Huff Po: Bill Clinton Got $800,000 for Speeches from Organization Promoting Colombia FTA (the one HR

[amborin]

HRC promised voters she would OPPOSE the Colombia FTA. Once elected, she lobbied and voted FOR it, with Republicans.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/10/clinton-firms-deal-with-i_n_96032.html

How else does one explain the connection between former President Clinton, a hot shot Italian real estate speculator, and several Pennsylvania church-buying ventures that went terribly wrong?


It began in 2005, when an aide to Clinton helped a young Italian businessman named Raffaello Follieri connected with the business of the former president and his pal Ron Burkle. Follieri had an idea: to buy and redevelop old Catholic churches that were struggling in the wake of sex-abuse scandals. And Yucaipa Companies, which Burkle ran and on which Clinton served as a senior adviser to two funds, came on board.


But the scheme, while in some cases profitable, was also a house of cards. Using the Yucaipa money, Follieri purchased a Philadelphia church that he subsequently let rot. In a separate purchase in Pittsburgh, he instructed the church to be gutted of all its religious objects, then failed to come up with the money needed to finalize the deal.


Follieri’s standing was soon on the rocks. In April 2007, Burkle sued the Italian in a Delaware state court for allegedly misappropriating more than $1.3 million. Follieri, he claimed, was spending the money on a lavish lifestyle, including gifts for his movie-star girlfriend Anne Hathaway (of Devil Wears Prada fame). The suit has since been settled. Last week, however, Follieri was arrested and charged with trying to pass a bad $250,000 check.

By that time, any connection between Clinton and Follieri, however tangential, had been severed. The former president began the process of leaving Yucaipa in December 2007 — in part, The Huffington Post was told, out of anger over the Follieri mess.

But the episode illustrated some of the unique perils of Clinton’s post-presidential career. Indeed, at various points in this primary season, Bill Clinton’s activities have put him at contrast with his wife’s presidential campaign.

Take, for instance, revelations this past week that he had been paid $800,000 for speeches by an organization promoting the Colombia Free Trade Agreement — a pact Sen. Clinton continues to oppose.


The Follieri story is similarly dicey. As Sen. Clinton campaigns across Pennsylvania, two communities in the state’s largest cities have been affected by the spoiled real estate venture overseen by her husband’s business. And while Bill Clinton, as his aides point out, was never directly associated with the project — “President Clinton was not involved with the purchase of Vatican properties,” said his spokesperson Jay Carson — the former president did make out quite well during his time with Yucaipa.


According to recent tax filings, the former president earned $15.4 million from the private investment firm between 2003 and 2006.

In the fall of 2005, Follieri was introduced to Yucaipa through Bill Clinton’s aide and gatekeeper Doug Band. The Italian claimed he had close ties to the Vatican that he would use to buy run down churches in need of new ownership. The Wall Street Journal reported that in exchange for Clinton and Burkle’s help, Follieri offered to assist Sen. Hillary Clinton with the Catholic vote. The senator was not officially running for president at the time.


Soon after their meeting, Yucaipa invested $100 million in the Follieri Group. With those funds, Follieiri quickly purchased two church properties in Philadelphia. Both structures had long been dormant. And he promised sweeping changes, including environmental restoration and structural repairs.


snip

[dchill]

1. K&R.

[haikugal]

2. It's the Clinton way...

[AzDar]

3. K & R

[Avalon Sparks]

4. Bribery

I guess when you accept bribes out in the open, all transparent and so forth... the people don't have a problem with it.

It's not like accepting a suitcase for of money and have to bother with laundering it and all.

Frame it as 'speaking fees' and the influence money just rolls right into your bank account - free and clear. Ka Ching!
All ya gotta do is sing a little for your supper and it's all gooood.

Until the Dynamic Duo takes the highest political position in the country - and 150 million worth of paybacks come due.
Some fat cats been waiting a long time for their investments to pay off.

And every Repub knows all about the bribe money, the thing that pisses them off the most is that their guys can't get away with it.

I know it sounds like Democrats are just repeating Repub slurs - and the Repubs have been smearling Clinton's forever. That's been kinda of crying wolf thing I guess.

You know when almost half the Dem party is also pointing out some issues with it - maybe some folks need to consider taking their blinders off for once.

[glinda]

5. That is now being revealed in issues concerning Super-delegates'

early commitments. A revolving door of money back and forth with promises to not give to the local DNCs unless.....

[amborin]

8. yes, a revolving door of bribery

[Bonobo]

6. Avoiding evidence of quid pro quo. Politics 101. nt

[Cheese Sandwich]

7. Straight up bribery. I'm not ok with it.

[Avalon Sparks]

16. Me Neither Cheese

[nc4bo]

9. Kick and effing REC. nt

[thesquanderer]

10. That $800k was for four speeches. Hillary would have gotten $900k.

Bill is only making 89 cents for every dollar Hillary makes for the same work. We need to end this kind of wage discrimination.

[BernieforPres2016]

14. Maybe Bill gave them a discount because Burkle often flew him around on his private jet

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/07/clinton200807

<Also in attendance was Ron Burkle, the California supermarket billionaire and investor who is Clinton’s bachelor buddy, fund-raiser, and business partner. Burkle had come with an attractive blonde, described by a fellow guest as “not much older than 19, if she was that.”

Burkle’s usual means of transport is the custom-converted Boeing 757 that Clinton calls “Ron Air” and that Burkle’s own circle of young aides privately refer to as “Air Fuck One.” Clinton himself had arrived on the private plane of another California friend, the real-estate heir, Democratic donor, liberal activist, and sometime movie and music producer Steve Bing, whose colorful private life includes fathering a child out of wedlock with the actress Elizabeth Hurley and suing the billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian for invasion of privacy, alleging that private investigators for Kerkorian swiped Bing’s dental floss out of his trash in a successful effort to prove that Bing’s DNA matched that of a child delivered by Kerkorian’s ex-wife, the former tennis pro Lisa Bonder. (The suit was later settled out of court.)>

<But among the not-so-small cadre of Clinton friends and former aides, concern about the company the boss keeps is persistent, palpable, and pained. No former president of the United States has ever traveled with such a fast crowd, and most 61-year-old American men of Clinton’s generation don’t, either. “I just think those guys are radioactive,” one former aide to Clinton who is still in occasional affectionate touch with him told me recently, referring to Burkle and (to a lesser extent) Bing. “I stay far away from them.”

Another former aide, trusted by Clinton for his good judgment, said, “On the sort of money, women, all that stuff … I’m the bad guy. All this stuff is kept away from me. Whatever they’re doing, they definitely view me as somebody you cannot confide in.”

A longtime Clinton-watcher, who has had ties to the former president since his first campaign for governor of Arkansas, said of Clinton’s sometimes questionable associations, “I don’t know what to make of any of that, if it’s a voyeuristic experience, or if he’s participating in it.”>

[Cheese Sandwich]

11. Is part of the problem that these numbers are so big that people's brains have a hard time

focusing on them? Maybe that could explain some of the cognitive dissonance among Clinton supporters.

[Avalon Sparks]

12. All point to a definitive pattern

Of acceptance of influence money and corruption.

The frequency and the large bribe payments are an abomination.

[Avalon Sparks]

13. It's a revolving grift

[Avalon Sparks]

15. The Truth

It’s important not to lose sight of the one truth she’s been telling, and will continue to tell, the voters: things will not get better. Ever.

The American ruling class has been trying to figure out for years, if not decades, how to manage decline, how to get Americans to get used to diminished expectations, how to adapt to the notion that life for the next generation will be worse than for the previous generation, and now, how to accept low to zero growth rates as the new economic normal. Clinton’s campaign message isn’t just for Bernie voters; it’s for everyone.

When the leading candidate of the more left of the two parties is saying that – and getting the majority of its voters to embrace that message – the work of the American ruling class is done.

[amborin]

17. great post!

[Skwmom]

18. Just another mere coincidence in a loooooooong line of mere coincidences. n/t

[Kittycat]

19. Great reminder.