Clinton Foundation Foreign Donors Continue To Raise Questions
Clinton Foundation Foreign Donors are raising eyebrows with a few people, causing some consternation.
According to CNN, a new book is shedding some light on the practices of the Clinton Foundation. Clinton Cash, written by Peter Schweizer, alleges that while serving as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s decisions were influenced by foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. Schweizer says though there is no direct evidence, “the smoking gun is in the pattern of behavior.”
Bill Clinton, the titular head of the Clinton Foundation, has said that “there’s just no evidence. Even the guy that wrote the book apparently had to admit under questioning that we didn’t have a shred of evidence for this, we just sort of thought we would throw it out there and see if it flies, and it won’t fly.”
The Clinton Foundation has been criticized recently for improperly reporting foreign donations for tax purposes, to which Clinton said any errors will be corrected once an internal investigation is completed, and were unintentional.
“There would be no benefit to the foundation from doing that,” he said about falsifying tax records. “I still believe in transparency and I trust the American people and I — I think it’ll be fine.”
When asked what he will do if Hillary Clinton is elected president, Bill Clinton said “whatever I was asked to do.”
ABC News is reporting that the new issue facing the Clinton Foundation, other than the book, is their participation in a three-day conference in Morocco, hosted by Moroccan state-owned mining company OCP (Office Chérifien des Phosphates, or Sharifian Phosphate office). OCP is donating $1 million to the Clinton Foundation.
The event is being hosted in the secluded Moroccan golf resort, away from the busy, crowded Marrakech suburbs. The three-day weekend is said to contain three uninterrupted days of panel discussions, breakout sessions, and opportunities to speak with former-President Clinton, and other world leaders.
Contributing sponsors of the event include the Akwa Group, a gas and oil firm based in Morocco, Channel IT, a Nigerian telecom company, and Coca-Cola and APCO Worldwide, one of Washington’s biggest lobbying firms. APCO Worldwide provides its service to the Clinton Foundation at no charge.
However, the OCP has been mining phosphates in the western Sahara desert, taking resources out of the area and allegedly depriving the areas’ populace of a decent living wages or any of the basic amenities human beings needed and other serious human rights violations, according to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice.
Though OCP claims that they want to back the Clinton Foundation in the charitable efforts, other actions seem to belie that. Since 2012, OCP has paid Covington & Burling, a top Washington law firm, $1.3 million to lobby the State Department, and other agencies, for their claim on the western Sahara. An undisclosed Moroccan government agency has paid Washington lobbyist Justin Gray $25,000 a month for his services, the same time Gray joined the Clinton Foundation-led Priorities USA. Gray has stated there is no correlation between the two.
The continued uncovering of these issues, what can be perceived as major improprieties, will haunt the Clinton Foundation unless something is done to eradicate them.
[Image courtesy of Fididigs]
