Former president Clinton spoke to groups with issues before State Department …He’s Just her Bill…. an ordinary lout
http://www.wsj.com/articles/speaking-fees-meet-politics-for-clintons-1451504098?mod=trending_now_1
Speaking Fees Meet Politics for Clintons By James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus
At Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearing for secretary of state, she promised she would take “extraordinary steps…to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
Later, more than two dozen companies and groups and one foreign government paid former President Bill Clinton a total of more than $8 million to give speeches around the time they also had matters before Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Fifteen of them also donated a total of between $5 million and $15 million to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the family’s charity, according to foundation disclosures.
In several instances, State Department actions benefited those that paid Mr. Clinton. The Journal found no evidence that speaking fees were paid to the former president in exchange for any action by Mrs. Clinton, now the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Mrs. Clinton has come under fire from Republicans and some Democrats for potential conflicts of interest between her family’s work at the foundation and her duties as secretary of state between 2009 and February 2013. Her husband’s high-profile activities pose a unique challenge for Mrs. Clinton as she runs for president and he prepares to step up his role in her campaign.
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Mr. Clinton, for example, collected $1 million for two appearances sponsored by the Abu Dhabi government that were arranged while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. His speeches there came during and after the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security were involved in discussions about a plan to open a U.S. facility in the Abu Dhabi airport to ease visa processing for travel to the U.S. The State Department supported the facility in the face of substantial opposition from unions, members of Congress and others.
The Journal based its analysis on financial-disclosure forms, lobbying records and emails released by the State Department. It looked at speeches given or arranged while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said “no evidence exists” to link any actions taken by Mrs. Clinton’s State Department to organizations hosting Mr. Clinton’s speeches, and that all of her actions were in line with Obama administration policies and priorities.
Representatives of most of the companies and organizations involved said there was no connection between their lobbying efforts and the speaking fees they paid Mr. Clinton. Representatives of Abu Dhabi and several companies declined to comment.
The Clintons struck an agreement with the Obama administration to allow State Department ethics officers to check for conflicts between speech sponsors and Mrs. Clinton’s government work.
State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach said not all activity at the department personally or substantially involves the secretary of state. “Her commitments did not equate to an indiscriminate prohibition on former President Clinton from working with any entity that interacted with the State Department, which would have encompassed an excessively broad range of companies, governments and NGOs [nongovernmental organizations],” he said.
ENLARGE The ethics reviews, he noted, “were conducted by career civil servants who have served in both Republican and Democratic administrations.”
Mr. Clinton was paid for more than 200 speeches while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, according to his wife’s disclosure forms. Documents released thus far by the State Department show the ethics office turned down five of his speech requests, including proposed talks sponsored by North Korea, China and the Republic of Congo.
Mr. Clinton has given mixed signals about whether he would abandon the paid-speaking circuit if his wife becomes president.
Asked by NBC in May if he would remain on the speech circuit while his wife was running for president, Mr. Clinton responded, “Oh, yeah. I gotta pay our bills.”
In June, Bloomberg TV asked Mr. Clinton if he would still give paid speeches if Mrs. Clinton gained the White House. “I don’t think so,” he replied, saying he didn’t want to make news that detracted from the presidency. Then he added: “I will still give speeches, though, on the subjects I’m interested in.”
A spokesman for Mr. Clinton, asked to clarify, pointed to the former president’s previous statements.
The State Department got involved in the Abu Dhabi matter after the capital of the United Arab Emirates asked for a facility to clear travelers for U.S. entry before they boarded planes so they could avoid delays when arriving in the U.S. Only five countries in the world at the time had such an arrangement: Canada, Ireland and three Caribbean countries.
According to two former State Department officials who worked on the matter, the U.S. wanted to help an important ally. Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said it was “a continuation of a Bush administration initiative to expand preclearance conducted abroad,” and that the Department of Homeland Security led negotiations.
U.S.-based airlines, which have no direct flights between Abu Dhabi and the U.S., opposed the idea as a giveaway to the government-owned airline, Etihad Airways. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and unions for pilots and flight attendants opposed it. More than 150 lawmakers from both parties ultimately opposed it.
While Mrs. Clinton’s State Department and the Department of Homeland Security were working out a “letter of intent” with Abu Dhabi for the facility, Mr. Clinton sought permission to give a paid speech in Abu Dhabi. The invitation came from the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative, a group created by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates and emir of Abu Dhabi, according to Mr. Clinton’s request to the State Department.
Requests for comment from the U.A.E. embassy in Washington were referred to a public-relations firm, which declined to comment on behalf of the government.
State Department ethics officer Katy Youel Page, in an August 2011 email, inquired about Mr. Clinton’s potential involvement with “high-level officials” from Abu Dhabi. She asked the State Department’s United Arab Emirates desk officer, “Would it be any harm to foreign policy to associate with this?” He replied: “No concerns here.”
On Dec. 6, 2011, U.S. officials signed the letter of intent. One week later, Mr. Clinton gave a 20-minute talk on climate change to the Abu Dhabi government environmental gathering. He collected $500,000, his wife’s disclosure report shows.
In December 2012, Mr. Clinton sought approval for another speech in Abu Dhabi before the World Travel and Tourism Council, State Department emails show. The request said the speech was sponsored by three Abu Dhabi tourism agencies, all owned by the government. A conference sponsor was Etihad Airways, the chief beneficiary of the inspection facility, the group’s promotional materials said. An Etihad spokeswoman referred questions about the facility to the government of Abu Dhabi.
Mr. Clinton gave a keynote address on the value of tourism. He was paid $500,000, his wife’s disclosure filings say.
One week later, the U.S. and Abu Dhabi signed the final agreement for the facility. Etihad Airways operated its first flight from it last year.
Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said it was “farcical” to suggest any connection between the speeches and the facility’s opening.
Mr. Clinton also had a large payday from Oracle Corp. : a total of $500,000 for two talks given or approved while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. He gave one in October 2012 as the company was urging the State Department to increase the number of skilled-worker visas being issued, lobbying reports show.
Oracle, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. , whose co-founder Bill Gates has suggested eliminating the visa cap altogether, paid Mr. Clinton a total of more than $1.1 million for speeches during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure.
Mrs. Clinton has long supported increasing skilled-worker visas, known as H-1B visas, as did her husband when he was president. The issue has remained mired in the broader congressional debate about immigration.
In 2009, the Biotechnology Industry Organization lobbied the State Department to get diplomats to oppose rules against genetically modified foods. In December, Mrs. Clinton sent a cable to diplomats telling them to “pay particular attention” to countries considering biotech regulation and to push an “active biotech agenda” that would “protect the interests of U.S. farmers and exporters,” according to a copy released by WikiLeaks.
Five months later, the biotechnology group paid Mr. Clinton $175,000 to appear at its convention. After Mrs. Clinton left the State Department, she also spoke at the trade group’s convention, earning $335,000.
A spokesman for the trade group said the speeches were unrelated to the company’s lobbying and Mr. Clinton was invited in part because he supported the group’s issues. Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said a similar diplomatic cable was sent under the Bush administration.
Mr. Clinton also received a substantial payout in 2010 from Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank whose executives were at risk of being hurt by possible U.S. sanctions tied to a complex and controversial case of alleged corruption in Russia.
Members of Congress wrote to Mrs. Clinton in 2010 seeking to deny visas to people who had been implicated by Russian accountant Sergei Magnitsky, who was jailed and died in prison after he uncovered evidence of a large tax-refund fraud. William Browder, a foreign investor in Russia who had hired Mr. Magnitsky, alleged that the accountant had turned up evidence that Renaissance officials, among others, participated in the fraud.
The Russian government was opposed to sanctions. At the time, the Obama administration was attempting to reset relations with Russia. The State Department rebuffed the request from Congress. “We…do not support such a measure at this time,” a department official wrote to one senator.
A few weeks later, Bill Clinton participated in a question-and-answer session at a Renaissance Capital investors conference. He was paid $500,000. After the appearance, Mr. Clinton received a personal thank-you call from Vladimir Putin, then the Russian prime minister, the government news agency TASS reported.
Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said she took aggressive steps on human-rights abuses in Russia and “personally acted to impose a ban on travel to the U.S. by several dozen officials believed to have been involved in Magnitsky’s death.” Sponsors of the congressional legislation said the move, coming in 2011, was a major step, but that it didn’t go far enough.
Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said she opposed congressional attempts to link broad sanctions to a bill to normalize trade relations with Russia, believing the two matters should be handled separately. Nevertheless, the Magnitsky Act passed in late 2012 with bipartisan support as a part of a trade-normalization bill. The law calls for sanctions on unnamed individuals whose alleged fraudulent schemes were uncovered by Mr. Magnitsky, including several linked to Renaissance Capital, according to congressional aides who helped draft the bill.
A spokeswoman for Renaissance declined to comment other than to say the bank is under new management since Mr. Magnitsky’s original investigation.
Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said there was no connection between her husband’s speech and the State Department’s handling of the matter.
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