Just a week ago, The New York Times reported that Bill Clinton attended a 2005 dinner with the president of Kazakhstan and a Canadian mining executive. Clinton praised the thuggish president at the dinner; the mining executive got a lucrative uranium contract - and the foundation a few weeks later received $31 million from the mining exec, with the promise of more to come.
And in January, Bill Clinton abruptly severed his investment-fund business relationship with longtime donor Ron Burkle, reportedly departing with a $20 million personal payout.
At the very least, then, a $5 million loan is not beyond the Clintons' means.
True enough, the former president last year implied that he himself wouldn't put personal money into the campaign: "[The Supreme Court says] you couldn't stop me from spending all the money I've saved over the last five years on Hillary's campaign if I wanted to, even though it would clearly violate the spirit of campaign-finance reform."
Then again, the former president has done violence to the truth in the past. So is it unfair to ask whether, say, the Burkle deal was designed to pass along cash to a struggling campaign?
Not at all.
Clouds have always hovered over Clinton fund-raising operations. And the lack of personal financial transparency demonstrated by both Clintons further complicates matters.
Given that the entire family fortune has been accumulated since the Clintons left the White House, it's not unreasonable to ask whence the money came.
That fortune was, after all, the basis for the $5 million loan that's helped keep the senator's campaign afloat.
Sen. Obama, who has long since made public his tax returns, yesterday challenged his opponent to do the same.
It is, frankly, the least she can do."
Dirt poor compared to their political peers, the Clintons have parlayed 8 years of his White House philandering into a sizable fortune. A fortune they won't make public.
None of this bothers their followers?
No comments:
Post a Comment