Monday, June 20, 2016

Clinton Foundation Financials

In November 2015 Clinton Foundation officials issued a second revision of their Internal Revenue Service form 990 filings for 2010 through 2013.

There were at least 29 “amendments”, including revised revenues, and revised income from Clinton speeches.  


Foreign government gifts were not specified.


In January 2016 Clinton Foundation officials filed a third revision of New York State financial statements for 2010 to 2013.


From those revised NY documents, we now know the Clinton Foundation previously hid $17.7 million in foreign government gifts received while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. 


A 2008 Memorandum of Understanding between Hillary Clinton and Valerie Jarrett was intended to ban foreign government contributions to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was Secretary of State ... but we now know the Memorandum was ignored by the Clintons.


These foreign government gifts were on a revised document titled “Exhibit A”, filed with the NY Public Charity Division, operated by Democrat New York Attorney General Eric Schneidermann. 


The revised Exhibit A revealed foreign government gifts to the Clinton Foundation for the first time, and the table below shows foreign government gifts were much larger than US government gifts, while Hillary was Secretary of State.


The important new line added in January 2016: 

“All other government grants came from foreign governments” .

If you know total government gifts, and US government gifts are specified, then the remaining government gifts MUST BE from foreign governments.


The new data are for 2010 through 2013 -- those four years added up to $17.7 million donated by foreign governments while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State:

            Foreign Govt. Donations        US Govt. Donations
2010            $7.8 million                           $1.0 million
2011              2.0                                         1.0
2012              3.5                                         0.3
2013              4.4                                    less than 0.1
Total          $17.7 million                          $2.3 million





Former US Attorney Joseph DiGenova commented:
“There is no doubt that the (Clinton) Foundation purposely refused to make public certain things as a way of protecting the Secretary of State during her tenure ... The entire process to hide information from the public is completely inconsistent with a public charity.”


He predicted: “the new revelations will up the ante for the FBI. This will just add fodder to the ongoing investigation.” 

 
He added:“There is no reason to believe that the $18 million figure is complete,” based on the “unreliability” of past
(Clinton) Foundation accountings: “It may very well be much, much more.”



Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the Washington, D.C. law office of Foley & Lardner LLP, who frequently represents conservative nonprofits, criticized the Clintons for: 

“their determination to disguise what they are doing.”


I don't agree with Donald Trump on many subjects, but I do agree with his claims that Hillary Clinton turned her Secretaryship into a huge “hedge fund”, where “the Russians, the Saudis and the Chinese all gave money to Bill and Hillary and got favorable treatment in return.” 


The book "Clinton Cash" details exactly who got favorable treatment just before, or just after, donating money to the Clinton Foundation.


If the Clintons had a history of honesty, it might be possible to dismiss these charges as partisan politics ... but the Clintons are among the least honest politicians in the past century ... along with Richard Nixon.