American Crossroads
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The chairman of the Rhode Island Democrat Party, David Caprio, abruptly resigned from his position yesterday after it was revealed state police are investigating a contract awarded to him for beach concession stands. [Read more…]
Hillary Clinton fumbled over questions on her wealth for the billionth time (we lost count, so we’re rounding up). Bloomberg’s John Heilemann described her response: “…she kind of responded by saying hamina, hamina, hamina, hamina.”
Finally, Squidward gave us his take, which was similar to Heilemann’s.
Last week’s Montana front pages were brutal for John Walsh, who plagiarized his War College thesis. This morning, the front pages look worse as the Defense Department begins looking into Walsh’s plagiarism. This isn’t the first time an Inspector General has looked into Walsh’s actions. The previous investigation resulted in a formal reprimand. [Read more…]
The Washington Examiner reports that following the Clintons’ agreement in 2008 to have ethics advisers guard against conflicts of interest while Bill Clinton, a globetrotting fundraiser who makes millions off of paid speeches and consulting arrangements, and his wife served as America’s top diplomat, the State Department rarely objected to the Clintons’ near $50 million in reported income.
Approving dozens of overseas speeches in countries with interests in influencing U.S. foreign policy, a controversial consulting arrangement, the State Department, with Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff regularly copied, never took issue with millions made from foreign sources such as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Cayman Islands and other countries.
In addition, Clinton’s arrangement with consulting firm Teneo was approved in just 7 days (if only FOIA requests were dealt with so speedily!). This quick verdict came despite the firms client roster, having represented top global corporations with substantial interest before the government including MF Global. Among those on its payroll were Hillary Clinton’s personal aide Huma Abedin – in a controversial arrangement where she also worked for the State Department.
More:
A joint investigation by the Washington Examiner and the nonprofit watchdog group Judicial Watch found that former President Clinton gave 215 speeches and earned $48 million while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy, raising questions about whether the Clintons fulfilled ethics agreements related to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch and released Wednesday in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act case, State Department officials charged with reviewing Bill Clinton’s proposed speeches did not object to a single one.
Some of the speeches were delivered in global hotspots and were paid for by entities with business or policy interests in the U.S.
The documents also show that in June 2011, the State Department approved a consulting agreement between Bill Clinton and a controversial Clinton Foundation adviser, Doug Band.
The consultancy with Band’s Teneo Strategies ended eight months later following an uproar over Teneo’s ties to the failed investment firm MF Global.
State Department legal advisers, serving as “designated agency ethics officials,” approved Bill Clinton’s speeches in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Panama, Turkey, Taiwan, India, the Cayman Islands and other countries.
The memos approving Mr. Clinton’s speeches were routinely copied to Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton’s senior counsel and chief of staff.
Mills is a longtime Clinton troubleshooter who defended the president during his impeachment. In the Benghazi affair, Mills reportedly berated a high-ranking official at the U.S. embassy in Libya for talking to a Republican congressman.
Under State Department protocols, a “designated agency ethics official” is assigned to advise the secretary of state about “potential or actual conflicts of interest.”
In a December 2008 memorandum of understanding, the protocols were expanded to Bill Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and related initiatives — specifically, to reviewing Bill Clinton’s proposed speeches and consulting deals.
In an accompanying letter to the State Department legal adviser, Clinton lawyer David Kendall noted that Bill Clinton would disclose proposed consulting deals and, for speeches, provide “the identities of the host(s) (the entity that pay the speaker’s fee)” so that the State Department “in consultation with the White House as appropriate, may conduct a review for any real or apparent conflicts of interest with the duties of the Secretary of State.”
But an inspection by the Examiner and Judicial Watch of donations to the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton’s personal financial disclosure forms, and the State Department conflict-of-interest reviews shows that at least $48 million flowed to the Clintons’ personal coffers and foundation from many entities that clearly had interests in influencing the Obama administration — and perhaps currying favor with a future president as well. …
The New York Post reports this morning that last fall America Rising PAC filed a records request under state law seeking communications and meeting records between the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) and the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, a committee the Governor claimed would be independently investigating corruption in state government.
What we got back was a letter claiming no such records existed. The letter stated that “the New York State Executive Chamber has conducted a diligent search, but does not possess records responsive to your request.” But the reality was the Cuomo Administration had been tampering with the Commission for months. From The Post’s story:
The Cuomo administration claimed last year there were no records of its contacts with an anti-corruption panel involving the Real Estate Board of New York — just three months after a top gubernatorial aide ordered the panel not to issue subpoenas to the influential real-estate group.
The administration’s misleading account was made in writing to America Rising, a conservative PAC that had filed a Freedom of Information Law request in October for “any and all” communications between Cuomo staffers and the Moreland Commission panel about REBNY.
Just two months later, the answer came back that America Rising was wasting its time.
“Please be advised that the New York State Executive Chamber has conducted a diligent search but does not possess records responsive to your request,” Cuomo’s records officer, George Stiefel III, wrote in a response dated Nov. 19.
Now, the Cuomo Administration is under fire following a New York Times report last week that detailed how the governor’s office’s tampered with the Moreland Commission’s investigations in ways far deeper and more intrusive than ever previously known. The governor’s top aide issued stark warnings to commission staff not to investigate the governor and his allies, quashed numerous investigations, and in one instance, actually ordered the commission to claw back a subpoena that already been issued. The interference has triggered a federal investigation.
Our records request sought among other things, meeting records between the governor’s office and Moreland Commission members. The New York Times report details two days of meetings between Cuomo himself, a top aide, and Moreland Commissioners in September of last year, one month prior to our request being filed.
According to The Post: “[I]n this case, the administration admitted it had the requested records.”
Gov. Cuomo admitted as much in his Monday press conference in Buffalo on Monday, repeatedly telling reporters his staff was talking with members of the Moreland Commission.
As The New York Post story shows, the Cuomo Administration not only pressured the supposedly independent Moreland Commission, but then attempted to cover it up, by claiming no records of such extensive interference existed.
Michelle Nunn’s tone-deaf campaign memo is getting picked apart by local TV outlets in Georgia.
In an interview with Jorge Ramos, Hillary Clinton is pressed about her comments about being “dead broke.” When asked about her net worth, Clinton stutters, still unwilling to own up to her wealth offering only: “it’s within a range”
If only we all had such a range.
She should have listened to Paris Hilton.
Just days after releasing an ad that attacks Obama’s war on coal and saying she would stand up to Obama, Natalie Tennant says that she isn’t sure whether or not she would campaign for Obama now. [Read more…]
Rick Nolan would prefer to not have to raise money.
“I didn’t take this job to be an entry level telemarketer dialing for dollars,” Nolan told the Brainerd Dispatch yesterday. This opposition to raising money is Nolan’s longstanding position. Last year, for example, he called money in politics “toxic.” [Read more…]
Amanda Renteria dodged a question on how she would have voted for ObamaCare in a recent interview with The Hill.
The Democratic hopeful also refused to say how she would have voted on ObamaCare, though she says that something needed to be done at the time and that she opposes repealing the law now.