Hillary Helps Swiss Bank Avoid IRS—and Then It Funnels Millions to the Clintons

[snagglepuss]

snip


How can mainstream Democratic Party beliefs about the corrupting effects of money in politics and the perniciousness of Big Finance possibly be squared with elevating as their leaders a couple as cozy with Big Finance as anyone in American politics?



snip


Even Democrats who aren’t concerned about the agenda of Big Finance ought to ask themselves if America is best served by a president and first spouse who care so little about preserving the confidence that the public can reasonably have in the integrity of their actions. They are far from the only members of our elite who’ve put a payday ahead of the common good, but it’s hard to think of a more flagrant example.



Background information


snip

“A few weeks after Hillary Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, she was summoned to Geneva by her Swiss counterpart to discuss an urgent matter. The Internal Revenue Service was suing UBS AG to get the identities of Americans with secret accounts,” the newspaper reports. “If the case proceeded, Switzerland’s largest bank would face an impossible choice: Violate Swiss secrecy laws by handing over the names, or refuse and face criminal charges in U.S. federal court. Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information on 4,450 accounts, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.”



snip


Then reporters James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus lay out how UBS helped the Clintons. “Total donations by UBS to the Clinton Foundation grew from less than $60,000 through 2008 to a cumulative total of about $600,000 by the end of 2014,...And it paid former president Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of question-and-answer sessions with UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann, making UBS his biggest single corporate source of speech income disclosed since he left the White House.”


snip


...Maybe it’s all a mere coincidence, and when UBS agreed to pay Bill Clinton $1.5 million the relevant decision-maker wasn’t even aware of the vast sum his wife may have saved the bank or the power that she will potentially wield after the 2016 presidential election.






http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/hillary-helps-a-bankand-then-it-pays-bill-15-million-in-speaking-fees/400067/

[Hell Hath No Fury]

1. People can go on and on about the emails --

all they want, but this -- THIS -- is really the big story that should have taken her down.

[floriduck]

44. Where's the WaPo editorial on this one?!?

Another inconvenient truth. (Sorry Al)

Go Iowa, get to the caucuses for Bernie.

[valerief]

65. +1

[kristopher]

83. I wonder if those emails are between her and some of her corporate backers... nt

[snagglepuss]

101. Amazing that after deftly playing situations to her and Bill's advantage

she stumbles on the question of why she accepted the $675,000 windfall from GoldmanSachs.

[RobertEarl]

2. She sold out

That's how come she is so rich.

[snagglepuss]

6. Broke when they left the White House now worth a staggering $139 million.

[RobertEarl]

12. Coincidence?

I know it's not.

Oh, she'll have some supporters come on here and feed us a line of shit but they are mere peddlers of the worst snake oil ever.

[TheFarS1de]

15. That sort of cash

makes it easy to buy sychophants .

[forest444]

30. U BS, they told her.

We'll do the rest.

[CorporatistNation]

67. The Audacity of The Clinton "Machine" Knows No Bounds!

[NanceGreggs]

34. If you have any evidence ...

... that the Clintons' wealth is the result of criminal behaviour on either of their parts, please post it here.

[paleotn]

41. Not criminal....

..unethical. The two are not necessarily the same....but in the eyes of those of those of us with integrity, both are equally bad. I wonder who all those names are that UBS didn't have to divulge?

[Volaris]

43. That's the whole point

There's nothing criminal or currently illegal about any of it
That's what needs to change.

[snagglepuss]

60. Are you for real? The issue is that they, like all their Wall Street pals, skate as close to the

edge of legality as possible, too lawyered up to ever stray into illegality. Just because something is legal, doesn't make it right.

[rhett o rick]

61. $140 million in less than 15 years. Maybe you can explain what they could have done

to "earn" that amount. It's a huge slap in the face to the honest, hard working Americans struggling day to day. Not that you care. Some idolize the Wealthy and don't care how they got the wealth, but I hope they are not calling themselves Democrats.

The Wealth gap is growing and the Clintons are doing their part. It's called GRAFT.

[libdem4life]

68. Damn near a million a month. Just a couple of speeches...what a workload.

[snagglepuss]

95. Odd how she'll wax on about her granny having it rough buy nary a word about

what it's like to be part of the 1%.

[libdem4life]

98. She wants us to forget about that. Many of the Boomer's "granny" or "abuela" had it rough

compared to today. Especially the POC who had significantly fewer opportunities back in the 40s and 50s.

I had one grandmother who was a Real Sooner...participated in the Oklahoma Land Rush. That's a hard story. My Dad was her youngest of 12...8 lived. I believe she was born in the 1870s and was a young girl.

[Unknown Beatle]

88. They weren't broke when they left the WH,

she's lying through her teeth. Do you really think all those favors that did to big banks and Wall St. weren't repaid while they were still in the WH? The Clintons know how to cook the books. Their money is probably parked somewhere in an offshore tax haven.

[840high]

24. Makes me want to vomit.

[RobertEarl]

28. Indeed

And if somehow H wins, we will all be vomiting.

I still can't believe so many here still support H.

[amborin]

105. me, too

[politicaljunkie41910]

45. I guess we'll never know. The author of the article did not bother to report all the facts.

"...Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information on 4,450 accounts, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.”

Hmmm. Why did the settlement not include all 52,000? Are we to imply that the 4,450 whose information got turned over to the IRS were people who did not pay off the Clintons through speaking fees????? Or perhaps the remainder of people were cleared for some other reason that the author thought we didn't need to know. Is this what passes for journalism these days.

I guess we don't know, because the Atlantic doesn't know the whole story or perhaps they would have told us why. Looks like the Atlantic only tells the part of the story that smears the Clintons and creates enough doubt for people here to find them guilty without having all the facts. How American.

[green917]

74. so more than $2,000,000

In contributions and speaking fees in a few short years doesn't strike you as a potential quid pro quo? come on now...let's be realistic. That settlement never would have happened without the direct intervention of secretary clinton and, yes, the other names that weren't divulged may not have had anything to do with that but that doesn't change the fact that, in negotiating the settlement, secretary clinton saved UBS billions and, shortly thereafter, their contributions to her increased by a factor of 100. If that doesn't smell like a quid pro quo to you, i don't know what you're thinking.

[libdem4life]

3. And there are more. The Democrats won't touch the Foundation for fear of the repercussions

but the Republicans will nail her to the wall. She thinks she can get away with all this shit because she has so far...there is an end to this insanity.

[uponit7771]

4. or... this is ANOTHER story of HRC and banking filled with sophistry and conjecture and

... some HRC haters.

Noise, like the email non scandals and Bhengazi and white water and.....

to be ignored too.

[snagglepuss]

9. Did she or did she not help UBS? Did Bill, Bill that is not the Foundation (that got seperate funds)

did Bill accept or reject a whopping $1.5 million? What's to spin?

[uponit7771]

10. Who cares?! No one is willing to dig into a 194n34 word story BS to find out where they're

... lying guessing or doing both.

They blew it on white water, after that its been noise and folk pay no attention to them..

Republicans believe HRC is teH Satan and their front runner is Donald Trump...

We don't care what republicans think

[truedelphi]

31. Your post is a veritble fountain of morality.

[h2][font color=red]

NOT!

[/h2][/font color=red]

Goddess help the generations to come, when this type of specious reasoning is now exhibited ad nauseum by supposed Democrats.

[paleotn]

46. Clinton supporter....

...would you expect anything less? Not saying all Clinton supporters are unethical. Of course not. But if one is unethical and also socially liberal, who better than HRC to support?

[uponit7771]

87. Clinton give immunity to a whole swath of corporations who produce dangerous weapons? No?

... looks like some live in glass houses no?

[paleotn]

94. Silly argument....exactly what I expected....

....That's like me stating Hill is singly responsible for the Iraq war. Culpable along with a lot of other amoral scum for the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands, certainly, but not singly responsible. So Bernie did not single handedly grant immunity to anyone. It wasn't a good vote, but he still gets a career grade of D- from the NRA.

Hill, on the other hand, has been all about quid pro quo since Travelgate. You do remember Travelgate, don't you? Hill was all over the UBS deal as well, saving a foreign bank billions of dollars and protecting who knows who from paying their fair share of taxes. Face it, she takes care of those who enrich her personally. You want amoral grifters back in the White House? Coming on the heals of the cleanest Administration since Carter? Please.

[uponit7771]

96. Yeap, and people from Sanders camp blame her for Iraq war deaths weekly if not daily...

... and make her more culpable than her vote was worth.

Either way, Sanders can NOT throw stones... he has his own bag of bad that's more cutting to some than Hilllary's Iraq vote

[tazkcmo]

81. I care

I don't want a president or even a dog catcher that lives in a self created cloud of questionable activities. Folks pay plenty of attention due to the regularity of unethical and privileged activities by the 1% and especially the Clintons.

[uponit7771]

89. Bhengazi and White Water was self created?! Really?! Back on planet earth no one cares about emails

... Monica or what Clinton put in her coffee this morning

[Not Sure]

37. You should change your username to "sophistry"

You really seem to love that word.

[uponit7771]

51. Ad homs are an indicator of a weak position

[Not Sure]

59. The only position I am taking is stating you use the word sophistry a lot.

[uponit7771]

97. Sophistry is Sanders plan to get his agenda past congress and his SP plan...

... its full of asterisks, just like these hit pieces on HRC

[pangaia]

38. E-mail thing I believe is garbage.

Benghazi, of course it is garbage.
White Water.. garbage.


The banking/ corporate connections....THIS is a different story.
Very different kettle of fish.

This is about power, money and greed.

[NJCher]

47. surely you jest

ANOTHER story of HRC and banking filled with sophistry and conjecture

Did you even go to the link? See the sources? They happen to be the Wall St. Journal and The Atlantic Magazine...


Cher

[uponit7771]

52. yes... best to wait like on the 2452475 other stories about Clinton

[rhett o rick]

64. The Clintons have accumulated enough wealth in 15 years to put them in the top .1%.

The hell with the measly 1%, by my figures (> 90 million) they are in the .1%. Plez check my math.

http://www.joshuakennon.com/how-much-money-does-it-take-to-be-in-the-top-1-of-wealth-and-net-worth-in-the-united-states/

[JoeyT]

73. Shhh....Be vewwy vewwy qwwiiiieet...we're hunting messengers to shoot. n/t

[dreamnightwind]

5. K & R

Come on people, we have to support better candidates than this!

[840high]

26. Go Bernie.

[HereSince1628]

7. Clinton is one of the power elite, what looks like corruption isn't

it's actually just highly placed friends helping highly placed friends with common interests

interactions between and among the power elite are unavoidable they run the world.

[snagglepuss]

13. How true. I was just reading how Trump gave more to the Clinton Foundation than he did to vets

and who can forget Hillary and Bill ecstatically greeting Trump at Trump's party.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, snagglepuss.

[VulgarPoet]

11. If this is the "gold standard" that "true" democrats have to offer

then the United States deserves every bit of its current reputation, and deserves the repercussions of putting a sellout in position to take the White House.

[EdwardBernays]

18. The US

Is currently committing massive war crimes in Yemen. Including bombing children's hospitals and literally starving millions of women and children.

And...

They're doing this to help Saudi Arabia.

Guess which lobbying firm the Saudis hired to represent them in DC and keep this story out of the media... The one owned by Clinton's campaign chairman.

Huh.

[VulgarPoet]

19. Guess who essentially masterminded the sect of Islam that ISIS falls under?

Saudi Arabia. We didn't get in bed with our enemies in Iran. We've been in bed with our enemies for much longer than just the nuclear negotiations, that's for goddamn sure.

[EdwardBernays]

20. Absolutely.

And guess who's benefiting the most from our war crimes in Yemen.

ISIS and al Qaeda. Literally.

[VulgarPoet]

21. Under Clinton, Bush, Rove, and the rest of the murder-fun-time gang

we have been in bed with our enemies for the past 15 years.

[EdwardBernays]

22. C'mere

We've been doing a lot worse since the 1950s. Endless assassinations. Death squads... You name it.

We also created and funded and trained and ran the Iranian secret police, which killed thousands of civilians. And helped Iraq kill tens of thousands of Iranian civilians in the Iran Iraq war.

Etc etc etc.

[VulgarPoet]

23. ...We deserve everything that will happen to us; if that's the case.

Everything done in the name of hubris and "American Exceptionalism". Pah. Some days, it feels like I have to apologize for being born American.

[EdwardBernays]

29. Ignorance is bliss

But it can also get you killed.

Americans are so wildly clueless... But the rest of the world knows this stuff.

It's amazing, when you consider the US and UK ran two Iranian coups, robbed millions from the Iranians in oil revenue, created their secret police, killed untold civilians in war and with the secret police... And of course we deliberately shot down an Iranian passenger plane full of women and children... Which we still refuse to apologize for... Anyway. It's amazing they haven't tried to do more to us. We also crippled their economy for years with sanctions and made them into international pariahs.

And that's just one country...

What we did in Guatemala and Chile and Greece and South East Asia and and and...

Of course we also secretly sterilized poor and minority women for years and let the military run grotesque medical testing ON US SOIL.

Amazing how few people know that. That's the crap media for ya.

[bread_and_roses]

40. Thank you. Almost no one talks about our international terrorism around here

Which is not surprising since the Dems have been as complicit as the Rs. It is a horror story. Endless death and suffering to protect "OUR" (mostly meaning our 1%) interests.

[VulgarPoet]

42. It makes me wonder why people still fight for this party

what can we possibly do to fix all the shit we've done since the fifties that won't invite strikes on us when we pull out?

[HereSince1628]

14. I have a dream... Bernie acts more like Elizabeth Warren demands justice.

Yes, I know it's just a dream. Bernie won't act like Warren, and there's really no guarantee Warren would use that in a campaign.

[SoapBox]

16. K & R

No...More...Clintons.

[EdwardBernays]

17. Those top 10 tax dodgers are all tied to Clinton

Clintons Campaign Chairman owns a lobbying form which represents:

General Electric
Boeing
Bank of America
Merck

Corning bigwigs bundled hundreds of thousands for the Clinton campaign.

Honeywell is part of the Clinton Climate Initiative and donated to the Clinton Foundation.

Alfred Mottur, whose a major Clinton bundler and a drug industry lobbyist, works for the firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, who are major FedEx lobbyists.

Pfizer gave over a million at least to the Clinton Foundation.

Citigroup has donated extensively to Podesta's organization Center for American Progress, which is run by a Clinton campaign staffer.

Verizon has given extensively to Debbie Wasserman Schultz.


And don't forget that her campaign chairman's brother is one of the top super lobbyists in DC AND one of Hillary's top campaign donors.

[dorkzilla]

25. Hopefully a lot of HRC supporters will be doing some soul-searching in the coming days

Come on guys, I know you love your candidate but can you PLEASE think of how this would play in the GE if she won (which, lets be honest, she has little chance of that now)?

Between this and the news about the classified information - we would NEVER countenance this from a Republican. We’d be calling for their heads on a pike and some of you would be leading the charge.

[840high]

27. ..+1

[arcane1]

32. "we would NEVER countenance this from a Republican" should be the standard evaluation.

Sadly, having a "D" next to your name means people will defend you for doing things they oppose when the letter is an "R".

[dorkzilla]

35. Incredibly sad but true.

It really shouldn’t be like this. We’re supposed to be different from Republicans.

[CharlotteVale]

33. Job one: Protecting the rich.

[Paka]

36. K&R

This needs to go viral!

[scottie55]

39. The Gravy Train

Laid Bare

For All To See

It's not just the Clintons. They aren't that bad. It's the whole damn system.

The system some other candidate is running to change.

For Good.

[ancianita]

48. Of fucking course. But time elapsed so no quid pro quo can be claimed.

[Bernblu]

49. But two volunteers for Bernie wore union buttons!

[riversedge]

55. they were Sanders staff.

[Phlem]

86. till the end huh.

[amborin]

50. K&R

[bhikkhu]

53. That's a partial and simplistic narrative

...such as is to be expected toward the end of an election cycle.

https://www.blankrome.com/index.cfm?contentID=37&itemID=2325

gives more of the actual story. The old swiss banking tradition of secrecy is over, they lost, though they nay benefit in the long run from having a more sound and legal basis. What UBS got from Bill Clinton is hard to say, except maybe good advice on how to move forward and avoid more vastly expensive errors in judgement..

[snagglepuss]

58. I got a popup warning about that site so I didn't open it. You can't seriously think that

Bill is credible when it comes to matters of judgement, given his stunning lack of judgement of accepting $1.5 million when he knew Hilliary intended to run for president.

Furthermore who gives a damn whether the Swiss have changed, the point is that nothing has changed here. Those 52,000 American accounts were worth $18 billion in tax avoidance. The deal that was struck just got a a handful of those accounts.

"Former Justice Department lawyer Stu Gibson in charge of prosecuting UBS said the process leading to resolution “raises questions that need to be addressed, or should be addressed.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clintons-scandalous-record/5466466

[bhikkhu]

62. The deal that was "struck" was never actually struck

and all of the 52,000 accounts were disclosed in 2010.

[grasswire]

54. too FLAWED to represent the Democratic Party.

Time for Hillary to step aside.

[AtomicKitten]

56. Smells like quid pro quo.

[silvershadow]

57. Now that's a REAL Clinton Global Initiative. nt

[99th_Monkey]

63. How can we elect someone like this to POTUS? I just don't get it.

the entire DC establishment is sleep-walking the US into a mire of corruption and corporate
control, via the Clinton Dynasty.

[TryLogic]

66. Maybe this type of thing is why Hillary used a private email system.

[snagglepuss]

71. That's an interesting question. Another question this raises is whether

Bill's emails were on that server and if so would his email have been read.

That both are in on this money making scheme is what makes all this so reprehensible. It seems like she sees an opportunity and he follows up without the scrutiny Hilliary would be under.

[raindaddy]

69. Why didn't CNN ask her about this?

Don't think the Republican candidate won't bring it up...

[snagglepuss]

80. That CNN didn't question her about this reveals a flagrant bias.

[raindaddy]

85. If it were Bernie, that's all we would've heard about...

An then the echo chamber would've spread through the main stream corporate media.

[morningfog]

70. Tip of the iceberg.

[azurnoir]

72. and yet more quid pro quo

[rhett o rick]

75. Quid pro quo, Citizens United, DNC shenanigans are ok if they favor HRC. nm

[azurnoir]

76. you would almost think the campaign slogan is

by any means necessary, but I think that's already taken

[rhett o rick]

77. The Wealthy 1% is used to getting their way and I believe feel intitled, therefore justifying

their "whatever it takes" meme.

This race has emphasized the need to kick out the corrupt Big Money politicians.

[wendylaroux]

78. now I see why Hilly called her book "It takes a Village"

you better hope your village helps you out,cause Hills sure as hell isn't going to.

[orpupilofnature57]

79. I'd think a lot more of her if she didn't facilitate SCUMBAGS so often, before, during and after,

she was in the government .

[snort]

82. Yeeehah! Gimme some of that pretty money.

So maybe sometimes you've gotta step on somebody's face to reach the top shelf. Too fuckin bad, people. Only the grabbers have it all. Be a grabber.

[EndElectoral]

84. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

90. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, snagglepuss.

[Arazi]

91. Ick. Kicked and recommended eom

[amborin]

92. hoping this gets out to everyone

[amborin]

93. $81 million here:

The charitable foundation run by Hillary Clinton and her family has received as much as $81m from wealthy international donors who were clients of HSBC’s controversial Swiss bank.

Leaked files from HSBC’s Swiss banking division reveal the identities of seven donors to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation with accounts in Geneva.

They include Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining magnate and one of the foundation’s biggest financial backers, and Richard Caring, the British retail magnate who, the bank’s internal records show, used his tax-free Geneva account to transfer $1m into the New York-based foundation.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Hillary+Clinton+swiss+banks

[SidDithers]

99. Hah! I knew it was Friedersdorf before even opening the link...

Sid

[amborin]

100. so blatant

[WillyT]

102. K & R !!!

[snagglepuss]

103. So much attention being paid to GS payment of $675,000 to Hillary, the UBS

$1.5 million payment to Bill is forgotten. Part of their scam is to have people view them as separate individuals but they're a money-making team, that UBS payment was as much as a payment her as it was to him.

[WillyT]

104. Exactly...

[snagglepuss]

106. Is America best served by Hillary who has put her and Bill's payday ahead of the common good?

Is America is best served by a president and first spouse who care so little about preserving the confidence that the public can reasonably have in the integrity of their actions?