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05-23-2015, 10:39 AM #1
Large International Corporations Find Multiple Avenues To Fill Hillary Clinton’s Pock
Large International Corporations Find Multiple Avenues To Fill Hillary Clinton’s Pockets, Influence Government
/ AP
BY: Daniel Bassali
May 22, 2015 10:55 am
The Washington Free Beacon found that some of the companies that directly paid Clinton in speaking fees also donated to the Clinton Foundation.
Together, nine companies paid Clinton $2,487,500 for her speeches and donated up to $6.7 million to the Clinton Foundation.
The corporations include Qualcomm, Cisco, eBay, Corning, Deutsche Bank, and Salesforce, which all have business before the federal government. Congressional records indicate all of the aforementioned businesses lobbied Congress to the tune of $17,334,325 in 2014 alone.
The list of companies makes up nearly a quarter of all of Clinton’s speaking engagements. Two-thirds of those on the list lobbied Congress.
In total, 20 companies and associations that paid Clinton spent at least $350,000 in their lobbying efforts for a combined $72.5 million.
Corning, through its joint venture with Dow Chemical, Dow Corning, lobbied the State Department while Clinton was at the State Department. The company spent $620,000 on lobbying during the Clinton years. Dow Chemical has lobbied the State Department through a number of subsidiaries, and both Dow and Corning have donated large sums to the Clinton Foundation.
Hillary Clinton and her team have spent most of 2015 fighting allegations she and Bill Clinton used their positions in government to personally and politically benefit from millions of dollars given directly to them and their foundation.
Clinton aides have defended the Clinton Foundation accepting millions of dollars from foreign countries with questionable human rights records, which may have sought to influence Clinton while she was secretary of state.
More than 180 of the companies that donated to the family foundationalso lobbied the State Department during Clinton’s years as secretary of state. Similarly, corporations paid Bill Clinton millions of dollars in speaking fees while lobbying Hillary on policies beneficial to their interests. Clinton defended both the foundation and his paid speeches: “I gotta pay our bills.”
The Clinton Foundation on Thursday night reported up to $26 million in previously undisclosed donations from corporations, universities, foreign entities, and associations. The donations came as a result of numerous paid speeches the Clintons delivered on behalf of the foundation.
After Hillary Clinton left Foggy Bottom, she booked more than 40 speaking appearances for which she commanded six figures. The paid speeches were mostly for large corporations and associations.
“It’s big money. They’re spending it because they have far greater sums riding on those decisions that they’re trying to shape,” Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, told Time. “Corporations or associations must justifiably make these investments because everyone knew for many years that Clinton would always remain a power broker. Every man or woman on the street thought Hillary Clinton would run again.”
The donations and speaking fees have drawn the scorn of many transparency groups and has even landed them on CN Navigator’s Watch List. The series of allegations from The New York Times and The Washington Post has negatively affected her poll numbers. NBC and The Wall Street Journalfound only 25 percent of voters believe she is “honest and straightforward.”
Political experts, including one who donated to the Clinton Foundation, have said there is no doubt that companies who donated to the Clinton Foundation or paid for the Clintons to speak at their event sought access to the elite government figures.
“But everybody also knows, when those donors give that money and President Clinton or someone, they get a picture with him, there’s a hope that that’s going to lead to something, and that’s what you have to be careful of,” George Stephanopolous, ABC chief Washington correspondent and former Clinton press secretary, said.
In regards to the companies that also lobby Congress, their interest in Hillary Clinton is not based on positions she once held but the position they believe she will hold. The Clinton campaign, barely one month old, has combatted the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The Washington Post’s Matea Gold described the Clintons’ decision to charge large speaking fees as a “blurred line between personal and political.”
“She’s put herself in the position where people are going to question whether she was influenced by the money she was paid if she supports the trade agreements,” Larry Noble, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, told CBS. “One of the problems with these situations is even if she reaches her decision for reasons she truly believes in, people are going to question it. It undermines her credibility.”
Neither the Clinton Foundation nor the Clinton campaign responded to requests for comment.
The candidate who once said she and Bill Clinton were “dead broke” are now worth well over $100 million, hundreds of times more than the average American.
In the last two years alone, the Clintons have made at least $30 million, primarily from speaking fees.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/large...ce-government/
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05-23-2015, 10:44 AM #2In total, 20 companies and associations that paid Clinton spent at least $350,000 in their lobbying efforts for a combined $72.5 million.
Half of Hillary Clinton’s Speaking Fees Came From Groups Also Lobbying Congress
May 19, 2015
Scott Olson—Getty Images
Democratic presidential hopeful and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosts a small business forum with members of the business and lending communities at the Bike Tech bicycle shop on May 19, 2015 in Cedar Falls, IA.Groups with giant lobbying budgets gave Clinton big speaking fees ahead of 2016 presidential campaign
Almost half of the money from Hillary Clinton’s speaking engagements came from corporations and advocacy groups that were lobbying Congress at the same time.
The Democratic presidential candidate earned $10.2 million in 2014, her first full calendar year after leaving the State Department. Of that, $4.6 million came from groups that also spent on lobbying Congress that year, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
In all, the corporations and trade groups that Clinton spoke to in 2014 spent $72.5 million lobbying Congress that same year.
Asked Tuesday if there were conflicts of interest in speaking to these groups, Clinton was curt with reporters in Cedar Falls, Iowa. “No,” she said.
“Obviously, Bill and I have been blessed and we’re very grateful for the opportunities that we had but we’ve never forgotten where we’ve come from,” she added.
But the speaking fees were more about where they were going next.
Name 2014 Lobbying Spending Clinton Speaking Fee General Electric $20,085,000 $225,500 Biotechnology Industry Organization $10,186,000 $335,500 Qualcomm Inc $9,530,000 $125,000 Pharmaceutical Care Management Assn $4,284,916 $225,500 National Auto Dealers Assn $3,657,000 $225,500 Cisco Systems $3,450,000 $325,000 Advanced Medical Technology Association $3,392,000 $265,000 Ameriprise Financial $3,390,000 $225,500 Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals $3,008,000 $125,000 eBay Inc $2,544,325 $315,000 Xerox Corp $1,435,000 $225,000 Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries $1,380,000 $225,500 Premier Health Alliance $1,258,696 $225,000 Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers $1,083,180 $225,500 United Fresh Produce Assn $1,040,000 $225,000 Salesforce.Com $610,000 $451,000 National Council for Behavioral Health $600,356 $225,500 Corning Inc $600,000 $225,500 Deutsche Bank AG $600,000 $280,000 California Medical Association $350,000 $100,000 Total $72,484,473 $4,575,000
For critics, the arrangement shows that many of people who booked an appearance saw it as another way to gain influence with a leading contender to become the next President.
“It’s big money. They’re spending it because they have far greater sums riding on those decisions that they’re trying to shape,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. “Corporations or associations must justifiably make these investments because everyone knew for many years that Clinton would always remain a power broker. Every man or woman on the street thought Hillary Clinton would run again.”
As with routine political donations, it’s hard to suss out a direct cause-and-effect from the speaking fees.
Take the Pacific trade deal being negotiated by President Obama. In all, groups and corporations that are pushing for the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be approved spent almost $3 million to hear from Clinton. The signatories to one pro-trade letter, dated March 2014, paid more than $1 million in speaking fees in 2014.
Yet Clinton, who backed the deal as Secretary of State, has since hedged her support in light of criticism from liberal stalwarts such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Critics argue that the harm comes from the perception of improper influence rather than from textbook-definition corruption.
“Some of the damage is already done,” said Larry Noble, a former counsel to the Federal Election Commission and a current adviser to the reform-minded Campaign Legal Center. “It undermines the credibility of our elected officials. Let’s say she becomes President and she takes a position that is pro-Wall Street. Even if she in her heart of hearts believes it’s the right way to go … people won’t believe it.”
The speaking fees were not the only way that companies and trade groups sought to curry influence with Clinton.
San Francisco-based tech company Salesforce.com, which backs the trade deal, paid Clinton $451,000 for speeches in February and October of 2014. Separately, its employees gave the grassroots Ready for Hillary group $55,250. (By contrast, it spent a relatively modest $610,000 lobbying Congress.)
And Cisco, the San Jose-based technology company, paid Clinton $325,000 for a speech in Las Vegas and spent another almost $3.5 million lobbying in 2014. That same year, it again gave to the Clinton Foundation, brining its cumulative total to somewhere between $1 million and $5 million. The Foundation does not detail annual contributions and reports lifetime totals only in broad ranges.
To be sure, there is nothing illegal or improper about a retired politician giving a speech. Ex-government officials hit the speaking circuit and write memoirs all the time. Clinton’s predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, earned $150,000 for some of her speeches after her four years as Secretary of State under Republican President George W. Bush.
“The idea of leaving office and giving speeches is not new. What’s new is that you may come back to office,” Noble said. “If she had retired after being Secretary of State, there’d be much less issue with it.”
Source: Center for Responsive Politics, Hillary Clinton – Personal Financial Disclosures (2014).
With reporting from Tessa Berenson, Michael Scherer, Pratheek Rebala and Chris Wilson
http://time.com/3889577/hillary-clin...sts-influence/
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