1. Was there a quid pro quo? Based on the Times
reporting, there was certainly a lot of quid (millions in donations
that made it to a Clinton charity; a half-million-dollar speaker’s fee)
and multiple quos (American diplomatic intervention with the Russians;
approvals when the Russian firm offered a very “generous” price for
Uranium One). The Clinton perspective is that, although the approvals
were delivered by the State Department when Clinton led it, there is no
evidence that she personally delivered them, or of the “pro” in the equation. The Clinton campaign, in its response to the Times, noted that other agencies also had a voice in the approval process, and gave the Times
a statement from someone on the approvals committee saying that Clinton
hadn’t “intervened.” The Clinton spokesman wouldn’t comment on whether
Clinton was briefed about the matter. She was cc’d on a cable that
mentioned the request for diplomatic help, but if there is a note in
which she follows up with a directive—an e-mail, say—the Times doesn’t seem to have it.
This
speaks to some larger questions about political corruption. How do you
prove it? Maybe the uranium people simply cared deeply about the
undeniably good work the foundation is doing, and would have received
the help and approvals anyway. In cases like this, though, how does the
public maintain its trust? Doing so becomes harder when the money is
less visible, which leads to the second question:
2. Did the Clintons meet their disclosure requirements? The Times
writes, of the $2.35 million from Telfer’s family foundation, “Those
contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an
agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly
identify all donors.” This is one of the more striking details in the
story, because it seems so clear-cut that the donation ought to have
been disclosed. Moreover, the Times says that the foundation
did not explain the lapse. I also asked the foundation to explain its
reasoning. The picture one is left with is convoluted and, in the end,
more troubling than if the lapse had been a simple oversight. The
legalisms can be confusing, so bear with me:
the Clinton Foundation
has several components, including the Clinton Global Initiative and—this
is the key one—the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, formerly
known as the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative. The
memorandum of understanding makes it clear that the donor-disclosure
requirement applies to each part of the foundation.
Craig
Minassian, a Clinton Foundation spokesman, pointed out, though, that
there are two legally separate but almost identically named entities:
the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership and the Clinton Giustra
Enterprise Partnership (Canada). The second one is a Canadian charitable
vehicle that Giustra set up—doing it this way helps Canadian donors get
tax benefits. It also, to the foundation’s mind, obliterates the
disclosure requirements. (There are also limits on what a Canadian
charity is allowed to disclose.) Minassian added, “As complex as they
may seem, these programs were set up to do philanthropic work with
maximum impact, period. Critics will say what they want, but that
doesn’t change the facts that these social enterprise programs are
addressing poverty alleviation and other global challenges in innovative
ways.” Minassian compared the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership
(Canada) to entirely independent nonprofits, like AmFAR or Malaria no
More, which have their own donors and then give money to the
foundation’s work.
This
does not make a lot of sense unless you have an instinct for the most
legalistic of legalisms. Unlike AmFAR, the Clinton Giustra Enterprise
Partnership (Canada) has the Clinton name on it. Money given to the
Canadian entity goes exclusively to the foundation. Per an agency
agreement, all of its work is done by the foundation, too. The Web site
that has the C.G.E.P. name on it also has the Clinton Foundation logo
and Bill Clinton’s picture; it also has a copyright notice naming the
Canadian entity as the site’s owner. Anyone visiting the site would be
justifiably confused. They are, in other words, effectively
intermingled.
And what
would it mean if the Canadian explanation flew—that the Clintons could
allow a foreign businessman to set up a foreign charity, bearing their
name, through which people in other countries could make secret
multi-million-dollar donations to their charity’s work? That structural
opacity calls the Clintons’ claims about disclosure into question. If
the memorandum of understanding indeed allowed for that, it was not as
strong a document as the public was led to believe—it is precisely the
sort of entanglement one would want to know about. (In that way, the
Canadian charity presents some of the same transparency issues as a
super PAC.) At the very least, it is a reckless use of the Clinton name, allowing others to trade on it.
3. Did the Clintons personally profit? In
most stories about dubious foundation donors, the retort from Clinton
supporters is that the only beneficiaries have been the world’s poorest
people. This ignores the way vanity and influence are their own
currencies—but it is an argument, and the foundation does some truly
great work. In this case, though, Bill Clinton also accepted a
five-hundred-thousand-dollar speaking fee for an event in Moscow, paid
for by a Russian investment bank that had ties to the Kremlin. That was
in June, 2010, the Times reports, “the same month Rosatom
struck its deal for a majority stake in Uranium One”—a deal that the
Russian bank was promoting and thus could profit from. Did Bill Clinton
do anything to help after taking their money? The Times doesn’t
know. But there is a bigger question: Why was Bill Clinton taking any
money from a bank linked to the Kremlin while his wife was Secretary of
State? In a separate story, breaking down some of the hundred million
dollars in speaking fees that Bill Clinton has collected, the Washington Post notes,
“The multiple avenues through which the Clintons and their causes have
accepted financial support have provided a variety of ways for wealthy
interests in the United States and abroad to build friendly relations
with a potential future president.”
4. Putting aside who got rich, did this series of uranium deals damage or compromise national security? That this is even a question is one reason the story is, so to speak, radioactive. According to the Times, “the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States.” Pravda
has said that it makes Russia stronger. What that means, practically,
is something that will probably be debated as the election proceeds.
5. Is this cherry-picking or low-hanging fruit?
Put another way, how many more stories about the Clintons and money
will there be before we make it to November, 2016? The optimistic view,
if you support Hillary Clinton or are simply depressed by
meretriciousness, is that the Times reporters combed the
Schweizer book and that this story was the worst they found. The
pessimistic view is that it was an obvious one to start with, for all
the reasons above, and that some names that stand out less than Uranium
One and ARMZ will lead to other stories. Are the Clintons
correct in saying that there is an attack machine geared up to go after
them? Of course. But why have they made it so easy?
