Clinton = Crooked (But You Knew That)
6th April 2016
The impact of the Panama Papers is probably going to be biggest on people like Iceland’s prime minister — those who are denominated “Politically Exposed Persons” in the money laundering world. PEPs, our reader adds, are a category of individuals — foreign heads of state, their family members, and other ranking officeholders occupying significant positions in government placing them at risk for bribery or corruption.
You know where this is going….
Hillary Clinton was a PEP as Secretary of State, and so were Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton. When Bill Clinton set up his shell in Sweden to accept $26 million plus his speaking fee, our reader explains, a report should probably have been filed. The transaction wasn’t reported to the State Department. According to the Washington Times, the Clinton Foundation has concealed the names of the specific donors:
Mr. Clinton’s Swedish fundraising shell escaped public notice, both because its incorporation papers were filed in Stockholm — some 4,200 miles from America’s shores — and the identities of its donors were lumped by Mr. Clinton’s team into the disclosure reports of his U.S.-based charity, blurring the lines between what were two separate organizations incorporated under two different countries’ laws.
The foundation told The Times through a spokesman that the Swedish entity was set up primarily to collect donations from popular lotteries in that country, that the money went to charitable causes like fighting climate change, AIDS in Africa and cholera in Haiti, and that all of the Swedish donors were accounted for on the rolls publicly released by the U.S. charity.
The foundation, however, declined repeated requests to identify the names of the specific donors that passed through the Swedish arm.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign declined comment.