Thread: SEC Investigates Co. with Clinton Links

SEC Investigates Co. with Clinton Links
Friday, November 23, 2007 8:57 AM

The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into spending by database marketer InfoUSA Inc.

The Omaha-based company said in a filing Tuesday that it would cooperate with the SEC's request for documents related to expense reimbursement, transactions with related parties, some corporate expenditures and certain trades of company stock.

The company did not specify what spending the SEC is looking for, but a lawsuit two hedge funds filed earlier this year may offer some clues.

InfoUSA did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday.

The hedge funds — Cardinal Value Equity Partners and Dolphin Limited Partnership — say InfoUSA's chief executive misspent millions of dollars in corporate funds.

The funds say InfoUSA paid for use of a jet plane, the 80-foot (25-meter) yacht American Princess, condos in Hawaii and California and a University of Nebraska-Lincoln stadium box.

Some of the $28 million (€19 million) in "related-party transactions" the hedge funds have questioned included payments to Annapurna Corp. which InfoUSA founder and CEO Vin Gupta owned.

The lawsuit also questions why Gupta used private jets to fly Bill and Hillary Clinton on business, personal and campaign trips, and why Gupta gave Bill Clinton a $3.3 million (€2.2 million) consulting contract.

According to the lawsuit, InfoUSA has spent nearly $900,000 (€607,533) since 2001 flying the Clintons to domestic and international locations and political events.

In the past, Gupta and InfoUSA have said the jet, condos, stadium box and American Princess are for entertaining clients.

The company has come under scrutiny for its policies concerning the sale of personal information.

The New York Times reported in May that InfoUSA, which compiles consumer information and sells it to direct marketing companies and others, sold the names of senior citizens, including millions with Alzheimer's disease and others whom it identified as gamblers, with labels that said things such as, "These people are gullible."

The company has denied those allegations and said it does everything it can to ensure it does not do business with scam artists.

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Info ... 51597.html

This blog has some very interesting tie-ins to the story.

http://www.stevenashley.info/2007/11/an ... andal.html

Saturday, November 24, 2007
Another Clinton Foreign Donor Scandal, this time its the Indians.

Yet another Clinton Donor Scandal, and take in their entirety, I'm starting to see a pattern, the first Donor Scandal of this round of Clinton donor election scandals involved the Chinese businessmen, this one involves Indian businessmen. What is in it for them? What do they want in return for their support?

In Bill's era, it turned out the Chinese wanted and got technological help in aiming there missiles, (http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A432_0_2_0_C/) prior the getting Bill's assistance, while they could build intercontinental missiles, their aim was so bad that they had no hope of actually hitting what they aimed at.

Fast forward to present time and the Chinese have gotten so good a aiming their missiles that not only can they put satellites into orbit exactly where they want, they can know shoot down satellites in orbit. (http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/1 ... index.html)

A talent that earned them a visit from Sec. Of Defense Gates last week to discuss this new found talent, but from all reports the Chinese were not interested in discussing it, so what they intend to do with their new found capability is left to our imaginations.

Now in Hillary's era, I doubt that they are needing any more help with their missiles thanks to Bill. So what do they want. I'm betting that since both China and India are major players in our governments H-1B lottery, they are betting that Hillary's election would mean a major expansion in their share of the H-1B jackpot. Oh, one more point in support of my contention, Vinod Gupta's firm InfoUSA is already one of the nations largest users of H-1B applications.

Check out Indian Firms Present an American Face:
(http://www.cwalocal4250.org/outsourcing ... er%204.pdf)

"The U.S.-India Political Action Committee has defended outsourcing vendors, most of whose employees are in India, although the group represents Indian-Americans. A profile of Mrs. Clinton on the group's Web site notes that "even though she was against outsourcing at the beginning of her political career, she has since changed her position." In an internal memo leaked in June, staff members from the Obama campaign contended that Mrs. Clinton's ties to wealthy Indian businesspeople had made her favor outsourcing. The memo cited the Clintons' ties to Vinod Gupta, an Indian entrepreneur who founded InfoUSA, one of the United States' largest brokers of information on consumers. Mr. Gupta, a major fund-raiser and benefactor for the Clintons who was nominated for ambassadorships by President Bill Clinton, was detailed in the Obama memo because his company outsources to India and he has vocally supported the practice." (NOTE) Hillary Clinton is the co-chair of the "Friends of India" Caucus in the U.S.Senate.

Take a look at Gateway Pundit: Surprise! Another Clinton Donor Scandal... This Time With Links to CNN (Big Update!!)

This family picture was taken before Vinod Gupta's firm InfoUSA bought Opinion Research Corporation, a marketing firm which conducts polling for CNN. (Theodore's World) (http://www.theodoresworld.net/archives/ ... new_p.html)


A lawsuit filed by shareholders of InfoUSA last year claims that Clinton supporter Vinod Gupta abused company assets and resources which he spent lavishly on Bill and Hillary Clinton.

This news that there will be an SEC investigation into InfoUSA was announced yesterday.
The Washington Post reported on the SEC investigation:

The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation into InfoUSA, a Nebraska company that used corporate funds to fly Hillary Rodham Clinton around the country, and one of only two companies to put Bill Clinton on its payroll after he left the White House.

The firm, a major provider of database-processing services, disclosed little about the nature of the probe in a filing to shareholders released yesterday.

The two-sentence filing said only that InfoUSA received a letter last week "informing the Company that the SEC is conducting an informal investigation . . . and is requesting the voluntary production of documents relating to related party transactions, expense reimbursement, other corporate expenditures and certain trading in the Company's securities."

Two sources familiar with the company's troubles suggested that investigators would focus their attention on executives' use of company money to feather their own nests. Gupta has been a major financial supporter of the Clintons since he met the president in the mid-1990s. Gupta and his company donated $1 million to help underwrite a lavish year 2000 New Year's Eve celebration at the White House and on the Mall.

He paid the former president $200,000 to deliver a speech to InfoUSA executives in Papillion, Neb., and signed the former president to a $3.3 million consulting deal. For the past four years, both Clintons have used Gupta's corporate plane, flying to Switzerland, Hawaii, Jamaica and Mexico -- about $900,000 worth of travel, The Post reported in May.

That's not all...
The Clinton's were taking funds from a company that makes a profit off of bilking senior citizens:

The company has come under scrutiny not only for Gupta's spending habits. The Times reported last week that customer data sold by the company had been used by thieves to bilk older people. The company said it would take steps to assure such a sale would not occur again.

Dick Morris had much more on the Clinton's ties to the scandal-plagued firm.

Prairie Pundit has more on this latest Clinton donor scandal.

UPDATE: Sorry to slime your Thanksgiving but check this out on the latest Clinton shenanigans...
The Blotter reported earlier this week that the Clinton's were selling the Clinton library donor list to their good pals at InfoUSA:

Three years after the William J. Clinton Presidential Library opened its doors, the list of donors who helped the former president build his $165 million complex remains a secret from the public.

Yet the Blotter on ABCNews.com has learned that the Clinton Foundation sold portions of the list through a data company headed by a longtime friend and donor.

"The fact that they've sold the list and then turned around and said that these names must be kept anonymous completely undercuts their argument," said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C.-based government watchdog group that tracks the influence of money in politics.

An employee of Walter Karl, a subsidiary of the data company InfoUSA, told ABCNews.com that the company made a list of more than 38,000 donors to the Clinton presidential library available for sale to foundations and other nonprofit groups from June 2006 to May 2007. A spokesman for the company would not say how the profits from the sale of the partial list were distributed.

It is interesting... The Clinton's won't release information on Hillary's years in the White House but sold library donor information through a shady marketing firm - for a hefty profit.