The operation did not actually get all the necessary approvals for what they claimed they were doing. This is a case of grabbing the money and worrying about it all later. Later is unfortunately now.
I expect that all the reckless behavior we have long suspected will be flushed out into the public domain.
It looks like an awful story with zero redemption..
.
“Predatory Humanism” and the Plunder of Haiti: “Clinton Robin Hood in Reverse Must Be Punished”
Interview of Charles Ortel with Dady Chery
Despite the polls in the run up to November 8, 2016, and the
post-election shenanigans that continue to this day, the United States
has a new President, and it is not Hillary Clinton. There are many reasons for this, and Charles Ortel’s dogged, two-year investigation of the Clintons’ predatory humanitarianism is a major one. He is not yet done. It is almost universally unacceptable to prey on the weak of one’s own species.
There are laws and religious precepts against this in every human
culture. In fact, as humans, we find it so heinous to prey on the
helpless that, contrary to all biological rules, we prey on the strong,
and not the sick, young, and injured, even when we hunt other species.
The Clintons and their associates are not above the law, and Ortel, with
his credentials as a graduate of the Harvard Business School, decades
of Wall Street experience, and accurate assessment in 2008 of General
Electric stock as being overvalued, is taking his investigation to the
next level. I caught up with him last week for the following interview.
DC: Charles, we now know that former President Barack Obama
did not pardon former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton.
CO: The pardons would have been for the Clinton family and others
for federal offenses arising from the illegal operation of, and
solicitation for, numerous so-called charities. The apparent failure to
pardon removes a major excuse that US state, federal, and foreign
government authorities may have had for failing to investigate, expose,
prosecute, and win criminal convictions in what I believe to be the
largest charity fraud ever attempted.
It will take time to replace federal government employees inside the
Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service, and Federal Trade
Commission, who likely were complicit in a scheme to impede and obstruct
investigations into this ongoing charity-fraud conspiracy. Given time, I
certainly hope the Trump administration will increase the resources for
the rumored investigations by the FBI and the IRS, which should address
widespread illegal solicitation and operations in virtually every US
state and numerous foreign countries. I also hope that the Trump
administration will work closely with foreign-government donors who
either were complicit in these charity frauds, or who should now be
working hard to recover funds advanced to Clinton charities under false
pretenses.
DC: Now that the Clinton Global Initiative has shut down its
operations, will there be access to its documents? Are the people who
were involved with CGI still responsible to show to the IRS and other
government agencies that its affairs are in order?
CO: Unlike investigations into Ponzi schemes and other frauds
involving for-profit entities, investigators wield enormous leverage
when they finally decide to look into frauds by not-for-profit entities.
Review of New York and other state laws, IRS regulations and practices,
and laws in relevant countries suggest that the executives, directors,
and their professional advisors will bear the burden of proving that
they organized and then operated the various Clinton charities lawfully
at all times. Losing or obscuring records will hurt those who are
potentially liable, and I would note that criminal penalties for
organizing and operating charity frauds, particularly disaster-relief
charity frauds, are onerous.
DC: Many people confuse the Clinton Global Initiative, which
recently closed its doors, with the Clinton Foundation. Is the CGI a
legal entity, and how does it relate to the Clinton Foundation?
CO: The CGI began to operate in New York by September 2005,
illegally, as a concept. Under US law, a validly organized charity
cannot be a formless association; instead it must be a lawfully
constituted entity. In most cases, the trustees or directors of a
lawfully organized charity choose to establish a nonprofit corporation
under US state laws; after this, they get federal tax exemption on the
basis of a detailed application that must be filled out truthfully and
accurately, and that states their specific purposes, which are then
authorized by the IRS. There’s no record anywhere that the Clinton
Foundation validly changed its authorized purposes. Originally, in
January 1998, these were to erect a presidential archive, establish a
research facility in Little Rock, Arkansas, and raise a capital
endowment. So, starting with the first CGI Annual Meeting in Manhattan,
the Clinton Foundation became engaged in substantial activities that
were not authorized, or even charitable. Disclosures in the IRS filings
for the Clinton Foundation show that CGI activities were substantial in
every year from 2005 through 2009.
New CGI
On September 4, 2009, several weeks before the 2009 CGI Annual
Meeting in Manhattan, a new Arkansas nonprofit corporation called
“Clinton Global Initiative, Inc.” was established. It’s not clear yet
from the filings how sums were divided between January 1, 2009 through
September 3, 2009; and September 4, 2009 through 31 December 31, 2009.
Though a CGI meeting was held in 2009 while the old initiative and the
new legal entity both, in theory, existed, an application for federal
tax exemption for the new entity was not submitted until August 2010.
This application falsely claims that the new entity wasn’t a legal
successor to any previous activity, when abundant evidence in the public
domain shows otherwise.
The New CGI held meetings in 2010, 2011, and 2012. So far, the Shared
Services Agreement under which the parent Clinton Foundation operated
New CGI hasn’t been made public. So we don’t yet know the financial
ramifications of these arrangements. According to documents in the
public domain, the Clinton Foundation controlled New CGI. So, in these
three years, New CGI provided Annual Reports to the IRS, but its
financial results were also consolidated into the Clinton Foundation’s
financial and operating reports.
The Clinton Foundation elected, in theory, to merge New CGI back into
the Clinton Foundation in 2013. To do so validly under Arkansas and
other laws, each charity must be validly organized and operated from
inception through the merger date. I don’t believe close analysis
supports such a conclusion. Until recently, the Clinton Foundation
continued to solicit funds for CGI and to hold various meetings whose
charitable purpose is far from clear.
Laureate Education Inc.
I am certain that patient, empowered review of the many thousand CGI
Commitments to Action will uncover numerous instances where CGI was
operated for substantial private gain. A single example that I feel
deserves focus is Laureate Education, Inc. Beginning
in 2007/8, the Clinton Foundation, through its CGI, supposedly formed a
joint venture with Laureate, which was a profit seeking entity at that
time. Some disclosures concerning 2010 through 2012 show that the
program service expenses of this supposed joint venture, CGI University,
averaged up to several million dollars per year.
Bill Clinton began to receive payments personally for speeches from
entities that either lent money to Laureate, or invested risk capital in
Laureate, starting earlier than 2010. Between 2010 and 2015, he and his
wife received more than $17 million from Laureate for his part-time
service as a so-called Honorary Chancellor. These payments were
substantial, but they remain undisclosed on filings for the parent
Clinton Foundation, CGI, and the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative.
DC: How does the HIV-AIDS initiative relate to the Clinton Foundation or CGI?
CO: The HIV-AIDS initiative is the Clinton Foundation’s largest
operation. Numerous records, and public statements by Bill Clinton, Ira
Magaziner, and others show clearly that the efforts supposedly “fighting
HIV/AIDS internationally” were never organized or operated lawfully at
any time.
Old CHAI
Bill Clinton wrote in his book, Giving, published around September
2007, that the health initiatives started around July 2002. A more
recent book by Joe Conason, Man of the World, well worth reading by the
way, suggests these efforts were born in early 2002. Though substantial
sums may have been raised by Bill Clinton from the New York office of
the Clinton Foundation starting in 2002, none of the financial
consequences for these activities appears in Annual Reports filed with
the IRS for 2002 and 2003. By March 24, 2004, a new entity had been
created called Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative, Inc., or CHAI,
yet the application for federal tax-exemption and Annual Reports for
this entity for 2004 and 2005 are omitted from the Clinton Foundation
website.
As I noted earlier for CGI, for CHAI a questionable decision was also
taken to merge this HIV/AIDS entity back into the Clinton Foundation by
December 31, 2005. Yet the Clinton Foundation was clearly not
authorized to control this new activity. There is no evidence in the
public domain that it received tax-exemption from the IRS, Arkansas, or
any other government authority. Nevertheless, from 2006 through 2009,
the Clinton Foundation falsely held out to contributors, potential
donors, and the general public that it was validly authorized to “fight
HIV/AIDS internationally.” It raised hundreds of millions of dollars. So
far, there has never been a required comprehensive accounting to
evaluate what sums actually were sent and how these were spent around
the world.
DC: Some of your discoveries about CHAI have set off alarm bells for you as a financial investigator.
New CHAI
CO: Given the foregoing history from early 2002 through 2009, and the
fact that CHAI was such a large percentage of Clinton Foundation
declared program-service expenses from 2004 through 2009, I found it
quite surprising that a new application was tendered to the IRS at the
end of December 2009 that claimed, falsely, that a new entity called
Clinton Health Access Initiative was not a successor to any previous
activity. This is clearly a bold-faced, but perhaps lawyerly lie. In sum
and in substance, as numerous Clinton-issued documents show, the new
entity succeeded to all the rights and obligations of the prior
operation.
Amounts, addresses, and aims?
Beyond these grave legal problems, I was surprised to see numerous
instances where donors like Australia, Ireland, Norway, UNITAID, Gates
Foundation, Alphawood Foundation, Children’s Investment Fund
Foundation/US and UK, and Elton John AIDS Foundation/US and UK, among
many others, declared donations to various Clinton entities that did not
match as to amount, and in some cases as to address.
I question whether any of these activities are charitable, and wonder
whether they may more properly be viewed as business-development
activities for manufacturers of generic HIV/AIDS drugs and HIV test
kits. In many places, Bill Clinton himself seems to articulate a profit
motive to justify the use of generic HIV/AIDS medicines. See his book
and see Elton John’s book, Love is the Cure. Put simply, Clinton seems
to have argued that, by setting prices too high, drug companies were
losing opportunities to have captive patients over the long periods when
they would need regular HIV/AIDS medication.
Details, details, details
In the disclosures put out so far by Clinton entities, there is no
granularity concerning its largest operation, HIV/AIDS, from 2004
onwards. Normally, one would expect to see geographic breakdowns for
activity, local currency results, translation rates to US dollars, and
much more specific information concerning pharmaceuticals sold to and
then distributed by the Clinton Foundation. Instead, from 2005 onwards,
the Clinton Foundation discloses large blanket expenses for
“pharmaceuticals” with no detail at all. So, the public cannot
understand whether the Clinton Foundation offered and gave the
pharmaceuticals away at a loss, or whether Clinton entities and allies
pocketed the difference, which seems substantial, between what the
donors sent towards the Clinton Foundation to fight HIV/AIDS
internationally and what Clinton Foundation entities actually spent.
DC: In Haiti, HIV-AIDS research and treatment is largely done
by an organization called GHESKIO. It is an odd research organization
that is connected to Paul Farmer; it is very well funded and almost
exclusively so by USAID. In your work, did you find a connection
to GHESKIO, Paul Farmer, or both?
CO: I have not looked deeply into GHESKIO yet, but I shall. I do find
it significant that USAID has supported so many counterparties
associated with the Clinton Foundation. It seems to me that real audits
need to be performed of monies that our government sends out around the
world, and to multi-lateral organizations like UNITAID, Global Fund and
the UN complex. Only then can taxpayers understand how those who are
associated with charities might be profiting from receipt of government
grants.
DC: In your view, Charles, did the HIV-AIDS initiative help 9
million people with lower-cost generic HIV-AIDS drugs, as Hillary
Clinton has claimed?
CO: The evidence I have seen suggests that this claim is absurd. I’ve
seen higher amounts than 9 millions claimed. Clinton Foundation filings
do not support this. If the various entities have more evidence, let
them share it with the public.
Efforts to bring down the price of HIV/AIDS medicines through the use
of generic medicines were initially opposed by the Clinton
Administration in its second term! Independently of the Clintons,
several manufacturers of generic HIV/AIDS drugs were well advanced in
lowering costs by 2003 when Bill Clinton and Ira Magaziner stepped up
their efforts. That year, Bill Clinton and Ira Magaziner were not
officers or directors of the Clinton Foundation. So it’s tough to see
the argument bearing up that they deserve more than partial credit for
bringing down the cost of HIV/AIDS medication.
From 2004 forward, I believe that the Clinton Foundation and its
HIV/AIDS Initiative were illegally organized and operated. It’s hard to
imagine how illegal charities deserve credit for anything.
Let’s be charitable and assume that the HIV/AIDS activities might
have gained special dispensation, somehow, to operate outside applicable
laws, which is not actually possible, does the 9 million number make
any sense? Remember: once you start using HIV/AIDS drugs, until a cure
is found, you are consigned to using these drugs for the rest of your
life. By 2016, the Clinton Foundation was 13 or 14 years into a process
of creating access to some patients to treat HIV/AIDS. The sums claimed
on Clinton Foundation filings for “pharmaceuticals” are a tiny fraction
of the annual cost of treating 9 million HIV/AIDS patients, and a
miniscule portion of the cumulative cost of treating however many
patients may have been treated since 2002.
DC: You and others have worked incessantly for two years to
expose the Clintons’ financial dealings. Thanks partly to this work, the
US has a new administration. What’s the probability that we’ll see the
Clintons in court to answer for their activities in the Clinton
Foundation, CGI, and other initiatives?
CO: Thank you Dady, for all your hard work and for those of your colleagues, Gilbert Mercier and others, that began many years before I got involved.
Around the world, and especially in rich donor countries, we’ve
become complacent about charity, perhaps thinking that charities
normally do lots more good than harm, so why should they be closely
scrutinized. The Clinton Foundation and its vast network of sham
charities and donors proves why the general public and numerous
governments must finally get serious about regulating charities, and
especially those that operate internationally.
It is a sad truth, and perhaps an unalterable one, that appeals for
donations involving children, disasters and disease will always uncork
streams of incoming donations, particularly so now that the internet
makes it so easy to spread cash all over the world. It is also a sad
truth that politicians need money to fund campaigns and lifestyles, and
that the stock and volume of illegally obtained money needs a ready
laundry. So, in too many ways, charities operated with loose or even no
controls by celebrities are perfect instruments to corrupt politicians,
cement political power, and transfer illegally generated sums.
An element in most of us cheers on Robin Hood and his band of
thieves, because they stole from the rich to give to the poor. But why
do so many still support the Clinton family following almost two decades
spent, evidently, stealing from the poor to reward themselves and their
rich cronies and political supporters? From what I can tell, and from
what determined readers and government authorities can discover, the
network of Clinton tax-exempt entities practices charity in name only.
It is false philanthropy, about which examples must be made, with stiff
punishments and financial restitution. The Clinton case must not stand
unexposed or unpunished. It is too large, it has operated for too long,
and it taints as well as harms too many lives. Let there be a reckoning,
not simply here in the United States but let donor nations and
recipient nations understand what seems to have happened here. We must
force the Clinton entities through their directors, foundation donors,
executives, and professional advisors to account for all the money sent
towards these charities and all the private gains that have been created
around the world in the guise of charity.
Dady Chery is the author of We Have Dared to Be Free: Haiti’s Struggle Against Occupation. |
Photographs one, two, eight and ten from the United Nations archive; photographs three, four, five and six from US Department of State archive;photographs nine and eleven from The World Bank archive; and photographs thirteen and fourteen from Karl-Ludwig Poggeman‘s archive.
1 comment:
“From 2004 forward, I believe that the Clinton Foundation and its HIV/AIDS Initiative were illegally organized and operated. It’s hard to imagine how illegal charities deserve credit for anything”. Martha Stewart told one lie to FBI and she served two years in prison. The Clintons are pathological liars and the Clinton Foundation is a total scam. The FBI, IRS and other Government Agencies have been complicit with Clintons' illegal activities and derelict in their duty to prosecute them. Obviously, charitable foundations are a tax scam and should be repealed. Indict the Clintons for tax fraud and numerous other violations of the Law. “Justice, my ass”!
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