The Clinton Foundation is operating a $20 million private equity firm in Colombia, raising concerns from government and consumer watchdog groups who say the practice is unusual and could pose a significant conflict of interest.
The line between the firm and the Clinton’s nonprofit world is hazy. Fondo Acceso is run out of the Clinton Foundation’s Bogota office and staffed by foundation employees, a representative at the office told the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday.
A charitable foundation running a private equity fund is “not something one hears about commonly” and is “very concerning,” according to Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist at the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, said the lack of transparency was a troubling. He said the public has a right to know whether any of Fondo Acceso’s companies received U.S. government support while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.
– From The Washington Free Beacon article: Clinton Foundation Running Private Equity Fund in Colombia
The ties between the Clinton Foundation, Canadian billionaire businessman Frank Giustra and the nation of Colombia run deep. This is a topic I explored earlier in the year in the post, This is How Hillary Does Business – An Oil Company, Human Rights Abuses in Colombia and the Clinton Foundation. Here’s an excerpt:
The details of these financial dealings remain murky, but this much is clear: After millions of dollars were pledged by the oil company to the Clinton Foundation — supplemented by millions more from Giustra himself — Secretary Clinton abruptly changed her position on the controversial U.S.-Colombia trade pact. Having opposed the deal as a bad one for labor rights back when she was a presidential candidate in 2008, she now promoted it, calling it “strongly in the interests of both Colombia and the United States.” The change of heart by Clinton and other Democratic leaders enabled congressional passage of a Colombia trade deal that experts say delivered big benefits to foreign investors like Giustra.
The details of her family’s entanglements in Colombia echo talk that the Clintons have blurred the lines between their private business and philanthropic interests and those of the nation. And Hillary Clinton’s connections to Pacific Rubiales and Giustra intensify recent questions about whether big donations influenced her decisions as secretary of state.
That was then. This is now.
From The Washington Free Beacon:
The Clinton Foundation is operating a $20 million private equity firm in Colombia, raising concerns from government and consumer watchdog groups who say the practice is unusual and could pose a significant conflict of interest.
The line between the firm and the Clinton’s nonprofit world is hazy. Fondo Acceso is run out of the Clinton Foundation’s Bogota office and staffed by foundation employees, a representative at the office told the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday.
The firm is managed by Carolina Botero, who is also chief financial officer at the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership. It lists various Clinton Foundation and CGEP officials as directors in its corporate filings. The Clinton Foundation’s tax returns list Fondo Acceso as a related corporation in which the foundation holds a 50 percent stake.
Colombian companies that want to apply for venture funding from the Fondo Acceso must also sign a contract turning over financial and internal information to both the private equity firm and the Clinton Foundation.
Fondo Acceso’s financial entanglements are also unclear. Vanessa Jimenez, chief administrator at the Clinton Foundation’s Bogota office, answered the phone number listed for the private equity fund on Tuesday. She said she was not allowed to talk about Fondo Acceso’s investments.
Jimenez said Fondo Acceso was based out of the office, but employees there technically worked for the Clinton Foundation.
“[Fondo Acceso] does not have any employees,” she said. “Nobody is hired by Acceso. … In Colombia, we work for the company, but only the Clinton Foundation is our employer.”
Jimenez directed questions to Fondo Acceso’s legal representative Monica Varela, who is also a Clinton Foundation official. Varela did not respond to request for comment.
CGEP is a Canadian organization founded by Clinton and Giustra. The group contracts its economic development projects to the Clinton Foundation and does not disclose its donors.
The presentation said Fondo Acceso was looking to invest in local companies in the agriculture, production, and labor industries with “high growth potential” that had annual sales between $500,000 and $10 million. In exchange for financing, the firm would become a shareholder in the companies.
A charitable foundation running a private equity fund is “not something one hears about commonly” and is “very concerning,” according to Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist at the watchdog group Public Citizen.
“Private equity firms invest and take over various companies as social services for a period of time and its intent and its purpose is to provide a reasonable return for shareholders,” said Holman. “If you’ve got a tax-free foundation getting involved in running a private equity firm, I just find that very troubling.”
Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, said the lack of transparency was a troubling. He said the public has a right to know whether any of Fondo Acceso’s companies received U.S. government support while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.
The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Let me guess. She did it to fight terrorists. Or due to her undying love for America. Or because 9/11.
But hey…
For additional stories related to the never-ending shadiness at the slush fund known as the Clinton Foundation, see:
Senior Fellow at Sunlight Foundation Calls the Clinton Foundation “A Slush Fund”
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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How can any self respecting Democrat vote for her over Bernie Sanders?
Bernie Sanders’ Political Revolution
The candidate on challenging Hillary, taking on the one percent, and why he believes his radical campaign will prevail
Sanders has already altered the course of the 2016 campaign. His resonance with the Democratic Party’s activist base has forced Clinton to tack left, repeatedly. But don’t mistake this as Sanders’ endgame. “Bernie’s campaign is more than symbolic – it’s real, and it can succeed,” says senior adviser Tad Devine, a veteran of Al Gore’s 2000 bid. The Sanders machine is built to slingshot to an early lead, propelled by grassroots excitement in Iowa and New Hampshire, and then to fight, delegate by delegate, all the way to the convention. And recent polls counter the notion that Sanders is “unelectable.” An October NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey shows Sanders besting Donald Trump by nine points, Marco Rubio by five.
Sanders has a unique ability to drive turnout among “lower-income working whites,” Devine insists. But an October National Student Town Hall at George Mason University – a public school in leafy Fairfax, Virginia – suggests a far broader resonance. Sixteen hundred roaring students pack the volleyball stadium to the rafters. The audience is startlingly diverse: African-American and African immigrant, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, white, preppy, hipster, jock and dreadlocked. Kianoosh Asar, a 22-year-old Iranian immigrant, wears a homemade T-shirt that reads “CAUTION THE POLLS MAY CAUSE SERIOUS BERN.” For Asar, Sanders’ substance is the selling point: “I really care about all the issues,” he says. “And I care about a candidate who talks for my generation.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bernie-sanders-political-revolution-20151118#ixzz3rsanGgTN
Bernie is on the Clinton payroll. His job is to make Hillary look more ‘centrist’ to the low information voter.
The oligarchs have made their decision. The U.S. will get the government they deserve. And they will get it good and hard.
Michael,
I urge everyone to read and ponder the question posted today on ResearchGate:
Have two falsehoods blocked humanity from the abundant energy promised in the last paragraph of Aston’s Nobel Lecture on 12 Dec 1922?
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Have_two_falsehoods_blocked_humanity_from_the_abundant_energy_promised_in_the_last_paragraph_of_Astons_Nobel_Lecture_on_12_Dec_1922
November 17, 2015, 6:41 pm
Shaky Foundations
The Clintons’ so-called charitable enterprise has served as a vehicle to launder money and to enrich family friends.
By Ken SilversteinFrom the Harper’s piece:
Bill and Hillary Clinton have in tandem made enormous sums of money since Bill left the White House. According to the Washington Post, they netted at least $136.5 million between 2001 and 2012. “All the Benghazi committee has to do is match up Hillary’s travel as secretary of state with Bill’s speaking arrangements,” my source in the Middle East said. “Bill heads out to foreign countries and he gets paid huge amounts of money for a thirty-minute speech and then she heads out for an official visit as a favor. She racked up more miles than any secretary of state [other than Condoleezza Rice] and that’s one of the reasons why. How can they get away with that? The committee is either corrupt or incompetent, or both.”
There are other signs that the Clintons and their foundation may have violated federal, state, and international law. Under Treasury Department money-laundering rules, the Clinton Foundation is required to disclose every financial account it holds abroad. It has failed to disclose an account linked to the CGEP on its past eight tax returns.
I have been told by a source with firsthand knowledge that the Treasury Department,
the IRS, the FBI, and Canadian tax authorities were informed of this and other transgressions many months ago but thus far have done nothing.
http://harpers.org/blog/2015/11/shaky-foundations/
Everything is a scam with these people. Tax law is Hillary’s ten commandments. Her ability to build anything, organize anyone or inform is nill. The Clinton’s like the bush crime family are all paid political performers.