It turns out it’s not just conservative pundits, the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” or even the Donald Trump campaign that thinks there was something fishy about the conflicts of interest arising from the fundraising activities of the Clinton Family Foundation. Hillary Clinton’s top aides also worried about the nexis between Bill’s and Hillary’s personal financial interests, their charitable front group, and the connections between all of that and the State Department. Some of the latest emails brought to light by Wikileaks document how the Clinton inner circle was aware of the implications of the way vast sums were being raised and made and how it might look to the voters.
Among the latest Wikileaks highlights are emails that speak of Hillary Clinton agreeing to attend an event in Morocco at King Mohammed’s request after he agreed to give the foundation $12 million. There’s also the fact that even Chelsea Clinton was aware that Clinton aides—including Bill Clinton’s confidant Doug Band, who was likely acting with the knowledge of the 42nd president—were “hustling” Foundation donors.
Campaign officials are also shown to be hoping that the Foundation will lower its profile as Clinton began her presidential campaign, aware of the fact that every mention of it taints the former First Lady’s reputation. They knew—even if the public didn’t—that Foundation donors were pouring money not only into the charity but also into Bill and Hillary’s pockets in the form of exorbitant honoraria and consulting fees for unspecified “advice.” Donors had, as a private audit of the Foundation’s fundraising work commissioned by Chelsea revealed, “an expectation of quid pro quo benefits in return for gift.”
Exactly what those benefits were, whether in terms of favors done by the Clinton State Department or a future Hillary Clinton presidency, are not known. But in some cases, such as the OK for the sale of a uranium mine to Russia by a donor or those who wanted rare face time with the secretary, the quid pro quo is fairly obvious.
The details of the infighting between Chelsea and her parents’s camp followers are fascinating. When Hillary’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, snidely pointed out that an insincere note from the presidential daughter illustrated how she was so like her parents in having the ability to give someone a kiss on the cheek while stabbing them in the back, the rest of us can only nod in agreement.
There’s no getting back that uranium mine any more that there is any way to claw back the benefits the Clintons’ influence peddling gave to their donors. But what is relevant today is the fact that the same merry band of grifters is about to return to the West Wing. The Clintons are not wrong when they say the Wikileaks documents are the result of an unconscionable interference in a U.S. election by Russia. Nor should even those shocked by what we’ve learned treat foreign espionage on American targets as a good thing. Yet what Wikileaks has done is to expand upon what we learned from Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash and investigations carried out by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, and given us a clear-eyed preview of how the people who will probably soon be running the government operate.
