in direct contradiction to what she told the American people. After reading these documents, I really don't understand how she was able to get away from prosecution."

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, meanwhile, called the release a "devastating indictment" of Clinton's honesty and judgment.

Clinton's campaign, however, said it was "pleased" by the release.

"While her use of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the Justice Department believed there was no basis to move forward with this case," Clinton's national press secretary Brian Fallon said in a statement.

'Oh s***'

The FBI report also provided detail on mass deletions of Clinton's email server by the company maintaining her server, Platte River Networks, after the existence of it came to light.

According to the investigation report, top Clinton adviser Cheryl Mills told a PRN worker whose name was redacted in December 2014 that Clinton wanted her email to only be retained for 60 days, and instructed him to reset the retention policy on her email account.

But the individual told the FBI he realized that he had failed to do so until after The New York Times published its bombshell story revealing Clinton's private server and email use, prompting an "'oh s***' moment."

"In a follow-up FBI interview on May 3, 2016, (name redacted) indicated he believed he had an 'oh s***' moment and sometime between March 25-31, 2015, deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN server and used BleachBit to delete the exported .PST files he had created on the server system containing Clinton's emails," the report stated.

The mass deletion occurred after the March 2, 2015, Times story and after a March 3, 2015, preservation order from the House Benghazi Committee to retain and produce documents related to her email accounts.

Mills had sent this request to PRN and this individual on March 9, 2015, and under repeat questioning by the FBI, the individual admitted he was aware that the request existed and meant he shouldn't disturb the files on PRN's server.

Both Mills and Clinton told the FBI they were not aware of the mass deletion that March.

Colin Powell

One of the findings revealed in the report is that former Secretary of State Colin Powell "warned" Clinton that her emails could become government record in 2009.

According to the report summarizing the FBI's investigation, Clinton emailed Powell just after inauguration in 2009 about his use of a BlackBerry as secretary of state.

"Powell warned Clinton that if it became 'public' that Clinton had a BlackBerry, and she used it to 'do business,' her emails could become 'official record(s) and subject to the law,'" the report stated. "Powell further advised Clinton, 'Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.'"

But the FBI said Clinton described her understanding of Powell's comments as saying that work-related emails would be official record, adding "Powell's comments did not factor into her decision to use a personal email account."

Before it became public, interest in the contents of the report had intensified after it was reported that Clinton told the FBI a conversation with Powell recommending she use private email helped convince her to do so.

Powell repudiated the idea that he shares any responsibility for her choice in the following days, however, and Clinton told CNN's Anderson Cooper last month that she takes full responsibility.

"I've been asked many, many questions in the past year about emails. And what I've learned is that when I try to explain what happened it can sound like I'm trying to excuse what I did," she told CNN. "And there are no excuses. I want people to know that the decision to have a single e- mail account was mine. I take responsibility for it. I've apologized for it. I would certainly do differently if I could."

Powell rejects Clinton email defense

Use of mobile devices

The report also described the way Clinton used her BlackBerry mobile devices. Clinton has cited her desire to use a single BlackBerry as part of her motivation to use a personal email address.

Clinton's aide Huma Abedin told the FBI that Clinton often would use a new BlackBerry for a few days before returning to an older model because of her familiarity, according to the report.

The FBI found that 13 different mobile devices were used with her two known phone numbers, and thus may have sent emails with her private account.

After Clinton switched to a new device, the previous incarnation would often disappear, and a former Bill Clinton aide, Justin Cooper, said he could recall two times he destroyed the old device either by breaking it in half or hitting it with a hammer.

The findings also noted that Clinton stored her BlackBerry in a desk drawer in her office, which was not authorized. Her office was in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), and thus the use of mobile devices in the office was prohibited.

The former Assistant Secretary of State for State Diplomatic Security Service Eric Boswell told the FBI that he "never received any complaints about Clinton using her personal BlackBerry inside the SCIF."

According to Abedin, Cooper and another person whose name was redacted from the report, there were personally owned desktop computers in the SCIFs in Clinton's homes in Washington and Chappaqua, New York. Clinton had stated to the FBI she did not have a computer of any kind in the SCIFs in her residences. Abedin and Clinton said the former secretary of state did not use a computer and primarily used her BlackBerry or iPad for checking emails.

Handing of classified information

The notes revealed that Clinton relied heavily on her staff and aides to determine what was classified information and how it should be handled.

"Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system," the FBI notes said. "She relied on State official to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address."

Clinton was also asked about the (C) markings within several documents that James Comey testified before Congress represented classified information. The emails that were sent and received from her server containing these markings became the subject of intense debate on the Hill, as her critics seized on them as evidence that she mishandled information.

But Clinton told the FBI she was unaware of what the marking meant.

"Clinton stated she did not know and could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order," the interview notes stated.

The former secretary of state said she did understand when an email was marked "confidential" at the top, and "asked the interviewing agents if that was what 'c' referenced," according to the notes. The confidential label had been placed there by the FBI after the fact.

She also said she didn't "pay attention to the 'level' of classified information and took all classified information seriously."

The interview also addressed a 2011 email in which Clinton said she hadn't received talking points from her aide, Jake Sullivan. He responded that there were issues sending the document through secure fax.

"If they can't," Clinton replies, "turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."

That email had been the fuel behind speculation that Cilnton had demanded her aide send classified information through a nonsecure channel by removing markings. But Clinton told the FBI that she understood the request as routine.

"Clinton thought a 'nonpaper' was a way to convey the unofficial stance of the US government to a foreign government and believed this practice went back '200 years,'" she said, according to interview notes. "When viewing the displayed email, Clinton believed she was asking Sullivan to remove the State letterhead and provide unclassified talking points. Clinton stated she had no intention to remove classification markings."

Fallout from Comey's remarks

Comey in July took the unprecedented step of announcing in a press conference the FBI's conclusion that there was not enough evidence to merit a criminal prosecution, before handing over his findings to the Justice Department.

Anticipation for FBI's release on Clinton investigation

The DOJ followed that recommendation and decided no prosecution was merited.

After Comey testified about the decision before Congress, members requested access to his agency's report. Last month, the bureau gave members of Congress access to the notes, as well as notes from interviews with other Clinton staff and aides, but kept that version of the report classified.

Comey testified that no transcript of the interview exists, only the notes taken on it. Clinton was not under oath.

The FBI's release Friday did not include the notes of interviews with Clinton's aides.

 

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Hillary Clinton email investigation: FBI notes reveal laptop and thumb drive missing

The Guardian  /  September 3, 2016

A Clinton Foundation laptop and a thumb drive used to archive Hillary Clinton’s emails from her time as secretary of state are missing, according to FBI notes released on Friday.

The phrase “Clinton could not recall” litters the summary of the FBI’s investigation, which concluded in July that she should not face charges. Amid fierce Republican criticism of the Democratic presidential candidate, the party’s nominee, Donald Trump released a statement which said “Hillary Clinton’s answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief” and added that he did not “understand how she was able to get away from prosecution”.

The FBI documents describe how Monica Hanley, a former Clinton aide, received assistance in spring 2013 from Justin Cooper, a former aide to Bill Clinton, in creating an archive of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Cooper provided Hanley with an Apple MacBook laptop from the Clinton Foundation – the family organisation currently embroiled in controversy – and talked her through the process of transferring emails from Clinton’s private server to the laptop and a thumb drive.

“Hanley completed this task from her personal residence,” the notes record. The devices were intended to be stored at Clinton’s homes in New York and Washington. However, Hanley “forgot” to provide the archive laptop and thumb drive to Clinton’s staff.

In early 2014, Hanley located the laptop at her home and tried to transfer the email archive to an IT company, apparently without success. It appears the emails were then transferred to an unnamed person’s personal Gmail account and there were problems around Apple software not being compatible with that of Microsoft.

The unnamed person “told the FBI that, after the transfer was complete, he deleted the emails from the archive laptop but did not wipe the laptop. The laptop was then put in the mail, only to go missing. [Redacted] told the FBI that she never received the laptop from [redacted]; however, she advised that Clinton’s staff was moving offices at the time, and it would have been easy for the package to get lost during the transition period.

“Neither Hanley nor [redacted] could identify the current whereabouts of the archive laptop or thumb drive containing the archive, and the FBI does not have either item in its possession.”

Clinton’s use of a private email server while in office has dogged her presidential campaign. The FBI has been criticised by Democrats for taking the rare step of publishing its account of confidential interviews with Clinton and others from the recently closed investigation, which found her to have been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information. Hopes that this would draw a line under the issue, however, appear to have been dashed.

The FBI identified a total of 13 mobile devices associated with Clinton’s two known phone numbers that potentially were used to send emails using clintonemail.com addresses.

The 58 pages of notes released on Friday, several of which were redacted, also related that Hanley often purchased replacement BlackBerry devices for Clinton during Clinton’s time at the state department. Hanley recalled buying most of them at AT&T stores in the Washington area. Cooper was usually responsible for setting them up and synching them to the server.

Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, and Hanley “indicated the whereabouts of Clinton’s devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device”, the documents state. “Cooper did recall two instances where he destroyed Clinton’s old mobile devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer.”

The notes also contain a string of admissions by Clinton about points she did not know or could not recall: “When asked about the email chain containing ‘(C)’ portion markings that state determined to currently contain CONFIDENTIAL information, Clinton stated that she did not know what the ‘(C)’ meant at the beginning of the paragraphs and speculated it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.”

Clinton said she did not pay attention to the difference between top secret, secret and confidential but “took all classified information seriously”. She did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not have been on an unclassified system. She also stated she received no particular guidance as to how she should use the president’s email address.

In addition, the notes say: “Clinton could not recall when she first received her security clearance and if she carried it with her to state via reciprocity from her time in the Senate. Clinton could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the retention of federal records or handling of classified information.”

Clinton was aware she was an original classification authority at the state department, but again “could not recall how often she used this authority or any training or guidance provided by state. Clinton could not give an example of how classification of a document was determined.”

Nor could she recall any specific briefing on how to handle information associated with special access programme information.

“Clinton could not recall a specific process for nominating a target for a drone strike,” the notes say.

According to the notes, on 23 January 2009 Clinton emailed her predecessor, Colin Powell, to ask about his use of a BlackBerry. In his response, Powell told Clinton that if it became “public” that she was using a BlackBerry to “do business”, the emails could become “official records and subject to the law".

Powell wrote: “Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.”

Clinton told the FBI she understood Powell’s comments to mean that any of her work-related communications would be records of the government and “did not factor” the comments “into her decision to use a personal email account”, the documents say.

The release also includes technical details about how the server in the basement of Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, New York, was set up.

Clinton’s critics seized on the latest revelations. Trump’s full statement read: “Hillary Clinton’s answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief. I was absolutely shocked to see that her answers to the FBI stood in direct contradiction to what she told the American people. After reading these documents, I really don’t understand how she was able to get away from prosecution.”

Jason Miller, senior communications adviser to Trump, said: “Hillary Clinton is applying for a job that begins each day with a top secret intelligence briefing, and the notes from her FBI interview reinforce her tremendously bad judgment and dishonesty.

“Clinton’s secret email server was an end run around government transparency laws that wound up jeopardizing our national security and sensitive diplomatic efforts.”

He added: “Clinton’s reckless conduct and dishonest attempts to avoid accountability show she cannot be trusted with the presidency and its chief obligation as commander-in-chief of the US armed forces.”

The House speaker, Paul Ryan, said: “These documents demonstrate Hillary Clinton’s reckless and downright dangerous handling of classified information during her tenure as secretary of state. They also cast further doubt on the justice department’s decision to avoid prosecuting what is a clear violation of the law. This is exactly why I have called for her to be denied access to classified information.”

Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee, said: “The FBI’s summary of their interview with Hillary Clinton is a devastating indictment of her judgment, honesty and basic competency. Clinton’s answers either show she is completely incompetent or blatantly lied to the FBI or the public.

“Either way it’s clear that, through her own actions, she has disqualified herself from the presidency.”

The Clinton campaign insisted that it was pleased the notes had been made public. Spokesman Brian Fallon said: “While her use of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the justice department believed there was no basis to move forward with this case.”

 

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Andrew McCarthy, The National Review  /  September 2, 2016

The FBI-302 report of the interview of Hillary Clinton, along with the other notes of investigation released today, make for mind boggling reading. Most bracing is the fact that Mrs. Clinton had her server wiped clean sometime between March 25 and 31, 2015, only three weeks after the New York Times on March 3 broke the story of the server system’s existence. David notes that, at the same time the Democrats’ Janus-faced presidential nominee was outwardly taking the position that she “want[ed] the public to see my email,” she was having her minions frantically purge her emails behind the scenes.

I’d add that this was five months before she feigned ignorance when Fox News’s Ed Henry pressed her on whether she’d “tried to wipe the entire server … so there could be no email – no personal, no official.” Henry finally asked, “Did you wipe the server?” Famously, Clinton scoffed, “Like with a cloth or something?” But we now know, as the FBI notes recount, she had the server purged with a sophisticated software program, BleachBit, which eventually made it extraordinarily difficult for the FBI to recover her emails, several thousand of which were successfully destroyed.

And remember: We’ve just learned that 30 emails related to Benghazi were on the server Clinton purged – emails that she never turned over to the State Department despite claiming repeatedly that she’d surrendered all of her government-related emails. I would thus note that the March 2015 purge right after public revelation of the server’s existence occurred long after Mrs. Clinton was well aware of several official government investigations of the Benghazi massacre – one by the State Department, several by Congress, and a judicial proceeding involving the one defendant who has been indicted for the terrorist attack. There were also, quite obviously, several relevant Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigations. From what I’ve been able to glean so far, it is not clear from the FBI’s notes (and it was certainly not clear from Director James Comey’s press conference and House testimony) whether any consideration was given to indicting Mrs. Clinton for obstruction of justice and of government investigations – and if not, why not.

Among the most eye-popping claims Clinton made to the FBI was that she was unfamiliar with the markings on classified documents. Yes, you read that correctly: one of the highest ranking national security officials in the United States government – an official whose day-to-day responsibilities extensively involved classified information; who had secure facilities installed in her two homes (in addition to her office) so she could review classified information in them; and who acknowledged to the FBI that, as secretary of state, she was designated by the president as “an Original Classification Authority,” meaning she had the power to determine what information should be classified and at what level – had the audacity to tell the interviewing agents that she did not know what the different classification symbols in classified documents signified.

For example, when asked about an email chain containing the symbol “(C)” – meaning “confidential,” a designation ubiquitous in classified documents – Clinton claimed not to know what it meant and, according to the notes, “could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.” This is a response so absurd as to be insulting (the interview notes do not tell us if the FBI asked her to find (A), (B) and (D) notations that would be necessary to have the “alphabetical order” story make sense – assuming, for argument’s sake that one would indulge the possibility that this could be a truthful answer from a classified information consumer as high-level as Clinton).

Mind you, Mrs. Clinton was not just secretary of state for four years. She was a United States senator for eight years, during nearly all of which she was assigned to the Senate Armed Services Committee (and such Armed Services components as the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities). Reviewing classified information, including highly sensitive national defense secrets, is a routine part of that committee’s work.

Clinton also claimed that she “did not pay attention to the ‘level’ of classified information.” The interview notes do not explain how the FBI squared this with, for example, (a) Clinton’s acknowledgement that top-secret “special access program” (SAP) information was delivered to her by paper in her office and she knew it was supposed to be handled with extraordinary care; and (b) Clinton’s admission that she made use of her Original Classification Authority at times (though she couldn’t say how often). That means she had to have assigned to some information the very classification levels with which she portrays herself as scarcely familiar.

We also learn in the FBI documents not only that Mrs. Clinton frequently lost her Blackberry devices, but that the FBI failed to account for some thirteen of them, most if not all of which she used while transmitting the over 2,000 classified emails the FBI identified.

Clinton aides told the FBI that her devices – loaded with stored emails – would at times disappear and their whereabouts would become unknown. Interestingly, in the notes of Mrs. Clinton’s interview, the FBI says she told them that her BlackBerry devices would occasionally “malfunction”; when this happened, “[h]er aides would assist in obtaining a new BlackBerry.” I have not yet found indications that the FBI asked her about lost rather than malfunctioning devices.

We do learn, though, that on February 9, 2016, the Justice Department asked Clinton’s lawyers to turn over all 13 mobile devices that the FBI identified as having potentially transmitted emails. Almost two weeks later, on February 22, the lawyers told the FBI “they were unable to locate any of these devices.” As a result, the notes recount, “the FBI was unable to acquire or forensically examine any of these 13 mobile devices.”

Finally, something else about those lawyers. I nearly fell out of my chair upon reading the very first paragraph of the notes of Clinton’s interview, which identifies the lawyers for Clinton who were permitted to be present for the interview. Among them is Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s longtime confidant and chief-of-staff at the State Department.

Readers may recall that I suggested back in May that “the fix” was in in the investigation of the Clinton emails. The reason was that the Justice Department was allowing Cheryl Mills – a witness, if not a subject, of the investigation – to invoke attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mrs. Clinton in order to thwart the FBI’s attempt to inquire into the procedure used to produce Clinton’s emails to the State Department. Mills was a participant in that procedure – and it is the procedure in which, we now know, well over 30,000 emails were attempted to be destroyed, including several thousand that contained government-related business.

When she worked for Clinton at State, Mills was not acting in the capacity of a lawyer – not for then-Secretary Clinton and not for the State Department. Moreover, as Clinton’s chief-of-staff, Mills was intimately involved in issues related to Clinton’s private email set up, the discussions about getting her a secure BlackBerry similar to President Obama’s, and questions that were raised (including in FOIA requests) about Clinton’s communications.

That is to say, Mills was an actor in the facts that were under criminal investigation by the FBI. Put aside that she was not Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer while working for the State Department; as I explained in the May column, Mills, after leaving the State Department, was barred by ethical rules from acting as Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer “in connection with a matter in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially as a public officer or employee.”

There is no way Mills should have been permitted to participate as a lawyer in the process of producing Clinton’s emails to the State Department nearly two years after they’d both left. I thought it was astonishing that the Justice Department indulged her attorney-client privilege claim, which frustrated the FBI’s ability to question her on a key aspect of the investigation. But it is simply unbelievable to find her turning up at Mrs. Clinton’s interview – participating in the capacity of a lawyer under circumstances where Clinton was being investigated over matters in which Mills participated as a non-lawyer government official.

According to the FBI’s report, Mrs. Clinton had four other attorneys (one whose name is deleted from the report for some reason) representing her at the interview. She clearly did not need another lawyer. And it is Criminal Investigations 101 that law enforcement never interviews witnesses together – the point is to learn the truth, not provide witnesses/suspects with an opportunity to keep their story straight, which undermines the search for truth.

Why on earth was Cheryl Mills permitted to sit in on Hillary Clinton’s FBI interview?

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From Whitewater to Benghazi: A Clinton-Scandal Primer

David Graham, The Atlantic  /  September 2, 2016

The FBI has released its report into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, providing the most detailed account yet of why and how she used the system.

In a classic Friday news dump, the FBI on Friday afternoon released the results of its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and private email address. Unsurprisingly, the findings track closely with what FBI Director James Comey said when he announced the findings in July. The report, released in two chunks, offers the most complete narrative of Clinton’s email system. But they do offer a few of what a computer technician quoted in the investigation might refer to as “oh shit” moments.

The original “oh shit” moment concerned an out-of-date server that was housed at a facility in New Jersey. In December 2014, Clinton aide Cheryl Mills asked someone to delete the old messages. Apparently he didn’t do so. Then, in March 2015, The New York Times reported the existence of the email setup. The next day, a House committee on Benghazi requested the preservation of any records. Despite that, an unnamed staffer, realizing he had not followed Mills’s instructions, deleted anyway:

View note

Mills and Clinton said they were unaware of the move.

Unawareness is a common thread throughout the report. Clinton seemed to have only a faint understanding of the process of classification and what was and was not classified, nor was she apparently trained when she joined State from the U.S. Senate:

View note

She also said she was unaware of the requirement that she turn over her emails when she left office, which she said might be due in part to a concussion she suffered in 2012:

View note

Some of the classified messages in Clinton’s emails dealt with “SAP,” special access programs, generally believed to be a reference to drone strikes carried out by the U.S. overseas. Through a peculiarity of classification, these strokes are widely known about and reported on, but the government still treats them as a secret. Some of Clinton’s discussions involved material that had been reported in the public but still was technically classified. On the one hand, that seems pointless, but on the other hand Clinton told FBI investigators she understood the importance of SAP secrecy. In another case, Clinton said staffers were handcuffed by the lack of a protocol for discussing classified information at holidays when people were traveling, meaning aides had to “communicate in code or do the best you could to convey the information.”

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell doesn’t come off well in the report. While Clinton said she had already planned to use a private email address, some advice that he gave her seemed geared to circumventing public-records laws:

View note

Many of Clinton’s aides apparently had no understanding of the fact that Clinton—and in some cases the aides themselves—were using a private email server. Clinton used a remarkable 13 mobile devices to access her email account, including eight separate BlackBerrys during her time as secretary of state. None of the 13 could be located for inspection, her lawyers said. (Clinton apparently often got new BlackBerrys and then decided she liked the old ones better.) She also used five iPads to access her account.

In sum, the report portrays Clinton as generally unaware: unschooled in the rules of classification and not especially concerned about getting trained; but also technologically dependent on aides in the way that many 60-something executives likely are, with little understanding of how the technology they use every day fundamentally works. Reading the report, it’s surprising that more classified information was not accidentally sent than the FBI found.

One important remaining question is whether Clinton’s server and email were ever hacked. When Comey announced the findings he stated, in essence, that they had found no direct evidence; that they would not expect to find such evidence; and that there was good reason to suspect she might have been hacked. The report fleshes that out.

There were numerous failed attempts, which Clinton aide Bryan Pagliano knew about because they appeared as failed login attempts. Pagliano considered but did not implement security protections like a virtual private network or two-step verification. There was an onslaught of attempts after the Times story first publicly revealed the server, once again none of them apparently successful. There were also several cases of what sound like standard phishing and spear-phishing attempts, where Clinton and others received malicious messages with dangerous links.

In one of the more peculiar notes, the FBI reports that an email address belonging to a staffer was compromised by someone using Tor, a software that allows masking and anonymity:

View note

It’s too soon to know what sort of effect the FBI report could have on Clinton’s presidential campaign. It certainly does not paint a flattering view of Clinton, but it also mostly fleshes out information that was widely known about her email system.

The emails represent something of a classic Clinton scandal. Although the House investigation turned up no evidence of wrongdoing on her part with respect to the attacks themselves, it was during that inquiry that her private-email use became public. This is a pattern with the Clinton family, which has been in the public spotlight since Bill Clinton’s first run for office, in 1974: Something that appears potentially scandalous on its face turns out to be innocuous, but an investigation into it reveals different questionable behavior. The canonical case is Whitewater, a failed real-estate investment Bill and Hillary Clinton made in 1978. Although no inquiry ever produced evidence of wrongdoing, investigations ultimately led to President Clinton’s impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice.

With Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee for president, every Clinton scandal—from Whitewater to the State Department emails—will be under the microscope. (No other American politicians—even ones as corrupt as Richard Nixon, or as hated by partisans as George W. Bush—have fostered the creation of a permanent multimillion-dollar cottage industry devoted to attacking them.) Keeping track of each controversy, where it came from, and how serious it is, is no small task, so here’s a primer. We’ll update it as new information emerges.

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The Clintons’ Private Email Server

What? During the course of the Benghazi investigation, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt learned Clinton had used a personal email account while secretary of state. It turned out she had also been using a private server, located at a house in New York. The result was that Clinton and her staff decided which emails to turn over to the State Department as public records and which to withhold; they say they then destroyed the ones they had designated as personal.

When? 2009-2013, during Clinton’s term as secretary.

Who? Hillary Clinton; Bill Clinton; top aides including Huma Abedin

How serious is it? Very serious. A May report from the State Department inspector general is harshly critical of Clinton’s email approach, but Loretta Lynch announced on July 6 that the Justice Department would not pursue criminal charges, removing the threat of an indictment that could be fatal to her campaign. But the scandal will remain a millstone around her neck forever. Comey’s damning comments about her conduct—“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information”—will reverberate throughout the campaign. Also unresolved is the question of whether Clinton’s server was hacked. You can read the FBI report here.

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Clinton’s State Department Emails

What? Setting aside the question of the Clintons’ private email server, what’s actually in the emails that Clinton did turn over to State? While some of the emails related to Benghazi have been released, there are plenty of others covered by public-records laws that are still in the process of being vetted for release.

When? 2009-2013

How serious is it? Serious. While the contents of emails revealed so far has been more eyerolly than scandalous, the bigger problem is the revelation that dozens of email chains contained information that was classified at some level.  Meanwhile, some emails remain to be seen. The State Department, under court order, is slowly releasing the emails she turned over, but there are other emails that she didn’t turn over, which have surfaced through court battles.  State also says the FBI found 30 emails related to the Benghazi attacks that Clinton did not turn over.

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Benghazi

What? On September 11, 2012, attackers overran a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Since then, Republicans have charged that Hillary Clinton failed to adequately protect U.S. installations or that she attempted to spin the attacks as spontaneous when she knew they were planned terrorist operations. She testifies for the first time on October 22.

When? September 11, 2012-present

How serious is it? With the June 28 release of the House committee investigating Benghazi, this issue is receding. That report criticized security preparations at the American facility in Benghazi as well as stations elsewhere, but it produced no smoking guns or new accusations about things Clinton could have done the night of the attacks. Although some conservatives will likely continue to assail her, the biggest damage is likely to be iterative—the highly damaging private-email story was revealed during the course of the House inquiry. In late August, the State Department announced that the FBI had found 30 new emails related to Benghazi that Clinton did not hand over. The content is as yet unknown, but the revelation will extend the story.

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Conflicts of Interest in Foggy Bottom

What? Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four months while also working for New York University, in which capacity she negotiated on the school’s behalf with the government of Abu Dhabi, where it was building a campus. In June 2012, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin’s status at State changed to “special government employee,” allowing her to also work for Teneo, a consulting firm run by Bill Clinton’s former right-hand man. She also earned money from the Clinton Foundation and was paid directly by Hillary Clinton. In a separate case, ABC News reports that a top Clinton Foundation donor named Rajiv Fernando was placed on State’s International Security Advisory Board. Fernando appeared significantly less qualified than many of his colleagues, and was appointed at the behest of the secretary’s office. Internal emails show that State staff first sought to cover for Clinton, and then Fernando resigned two days after ABC’s inquiries. Judicial Watch released documents that show Doug Band, a Foundation official, trying to put a donor in touch with a State Department expert on Lebanon and to get someone a job at Foggy Bottom.

Who? Both Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin are among Clinton’s longest-serving and closest aides. Abedin remains involved in her campaign (and she’s also married to Anthony Weiner).

When? January 2009-February 2013

How serious is it? This is arcane stuff, to be sure. There are questions about conflict of interest—such as whether Teneo clients might have benefited from special treatment by the State Department while Abedin worked for both. To a great extent, this is just an extension of the tangle of conflicts presented by the Clinton Foundation and the many overlapping roles of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

---

Sidney Blumenthal

What? A former journalist, Blumenthal was a top aide in the second term of the Bill Clinton administration and helped on messaging during the bad old days. He served as an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and when she took over the State Department, she sought to hire Blumenthal. Obama aides, apparently still smarting over his role in attacks on candidate Obama, refused the request, so Clinton just sought out his counsel informally. At the same time, Blumenthal was drawing a check from the Clinton Foundation.

When? 2009-2013

How serious is it? Only mildly. Some of the damage is already done. Blumenthal was apparently the source of the idea that the Benghazi attacks were spontaneous, a notion that proved incorrect and provided a political bludgeon against Clinton and Obama. He also advised the secretary on a wide range of other issues, from Northern Ireland to China, and passed along analysis from his son Max, a staunch critic of the Israeli government (and conservative bête noire). But emails released so far show even Clinton’s top foreign-policy guru, Jake Sullivan, rejecting Blumenthal’s analysis, raising questions about her judgment in trusting him.

---

The Speeches

What? Since Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001, both Clintons have made millions of dollars for giving speeches.

When? 2001-present

Who? Hillary Clinton; Bill Clinton; Chelsea Clinton

How serious is it? Intermittently dangerous. It has a tendency to flare up, then die down. Senator Bernie Sanders made it a useful attack against her in early 2016, suggesting that by speaking to banks like Goldman Sachs, she was compromised. There have been calls for Clinton to release the transcripts of her speeches, which she was declined to do, saying if every other candidate does, she will too. For the Clintons, who left the White House up to their ears in legal debt, lucrative speeches—mostly by the former president—proved to be an effective way of rebuilding wealth. They have also been an effective magnet for prying questions. Where did Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton speak? How did they decide how much to charge? What did they say? How did they decide which speeches would be given on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, with fees going to the charity, and which would be treated as personal income? Are there cases of conflicts of interest or quid pro quos—for example, speaking gigs for Bill Clinton on behalf of clients who had business before the State Department?

---

The Clinton Foundation

What? Bill Clinton’s foundation was actually established in 1997, but after leaving the White House it became his primary vehicle for … well, everything. With projects ranging from public health to elephant-poaching protection and small-business assistance to child development, the foundation is a huge global player with several prominent offshoots. In 2013, following Hillary Clinton’s departure as secretary of State, it was renamed the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

When? 1997-present

Who? Bill Clinton; Hillary Clinton; Chelsea Clinton, etc.

How serious is it? If the Clinton Foundation’s strength is President Clinton’s endless intellectual omnivorousness, its weakness is the distractibility and lack of interest in detail that sometimes come with it. On a philanthropic level, the foundation gets decent ratings from outside review groups, though critics charge that it’s too diffuse to do much good, that the money has not always achieved what it was intended to, and that in some cases the money doesn’t seem to have achieved its intended purpose. The foundation made errors in its tax returns it has to correct. Overall, however, the essential questions about the Clinton Foundation come down to two, related issues. The first is the seemingly unavoidable conflicts of interest: How did the Clintons’ charitable work intersect with their for-profit speeches? How did their speeches intersect with Hillary Clinton’s work at the State Department? Were there quid-pro-quos involving U.S. policy? Did the foundation steer money improperly to for-profit companies owned by friends? The second, connected question is about disclosure. When Clinton became secretary, she agreed that the foundation would make certain disclosures, which it’s now clear it didn’t always do. And the looming questions about Clinton’s State Department emails make it harder to answer those questions.

---

The Bad Old Days

What is it? Since the Clintons have a long history of controversies, there are any number of past scandals that continue to float around, especially in conservative media: Whitewater. Troopergate. Paula Jones. Monica Lewinsky. Travelgate. Vince Foster’s suicide. Juanita Broaddrick.

When? 1975-2001

Who? Bill Clinton; Hillary Clinton; a brigade of supporting characters

How serious is it? The conventional wisdom is that they’re not terribly dangerous. Some are wholly spurious (Foster). Others (Lewinsky, Whitewater) have been so exhaustively investigated it’s hard to imagine them doing much further damage to Hillary Clinton’s standing. In fact, the Lewinsky scandal famously boosted her public approval ratings. But the January 2016 resurfacing of Juanita Broaddrick’s rape allegations offers a test case to see whether the conventional wisdom is truly wise—or just conventional. On May 23, Donald Trump released a video prominently highlighting Broaddrick’s accusation.

[kscarbel2]

Inside Bill Clinton’s nearly $18 million job as ‘honorary chancellor’ of a for-profit college

The Washington Post  /  September 5, 2016

The guest list for a private State Department dinner on higher-education policy was taking shape when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered a suggestion.

In addition to recommending invitations for leaders from a community college and a church-funded institution, Clinton wanted a representative from a for-profit college company called Laureate International Universities, which, she explained in an email to her chief of staff that was released last year, was “the fastest growing college network in the world.”

There was another reason Clinton favored setting a seat aside for Laureate at the August 2009 event: The company was started by a businessman, Doug Becker, “who Bill likes a lot,” the secretary wrote, referring to her husband, the former president.

Nine months later, Laureate signed Bill Clinton to a lucrative deal as a consultant and “honorary chancellor,” paying him $17.6 million over five years until the contract ended in 2015 as Hillary Clinton launched her campaign for president.

There is no evidence that Laureate received special favors from the State Department in direct exchange for hiring Bill Clinton, but the Baltimore-based company had much to gain from an association with a globally connected ex-president and, indirectly, the United States’ chief diplomat. Being included at the 2009 dinner, shoulder to shoulder with leaders from internationally renowned universities for a discussion about the role of higher education in global diplomacy, provided an added level of credibility for the business as it pursued an aggressive expansion strategy overseas, occasionally tangling with foreign regulators.

“A lot of these private-education guys, they’re looking to get into events like this one,” said Sam Pitroda, a higher-education expert who was representing a policy commission from India at the State Department dinner. “The discussion itself is irrelevant. . . . It gets you very high-level contacts, and it gets you to the right people.”

While much of the controversy about Hillary Clinton’s State Department tenure has involved donations to her family’s charity, the Clinton Foundation, a close examination of the Laureate deal reveals how Bill Clinton leveraged the couple’s connections during that time to enhance their personal wealth — potentially providing another avenue for supporters to gain access to the family.

In addition to his well-established career as a paid speaker, which began soon after he left the Oval Office, Bill Clinton took on new consulting work starting in 2009, at the same time Hillary Clinton assumed her post at the State Department. Laureate was the highest-paying client, but Bill Clinton signed contracts worth millions with GEMS Education, a secondary-education chain based in Dubai, as well as Shangri-La Industries and Wasserman Investment, two companies run by longtime Democratic donors. All told, with his consulting, writing and speaking fees, Bill Clinton was paid $65.4 million during Hillary Clinton’s four years as secretary of state.

[For Clintons, speech income shows how their wealth intertwines with charity]

Details of Bill Clinton’s compensation are found in the couple’s tax returns, which were made public by his wife’s presidential campaign and provide an unusual glimpse into the way a former president can make millions in the private sector. Bill Clinton has proved particularly marketable because of his global celebrity, enhanced by his foundation, his continued visibility on the political scene and his wife’s stature as a senator, Cabinet official and potential president.

The Laureate arrangement illustrates the extent to which the Clintons mixed their charitable work with their private and political lives. Many of those who paid Bill Clinton to consult or speak were also foundation donors and, in some cases, supporters of political campaigns for one or both Clintons.

Becker, for example, donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and last year donated $2,700 to her current effort. Laureate has given between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the charity’s website, and made millions of dollars of charitable commitments through the Clinton Global Initiative, an arm of the foundation that arranged for corporations to make public pledges to their own philanthropic projects. Meanwhile, Laureate portrayed its association with the Clintons as a symbol of its legitimacy rather than the result of a business deal.

“People know that somebody like President Clinton, the most important thing to him is his reputation,” Becker said in a 2010 appearance at a Laureate campus in Malaysia. “And to attach himself to an organization that he doesn’t believe in, he would never do it. It wouldn’t make sense — not just with his own legacy and history but, in his case, being the spouse of the U.S. secretary of state, for example.”

When Becker introduced Clinton at an event at the same campus the next year, he read a statement from Malaysia’s education minister declaring that “there must be something very special about Laureate that has inspired President Clinton to devote his energy to such an endeavor.”

Aides to Clinton and representatives of Laureate characterized the arrangement as one that advanced global access to education.

Angel Urena, a Clinton spokesman, said the former president “engaged with students at Laureate’s campuses worldwide and advised Laureate’s leadership on social responsibility and increasing access to higher education.” Adam Smith, a Laureate spokesman, said Clinton “was paid to advise Laureate, inspire students and visit the campuses and communities they serve, and that’s what he did, with great conviction and energy.”

Becker declined to be interviewed for this report. Laureate officials said that the Baltimore businessman first met through Laureate Vice President Joseph Duffey, a former Clinton administration official, at a 2007 Clinton Global Initiative event in Hong Kong.

[How Clintons went from ‘dead broke’ to rich: Bill’s $105 million for speeches]

Clinton became familiar with the company after giving a few unpaid speeches on its international campuses and then grew closer with Becker when they traveled to Haiti together in 2009 to explore education issues in the troubled nation, a Clinton aide said.

Laureate had grown rapidly under Becker, a college dropout who became wealthy in the 1980s after inventing a card that could store personal medical information. He launched Laureate in 2003, transforming an old tutoring company called Sylvan Learning Systems into a network of for-profit college campuses.

The company has been intertwined over the years with the global financial elite. Once publicly traded, it was bought out for $3.8 billion in 2007 with investments from, among others, a private-equity firm founded by liberal philanthropist George Soros, as well as the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

Laureate, which is taking steps to become publicly traded again, has in recent years been largely focused on growing internationally. Typically, it has purchased financially struggling colleges and vocational schools and improved management while boosting profits through expanding enrollment. The company has said in regulatory filings that it enrolls more than 1 million students on 87 campuses in 28 countries. It has five U.S. campuses.

Laureate hired Clinton as scrutiny of private colleges was increasing in the United States and internationally. Congress in 2010 launched an investigation into for-profit schools, which critics say profit from needy students while making often grand but unfulfilled promises of valuable degrees.

Laureate has clashed at times with regulators in other countries, such as Chile, where the law forbids for-profit education and Laureate operates by acting as a contractor to local nonprofit institutions.

Clinton at times mingled with foreign government leaders during his appearances on Laureate campuses, such as a 2013 Laureate-hosted conference on youth unemployment in Madrid featuring top European officials.

Urena said the former president “never sought to influence any foreign or U.S. official on Laureate’s behalf.”

Smith said Clinton played an active role as honorary chancellor, visiting 19 locations, meeting with students and delivering speeches that were broadcast to tens of thousands of students around the world. He said Clinton’s role was not related to the company’s business prospects.

Clinton’s contract with Laureate was approved by the State Department’s ethics office, in keeping with an Obama administration agreement with Hillary Clinton that gave the agency the right to review her husband’s outside work during her tenure. An ethics official wrote that he saw “no conflict of interest with Laureate or any of their partners,” according to a letter recently released by the conservative group Citizens United, which received it through a public-records request.

The contract itself became public through a records request by a different conservative group, Judicial Watch, but descriptions of Clinton’s exact consulting role were blacked out in the publicly released document and labeled as trade secrets. Laureate and Clinton aides declined to release an unredacted copy of the contract.

Based on appearances on Laureate’s behalf by Clinton and public statements by the company, it seems that part of the strategy in hiring the former president was to bolster Laureate’s image by aligning it with the former president’s famous charitable efforts — thereby portraying the company as a force for good in the world.

News releases about Clinton’s paid campus appearances often invoked his work on education issues with the Clinton Foundation. And every news release during Clinton’s time with the company carried his name and his title of honorary chancellor.

In 2013, Clinton recorded a message to Laureate students and, without mentioning his financial ties to the company, said he joined Laureate because he admired its “dedication to helping the next generation of leaders be truly educated and well prepared for your future.”

[The inside story of how the Clintons built a $2 billion global empire]

Also that year, Laureate prominently featured its association with Clinton as part of its effort to purchase the Thunderbird School of Global Management, a 70-year old private business school in Arizona that was struggling financially.

Karen Longo, a graduate of the school who was on the board of directors at the time, recalled that Becker specifically referenced the Clinton tie when he pitched the board on the deal. She provided The Washington Post with brochures Laureate gave out at the time, featuring a letter from Clinton praising Laureate students for working to improve the world and declaring himself “proud to be a part of their efforts.” Clinton’s picture was included on multiple pages.

“His face, his name was in all their brochures,” Longo recalled. “It was a very big sell for them.”

She and other alumni were concerned that Laureate would lower the school’s admissions standards to expand its enrollment in an effort to make more money from the campus.

“The more students they got, the more money they got from student-loan funds,” she said. “It would have been a dilution of the Thunderbird brand.”

Longo and four other alumni on the school’s board protested the purchase to the school’s accrediting agency, the Higher Learning Commission. In 2014, the commission refused to sign off on the purchase. Thunderbird has since merged with Arizona State University.

Laureate, meanwhile, pursued close ties with the Clinton Foundation.

The company paid to send a group of international students each year to the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York, where they conducted video interviews with CGI attendees such as actor Ted Danson and former secretary of state Madeleine Albright for broadcast to fellow Laureate students around the world.

“We’re here with one of the most remarkable world leaders. We’re here with Chelsea Clinton,” said Daniel Rubio Sánchez, a student on a Laureate campus in Madrid, as he began a video interview with the former first daughter at the September 2015 CGI gathering — a few months after Bill Clinton’s contract ended — sitting in front of a glass wall inscribed with the logos of Laureate and CGI.

Sánchez, 20, in an interview with The Post, called his CGI experience “really, really enriching” and one that has opened doors for him at European think tanks. “My personal profile changed greatly,” he said.

The Clintons’ Laureate connection emerged as a campaign issue earlier this summer, when Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump charged that Hillary Clinton “laundered money” to her husband by funneling tens of millions of dollars in federal grants to Laureate while she was secretary of state.

By all accounts, Trump’s claim was false, and his campaign did not respond to requests for documentation.

The company says its campuses have received about $1.4 million total over the years in grants from the State Department and its international aid arm, USAID. Of that amount, only $15,000 came while Clinton was secretary of state — student scholarships funded by USAID, Laureate said.

Publicly available grant records are not detailed enough to corroborate Laureate’s exact numbers. But the records do show that neither Laureate nor any of its campuses has received any individual grant larger than $25,000 from the State Department or USAID.

Trump appeared to be drawing on — and misrepresenting — a report in the 2015 book “Clinton Cash” that grants from USAID to a separate charity chaired by Becker, the Laureate founder, increased during the Clinton years.

Founded in 1989, the International Youth Foundation has partnered with Laureate campuses in some of its charitable education work. The group has received USAID funding since 1999, and its president said the increase in USAID funding under Clinton was largely the result of the receipt of multi-year grants awarded before she entered office. There is no evidence Hillary Clinton played a role in the grants, and the group’s president, William Reese, said no government money went to Laureate or Becker.

Though some Republicans tried to draw parallels between Laureate and Trump University, the real estate seminar company founded by Trump that faces multiple fraud investigations, Laureate is a different sort of business.

Unlike Trump University, Laureate’s campuses are fully accredited and offer graduating students valid diplomas. Compared with other universities, including its for-profit competitors, Laureate has a relatively low percentage of students who default on their loans, seen as an indicator of student financial success after graduation. A 2012 Senate report on for-profit colleges said that Laureate’s flagship U.S. school, Walden University, was the best of 30 campuses studied and that students there generally “fared well.”

Still, the company has faced some complaints.

A group of students at Walden, a Minneapolis-based online school, sued Laureate in 2015, arguing the institution unnecessarily dragged out their education so they would have to pay more. Laureate denied the allegation, and the lawsuit was settled out of court.

As of July, three of Laureate’s five U.S. schools were included on a government list of 500 schools that receive additional financial oversight after being found out of compliance with the requirements of federal student aid programs.

Outside the State Department, Laureate’s ties extended into the world of the Clintons’ in other ways. Politico has reported that Laureate and GEMS Education were both clients of Teneo Holdings, a public-relations group founded by longtime Bill Clinton aide Doug Band that also paid Clinton a $100,000 consulting fee in 2011. Band declined to comment, as did Laureate.

The Clintons were also close to Duffey, a top Laureate official who has been friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton since the two worked as young staffers for his unsuccessful campaign for the Senate in Connecticut in 1970.

When Hillary Clinton requested that her staff invite a Laureate official to her 2009 State Department policy dinner, it was Duffey whom she recommended, according to emails released by the State Department.

People who participated in the dinner said they remember a high-level conversation about using education to boost diplomacy, held amid antique furniture in the State Department’s elegant James Monroe room. Duffey spoke positively of Laureate’s approach to overseas expansion, according to one participant.

Kevin Kinser, who studies for-profit colleges at Pennsylvania State University, said that given Laureate’s rapid growth, it was not unreasonable to include a company representative in that setting. But he said Laureate’s inclusion just months before Bill Clinton began being paid by the company does not look good.

“They were clearly a legitimate participant in this sort of event,” he said. “But knowing what we know now, it does seem unseemly.”

[41chevy]

 

09/05/16 08:35 PM EDT

Clinton suggests Russia working to elect Trump

During her first press conference in 275 days, she expresses concern about the intervention of Vladimir Putin's government in the election.

 

 

HAMPTON, Illinois — Hillary Clinton on Monday expressed “a very serious” concern about Russia’s apparent tampering with the U.S. election, implying that Vladimir Putin with the "adversarial foreign power" he governs are actively trying to elect Donald Trump.

“I’m really concerned about the credible reports about Trump paying the Russian government to interference in our elections,” Clinton told reporters.

“The fact that federal intelligence professionals are now studying this, and taking it seriously,” she said, “raises some grave questions about the possibiltyl of Trump buying Russian interference with interfere with our electoral process.”

After more than a month when she spent most of her time out of sight raising money from mega donors and celebrities in wealthy enclaves from Los Angeles to the Hamptons, Clinton’s aggressive stance toward Russia was part of a roaring back to the campaign trail on Labor Day.

As she flew from Cleveland to the Iowa-Illinois border area for the Annual Salute to Labor Picnic, Clinton told about 40 journalists who traveled with her that it was unprecedented that a “foreign adversarial power” would be involved in the electoral process — or in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee that was revealed in July.

“We’ve never had the nominee of one of our major parties urging the Russians to hack more,” she said. In July, Trump encouraging Russia to find and release the deleted emails from the private server Clinton maintained at the State Department.

When pressed about whether she believed the Russians were actively trying to elect Trump to the Oval Office, Clinton took a long pause before responding. “I think it’s quite intriguing that this activity has happened around the time Trump became the nominee,” she conceded.

She added: “I often quote a great saying that I learned from living in Arkansas for many years: If you find a turtle on a fence post, it didn’t get there by itself.”

Clinton’s hints about a hacking scandal that threatened to disrupt the Democratic National Convention in July — and led to the resignation of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was paid for by a  rival candidate.

At a rally in an Mexican-American neighborhood in Cleveland, Clinton weighed in for the first time about Trump’s trip to Mexico last week, where he meet with President Enrique Pena Nieto. She called it “an embarrassing international incident,” after the two could not agree on whether or not they had discussed Mexico paying for a border wall.

Clinton also noted that Trump “even got into a Twitter war with the President of Mexico” and then followed up the visit by delivering “his most hate-filled, hard-lined speech yet” about immigration. “He can’t even go to a foreign country without getting into a public feud with the president,” she said. Until Monday, the only reaction to Trump's anti Mexican imbroglio had come in a statement from her campaign chairman.

Clinton said she was “quite taken aback” by the revelation that Trump’s foundation made a political contribution to the Florida attorney general, who abruptly ended a planned investigation into Trump University. “There’s so many things that are questionable about that,” she said. The Washington Post reported last week that Trump paid a $2,500 fine to the IRS for the campaign donations that violated tax laws.

 

She refused comment when pressed about the conflict of interest issues plaguing her own foundation. She refused to say whether the Clintons would continue to have a role on the board if she is elected president.

Clinton joked as she walked to the back of the plane, positioning herself in the doorway separating the press from the Secret Service and the staff sections of the plane. “I’m thrilled,” she said. "No, really! I wanted to welcome you onto my new plane. I think it’s pretty cool, don’t you?”

Unaccustomed to casual interactions with the Democratic nominee, the reporters paused before responding. “You’re supposed to agree with me and say yes ma'am,” she said.

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by 41chevy

[HeavyGunner]

Good to see that crook scrambling because her many transgressions as a politician are finally surrounding her and people are starting to notice.  

Edited September 6, 2016 by HeavyGunner
Damn auto correct

[mowerman]

tryed to follow this post,but too much reading for me.lol....but im sure its probably more on exposing those two crooks...seems now thier angle is blaming trump for trying to ruin hilly,s chances .....seems thier running outa excuses,,since they have beaten that one into the ground...lol.bob

[HeavyGunner]

59 minutes ago, mowerman said:

tryed to follow this post,but too much reading for me.lol....but im sure its probably more on exposing those two crooks...seems now thier angle is blaming trump for trying to ruin hilly,s chances .....seems thier running outa excuses,,since they have beaten that one into the ground...lol.bob

I dunno about that, Obama has got nearly a decade of blaming bush for everything under his belt. By the way we are safer than ever, economy booming according to him too. 👎👎👎

[kscarbel2]

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell told his successor, Hillary Clinton, that he used his own personal computer to communicate with friends and foreign leaders and sent emails without going through the State Department server, according to emails released Wednesday by congressional Democrats.

Clinton has previously said she reached out to Powell when she began serving as Secretary of State to find out how he used personal devices.

In a four-paragraph email response from Powell, he told Clinton he didn't use a BlackBerry, but detailed how he got around having his communications with both employees and people outside the State Department becoming part of the agency's official record.

"What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient). So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels," Powell wrote.

Powell has pushed back against reports suggesting that he might have given Hillary Clinton the idea to use a private email account as Secretary of State, telling media outlets last month that "her people are trying to pin it on me."

In February, the State Department inspector general released a memo after its own review of private email practices by others, reporting it found two emails on Powell's private email and some on accounts of aides to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that included classified information.

Powell also told Clinton in 2009 "the real issue had to do with PDAs, as we called them a few years ago before Blackberry became a noun."

Powell said officials at the State Department refused to allow them in secure spaces and when he resisted "they gave me all kinds of nonsense about how they gave out signals and could be read by spies, etc."

Powell says officials had concerns about mobile phones, too, but tells Clinton: "I had numerous meetings with them."

He also revealed that he had "an ancient version of a PDA and used it."

The FBI's report on Clinton's email use includes information about Powell's warning to Clinton that using a government email meant her messages would become public.

In the email exchange Powell wrote "there is a real danger."

"Government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law," he said.

He added: "Be very careful ... I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data."

Powell's spokesperson recently said he wrote a memo about his own use of an AOL account to Clinton and said the account was for "unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department." [???]

Stressing the major differences in technology between his tenure at the department and Clinton's, the spokesperson said: "At the time there was no equivalent system within the department. He used a secure State computer on his desk to manage classified information."

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee who released the full email exchange, said that it "shows that Secretary Powell advised Secretary Clinton with a detailed blueprint on how to skirt security rules and bypass requirements to preserve federal records, although Secretary Clinton has made clear that she did not rely on this advice."

The Maryland Democrat also argued Republicans who have been pressing for documents from the State Department had a double standard for their concern about use of private email, saying if they were worried about the issue, "they would be attempting to recover Secretary Powell's emails from AOL, but they have taken no steps to do so despite the fact that this period-including the run-up to the Iraq War-was critical to our nation's history."

In addition to advising Clinton about government communications, Powell gave his assessment about the security protocols, not just for email, but for movements. He bristled at the restrictions they wanted on him, and recommendations that he be accompanied by agents.

"You will find DS driving you crazy if you let them," he said. And in what may be a reference to Madeleine Albright, he says: "They had Maddy tied up in knots."

Powell said he wouldn't let security agents live inside his house so they had to find a garage nearby. He also revealed "on weekends, I drove my beloved cars around town without them following me," which he said they "hated" and made him sign a letter "relieving them of responsibility if I got whacked while doing that. I gladly did."

He closed his email, saying about the department officials "their job is to keep you hermetically sealed up. Love, Colin."

[kscarbel2]

"A good example of why this testimony is simply not believable, in fact, I think a lot of it is just outright falsehood, let's remember, she was also on the Senate Arms Services Committee for 6 years before she became Secretary of State. She had to have a much better knowledge of what was classified and what was not classified [than she publicly admits]."

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton

.

 

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

Former attorney general Alberto Gonzales weighed in on a newly released email from former Secretary of State Colin Powell to Clinton in 2009. Powell wrote how he used a personal computer connected to private phone lines while at the State Department.

“It appears that Colin Powell did what he did or his advice was based upon convenience for him,” said Gonzales. “The fact that she [Hillary Clinton] would rely upon Colin Powell’s advice to me is also kind of interesting or curious because he’s a secretary of state, he’s not a lawyer, and so why wouldn’t she check with the attorney general? Why wouldn’t she check with the lawyers at the State Department? That’s who she should have checked with, not necessarily reliance upon Secretary Powell.”

With the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on Sunday, Gonzales worries “that America may be less safe today” with the rise of lone-wolf terrorists, who are harder to detect.

“We are more safe in respect to attacks by hijack aircraft,” said Gonzales. “The next attacker of a 9/11 scale attack is likely to be an American citizen, someone who looks like you and I, speaks perfect English, can travel back and forth freely within this country, and that presents unique challenges to our law enforcement and intelligence communities.”

[kscarbel2]

Hacked Powell emails: Trump a 'pariah' but would rather not vote for Clinton

The Guardian  /  September 14, 2016

A series of leaks of email exchanges involving the former US secretary of state Colin Powell have revealed a stinging rebuke of Donald Trump, as well as lesser criticism of Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Powell, George W Bush’s chief diplomat from 2001 to 2005, called his fellow Republican a “national disgrace” and an “international pariah”.

Personal email exchanges leaked on Tuesday and Wednesday reveal the retired four-star general’s contempt for Trump, whose conspiracy theories surrounding Barack Obama’s place of birth Powell also labels as “racist”.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote to his former aide in emails first reported by Buzzfeed News, referring to conspiracy theories that suggest Obama was not born in the US. “That’s what the 99% believe.

“When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim. As I have said before, ‘What if he was?’ Muslims are born as Americans everyday.”

Powell’s emails surfaced on the website DCLeaks.com, which has previously featured other hacks into prominent Republicans and Democrats. Bush’s former top diplomat, who has served in three Republican administrations, confirmed the exchanges were his but declined to comment any further.

In another alleged exchange, reported by the New York Post, Powell told Democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds he would not vote for Hillary Clinton while citing tabloid rumors about Bill Clinton’s private life.

“I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect,” Powell said.

“A 70-year person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still d—ing bimbos at home (according to the NYP).”

Powell told the New York Post he did not recall that particular exchange when asked about its authenticity.

While it is unclear who is responsible for hacking into Powell’s emails, the website DCLeaks reportedly has ties to the Russian government. When the Democratic National Committee’s emails were leaked in July, just ahead of the party’s national convention, the FBI said it believed Russia was behind the hack.

Powell’s own email use has become a focal point in the controversy surrounding Clinton’s use of a private server. During an interview with FBI investigators, the Democratic nominee said Powell had advised her to use a personal email and that he did the same while serving as secretary of state.

Powell later accused Clinton’s campaign of trying to throw him under the bus, but House Democrats last week released email correspondence between the two in which Powell discussed how to get around state department restrictions on both personal email and devices.

Even so, Powell voices his frustration with the Clinton campaign in one of the latest leaked emails, reported by NBCNews.

“I have told Hillary’s minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try,” Powell wrote.

[41chevy]

Think now is a bad time? Wait until immediately after the election when Obama can run wild with his Executive orders until January 19. . . with no fear of repercussions. The winner will either support and add to the orders or try to void them all.

[HarryS]

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