TALK ABOUT PRESCIENT: Mark Steyn is an independent thinker who's right more often than not.And in this page from his website one can see how right he's been for a long time. Part of the reason for this has to be his independence from any institution in the media world in addition to simply being an originalist. He's also unafraid to make predictions and he has the perspective of an outsider although he's a naturalized citizen. Always forthy of reading, like Victor Davis Hanson.
THIS ARTICLE POSTED APRIL 2015:There's been no relief in 15 months begging th question: what's next?
INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY exposes the heart of the case against the Clinton Foundation.
Corruption: The Clinton Foundation's questionable money dealings have raised eyebrows for years. Now, a letter circulating in Congress alleges that the Clinton family's supposed do-gooder foundation is in fact a "lawless, 'pay-to-play' enterprise that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years."
Those are pretty tough words for a former president and his wife, who happens to be the leading candidate to be our next president. But the congressional letter, which the Daily Caller News Foundation got its hands on, was written by Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who plans on asking the FBI, IRS and Federal Trade Commission to launch a "public corruption" investigation.
Is it warranted, or just politics? It sure looks like the former. As Blackburn's letter says, there is a "pattern of dealing that personally enriched the Clintons at the expense of American foreign policy."
Blackburn cites the for-profit education business Laureate Education, which paid Bill Clinton some $16.5 million to serve part-time as "honorary chancellor" starting in 2010, a year after Hillary became secretary of state. Laureate, for its part, gave the Clinton Foundation some $1 million to $5 million. Nothing illegal about that, per se.
However, the Daily Tennesseean reports that Blackburn's letter also details how "the International Youth Fund, whose board members include Laureate's founder, Douglas Baker, received more than $55 million in grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state." AID is a part of the State Department.
Then there's Uranium One. Hillary Clinton, the Daily Tennesseean notes, "was one of several Obama administration officials who approved the sale of uranium to the Russian-operated company, whose chairman also has donated $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation." A number of other people involved in the deal also gave money to the Clintons.
"The appearance of 'pay-to-play' transactions involving Laureate and Uranium One also raises serious allegations of criminal conduct requiring further examination," Blackburn's letter says.
That's not all of the questionable activities.
As we noted back in May, the Clinton Foundation took in some $100 million in donations from a variety of Gulf sheikhs and billionaires who no doubt expected to reap political benefits from a future Hillary Clinton presidency, with Bill serving not just as first gentleman in the White House but also possibly as bagman. Among donors dumping bags of cash on the Clintons include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Lost in the shuffle is Bill Clinton's special "business partnership" from 2003 to 2008 with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the strongman ruler of Dubai. That deal netted Clinton some $15 million in "guaranteed payments," tax records show. And then there's the $30 million delivered to the Clintons by two Mideast foundations and four billionaire Saudis. For the betterment of humankind, no doubt.
As national security analyst and writer Patrick Poole said in May, "These regimes are buying access. ... There are massive conflicts of interest. It's beyond comprehension."
It took Wall Street financial analyst and investment advisor Charles Ortel -- whom the Sunday Times of London once described as "one of the finest analysts of financial statements on the planet" -- to untangle the mess in a series of ongoing reports. Ortel alleges that contribution disclosures by the foundation often don't fit with what donors' own records say -- big red flag.
"This," Ortel summed up, "is a charity fraud."
As a reminder, this isn't just some political vendetta. As far back as 2013, an alarmed New York Times warned that the foundation had become "a sprawling concern, supervised by a rotating board of old Clinton hands, vulnerable to distraction and threatened by conflicts of interest."
It turns out that's a gross understatement.
Testifying last week to Congress, FBI chief James Comey called Hillary Clinton "extremely careless" about her use of a private email server while secretary of state. But, curiously, he refused additional comment "on the existence or nonexistence of any other ongoing investigations." This needs to be disclosed. Americans deserve to know whether the person they're likely to put into the White House this November is merely a misunderstood career public servant -- or a pocket-lining career criminal.
THERE'S MORE HERE THAN MEETS THE EYE: The Clintons and their Democratic Party are a criminal syndicate posing as political leaders and a political party. That's all there is to it.
The former FBI agent in this post provides the answer to the investigation carried out by Comey and the FBI. We already know about the extent of the Clintons' corruption from 20 years of enduring them in public life. Therefore there is no doubt about their intentions regarding Hillary's use of a private server and her circumvention of laws and regulations controlling the use of the elaborate classification system in place to protect the vital secrets of the United States from the likes of Putin, Kim jon, the Mullahs, etc. The willful circumvention of the protocols by Hillary was to prevent the prying eyes of Inspector Generals and others from observing the extent and use of her influence as Secretary of State to influence illegal contributions to the Clinton Foundation which among other illicit reasons was formed as a political arm of the Clinton Family. Of all this we are quite sure. What we do not know is what was the motive behind the limited investigation by the FBI of her use of the unauthorized email server that's become the focus of attention in this presidential campaign. The author of the PL blog post here, himself an ex FBI agent familiar with the classification system and the technology behind its protection, raised this question in detail but leaves the discussion of motives at the mystery level. Putting aside the question of who was responsible for the decision to narrowly limit the investigation, Comey, the WH, or the DOJ, at least a plausible explanation of the motive, if the decision maker in fact was Comey, would look like this. In his own mind, Comey probably and not unreasonably decided the consequences of following the facts wherever they lead, as stated the usual protocol in any FBI investigation, would probably lead to the massive corruption at the Clinton Foundation and even to enabling corruption at the White House level, decided a standard protocol investigation investigation could lead to a total breakdown of the already fragile, highly divided body politic might lead to a 21st century version of civil war. Not wanting to be responsible for this breakdown in civic life, Comey decided to narrowly limit the investigation to Hillary's use of the email server with a built-in conclusion that there was no criminal intent to deceive on her part but simply naïveté about how the classification systems work. Thus we have the official conclusion provided at his press conference that there was no criminal intent to deceive and the can of ugly worms has been kicked down the road. This is exactly the approach taken by Chief Justice Roberts when he decided the key component of Obamacare, the penalty for individual non-compliance with the provision calling for a fine for non-payment of mandatory premiums was in fact a tax, and not a fine. Rather than undermining the entirety of Obamacare by rendering it un Constitutional, he too punted, leaving the decision for others, down the road.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.