RUSH: I’ll tell you, folks, the bomb bay doors remain open, and there are more bombs dropping on the Clintons even as we speak. … “Judicial Watch announced that it has received 126 pages of documents from the State Department related to Hillary Clinton’s possible conflicts of interest regarding her position as secretary of state. The initial Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was placed on May 2, 2011.” Four years ago, and the documents are being released today. (interruption)
That’s right: “OMG!”
“These documents are being released as a result of a federal court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department on May 28, 2013 (Judicial Watch v. US Department of State). Judicial Watch also disclosed that the State Department turned over nearly 1,000 records to the Clinton Foundation, beginning in January 2014, for review prior to public release.
“The lawsuit is ongoing and had previously forced the disclosure of documents that provided a road map for over 200 conflict-of-interest rulings that led to $48 million for the Clinton Foundation and other Clinton-connected entities during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.” The bottom line of this leak is Judicial Watch says, “The latest group of documents [reveal] Bill Clinton’s activities related to Saudi Arabia, and government concern about them.”
The documents contain concern at the highest levels of the US government over Bill Clinton’s activities with the Saudi entities. Now, this is just all coming at us now. We don’t know how legit any of this is. This is obviously, after a four-year request, two years after a lawsuit, the documents are released this week, today, what have you. Once again, on the other end of these documents you find the Regime. Bill Clinton could be totally innocent! He might have gone over and discussed women with the king.
Who knows?
But the release says that the government is concerned about Bill Clinton activities with Saudi entities. Now, we already had the New York Times story where they detail Hillary Clinton facilitating Russia gaining control over the uranium market in exchange for at least $3 million of donations. Remember, there are others. The $2.3 million donation came just from the chairman of the Canadian uranium company, but there are others again.
Among the donors to the Clinton Foundation that had a role in the uranium deal in Canada: “Frank Giustra — $31.3 million and a pledge for $100 million more. He built a company that later merged with Uranium One. Ian Telfer — $2.35 million — Mining investor who was chairman of Uranium One when an arm of the Russian government, Rosatom, acquired it. Paul Reynolds — $1 million to $5 million — Adviser on 2007 UrAsia-Uranium One merger.”
He “[l]ater helped raise $260 million for the company.” All of these people gave money to the Clintons while she’s secretary of state. So she looked the other way while all this was happening! She was paid off to look throw away (she was personally enriched, as was her husband) while Russia cornered the market, or tried to, on uranium. Frank Holmes — $250,000 to $500,000 — Chief Executive of US Global Investors Inc., which held $4.7 million in Uranium One shares in the first quarter of 2011…”
That’s the New York Times.
That is throat slitting.
That is, to all of our minds here, unprecedented. The state of American journalism today is such that when you have just these facts, people on our side say, “There’s got to be an angle here that they’re gonna blame it all on the Republicans.” You can’t blame people for thinking that. The next story in the Stack, and not necessarily in any chronological order, is from the Washington Post. That’s right, even the Washington Post getting in on the act. In fact, the Washington Post article is huge.
I stopped editing this thing, and there are still 33 paragraphs left in it. The Washington Post story details dozens of other lavish speech payments that Bill Clinton got from foreign entities, and they’re usually $500,000 or more just for a speech. All of these entities paying Clinton to give a speech, had business with the State Department when Hillary ran it. None of these, or the vast majority, were ever disclosed. That’s what the stories were about. None of these donations were disclosed.
The Clintons do not disclose anything. That’s why the Reuters story is all about how the Clintons now are redoing all of their tax returns to finally report this stuff because they didn’t. They want Al Sharpton on the IRS. Now that the cover is blown and all of this is being revealed, the Clintons are refiling all of their tax returns over the period of years involved here. Headline, Washington Post: “For Clintons, Speech Income Shows How Their Wealth Is Intertwined with Charity. “
Stop and think of that for a second. Folks, just two examples. Kathryn and I are deeply involved with the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. I have been since its founding in the mid-nineties. We are one of their sponsors, the Rush Revere Book Series, children’s books, time-travel adventures with exceptional Americans. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. We have been involved in donating and or raising tens of millions of dollars for both these charities.
We know the people that run them, and they’re not wealthy. They’re not any wealthier today than when the charity started. The Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation has a pass-through of 99%. You give a $1, and 99¢ goes to kids of Marines killed in action. Leukemia & Lymphoma is pretty close to that. There aren’t people that went from nothing to a net worth of between $250 million to $300 million simply by having a foundation. The Clintons don’t even have a charity; it’s just a foundation.
What is the charity that they do?
The #BringBackOurGirls hashtag? What do they do? What does the Clinton family foundation do? What charity does it promote? Maybe it’s a bunch of them — a little here, a little there — but I don’t know any. Maybe you do. Now, if you want to look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, NGOs, charities, donors. People there get rich. Yeah, but that’s not aboveboard either. I don’t know anybody. Even at some of the sleaziest charities — and we all know there have been those.
Even in some of the sleaziest charities, the people that run ’em make half a million a year. But nobody that I know becomes a member of the top 1% of the 1% with a foundation! In fact, the fact of the matter is, for those of you in Rio Linda, who will never have a foundation, the point of putting up… When you start a foundation and you put money into it, you lose control over that money. You are donating it, essentially.
When you start a foundation, it’s a charity, obviously. It’s a charitable foundation. You give the money and it’s gone. You can’t go spend it yourself. I mean, the way it works in that case, let’s say you come into some money, you want to start a foundation, and you do it to have a lump sum available to donate rather than take individual phone calls, or maybe you want a large tax deduction in one year. The rule of the foundation is, roughly…
Say you start a foundation with $500,000. You get the deduction $500,000 the year you put that money into it, and you have to donate at least 5% of it every year. It can’t just sit there. But you don’t have to donate much. It can just sit there, and it can keep earning money, but it’s not yours anymore. The money that other people donate to it is not yours, either. You don’t get it. That’s the whole point of it! But the Clintons have this foundation that somehow they are the charity.
They go out and do a speech, raise money for the Clinton Family Foundation, $500,000 Clinton gets, he says (imitating Clinton), “Yeah, that’s right, Limbaugh, and that money goes straight to the foundation.” Well, how the hell do you people have $300 million bucks? Because all you do is give speeches. And I know that Mrs. Clinton, she didn’t make anywhere near 10, 15, 20, whatever, $50 million as secretary of state, nobody does. Where’d this money come from?
I mean, look, I’m not saying that every dollar donated to their foundation ends up in their back pockets, but something is awry here, something is really out of kilter. I don’t know anybody who administers or runs, a CEO whatever, of a foundation, of a charity who essentially is the primary beneficiary of the thing. Do you, Snerdley? Do you know anybody that runs a foundation? Look, the people that run the Ford Foundation do not have a net worth of $150 or 200 million because they run the foundation. They may have it because of other things they’ve done in their lives or might have inherited it, but it’s just unheard of here.
The people I know at Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, they don’t have any more money today than they did when the thing started, as a result of working with the foundation. The foundation’s not contributed a dime. That’s not why they’ve done it. I don’t understand how this happens. (interruption) Right, Bill and Melinda Gates. Well, yeah, but they don’t need to play any games to get rich. They already played their games. They already got rich. They’re not a good comparison. But still, they started the foundation for other reasons, charitable included among them.
But this just smells. And now the Drive-By Media is going full bore exposing all of this stuff and basically raising the same questions I’m raising here. How the hell does this happen? Who gets $500,000 for a freaking speech anyway? You know, one of the big things that people misunderstand. Bill Clinton, we’re told that he’s a funny, lovable guy, has great charisma. He’s one of these guys that makes you think, when he’s talking to you, that you are the only one in the room. How many women have we heard say that?
I don’t care how popular he is, Anastas Mikoyan from Kazakhstan is not giving Bill Clinton 500 grand ’cause he’s a good guy. Anastas Mikoyan or whoever is giving Clinton 500 grand because he expects somehow that Clinton is gonna be in a position someday to pay that back that’s gonna be in some way favorable to Mr. Mikoyan, and largely that’s the assumption Mrs. Clinton is gonna be in the White House someday.
But they didn’t even have to wait for that. She’s secretary of state, she can look the other away while the Russians try to corner the market on uranium, and who knows whatever else. So give Clinton 500 grand, that’s a message to his wife, who is the secretary of state. And this has been going on for years. The point of this is, none of this is new. What’s new is the reporting. What’s new is the full bore nuclear bomb aspect of the reporting on this.
Everybody’s known the Clintons have been doing this, and it’s one of the many things the Clintons have been doing that we, on our side, have just thrown up our hands and just assumed forever that they’re always gonna get away with it because they’re Democrats, they’re liberals. They make mincemeat of conservatives, that’s why they’re loved and adored, and nobody is gonna ever hold them to account. And now here we are on April 23rd, the day before the Apple Watch comes out, and not saying it has anything to do with anything, but here comes bombardment on the Clintons.
There now is sunlight being shined on all these things that everybody in the establishment in DC knows they’ve been doing all of these years anyway. And they may not be the only ones, by the way. But, I mean, they are defining how to do it.
Anyway, let me take a brief time-out and start getting some of your phone calls in ’cause people do want to weigh in, and if I were you, I would want to, too.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I mentioned to you mere moments ago that we have a post here from TheFederalist.com: “The US Constitution Actually Bans HillaryÂ’s Foreign Government Payola.” I mentioned that there actually is a clause in the Constitution which bans what she did, and the clause actually has a name. I’ll find it. It’s not the point. The story contains some relevant information.
To set it up, I must tell you Howard Dean was on TV this morning attempting to defend the Clintons and their personal wealth as a result of their foundation by saying (imitating Dean), “Hey, look, all of this money went to charitable causes. All of it went to things like reducing malaria and improving people’s standards of living.” And that simply cannot be. Otherwise Bill and Hillary Clinton would not have such a high net worth, $150 to 300 million, I think it’s reported.
Anyway, The Federalist reports — here’s the answer. You know, I said the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, 99% pass-through. The Clinton Family Foundation pass-through is 15%. The Federalist reports only 15% of the money donated to the Clinton Family Foundation went to actual charitable causes. The bulk of the money donated to the Clinton Family Foundation went to travel, salaries, and benefits. Sixty percent of all the money raised went to other expenses.
In other words, folks, 85% of every dollar donated to the Clinton Foundation ended up either with the Clintons or with their staff to pay for travel, salaries, and benefits. Fifteen cents of every dollar actually went to some charitable beneficiary, and 60, a whopping six zero percent of all the money donated to and raised by the Clinton Family Foundation went to a category called “other expenses.” And “other expenses” we are left to define ourselves.
Could “other expenses” mean salaries and benefits for the Clintons and their exhaustive hard work helping others? Well, this is your answer. There’s a 15% pass-through rate, the Clinton Family Foundation. Fifteen percent of every dollar goes to a charity. Eighty-five percent goes to enriching people that have anything to do with it. And that’s why they’re refilling tax reports, tax forms, tax returns for all of these years.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Every bit of this news that we are reporting today with the Clintons and the foundation and the money and the donors and the causes and so forth? This has all been known. Another suspicious aspect of this is that the Drive-By Media waits until she has made her announcement. They didn’t run with this stuff before she officially claimed she was seeking the presidency.
They could have. They could have run this stuff three weeks ago, a month ago, six weeks ago. They sat on this stuff. They sat on this stuff until Mrs. Clinton had finished all of her paid speeches. Remember, it was even known that she was delaying her announcement until she finished the paid speech schedule, which ended in March. They waited. They waited until she committed before letting fly with all this. If I were the Clintons, I’d be shell-shocked right now.
I’d be calling David Brock. “What the hell have you done here? You’re supposed to stop this stuff from happening to us!” “Sidney Blumenthal? Where the hell have you been?” “John Podesta, how did you let this happen?” You know, all the insurance companies they’ve hired, all the powerbrokers to keep this stuff from ever happening have all failed them with their buddies in the Drive-By Media.
There’s a caveat. There could be a whole lot more to this that we don’t know that somehow will explain it all later. You never know. The Clintons might call an emergency press conference for Friday afternoon at five o’clock and have an answer for all of this that just sweeps the story away, and then imagine how dispirited you’d feel. (interruption) Now, Snerdley is shaking his head. “No. What’s he gonna say, ‘I’m not a crook’?”
No, what if they’ve got evidence that none of this true? What if all this is made up? You know, I’m just speculating here. (interruption) Well, I think I do know them pretty well. I know ’em pretty well. But I’m… (interruption) Oh, no question about it. That’s what Whitewater was all about it. Money is what drives these people. Money drives everybody. I don’t care what people say, money drives everybody. But these people obsessed.
They obsessed over what they didn’t have. They envied what other people did have, particularly people they ran with. I’m telling you, from the eighties… A leftist in the eighties didn’t think that rich people were legitimate. They got it by chicanery, trickery, thievery, inside knowledge, knowing somebody. It could not have been the result of hard work. That’s what Whitewater was.
It was their feeble attempt to pretend they were big players in the real estate market. I guarantee you, Hillary was behind that. I guarantee you. I could guarantee you exactly why all that happened. In the old parlance, it was a get-rich-quick scheme ’cause that’s what they thought everybody else did. She was sick and tired of Arkansas. There’s her husband. She gave up everything and her husband’s sitting there are governor of some hayseed state, 25 grand a year?
She has to work at the Rose Law Firm for 106 grand a year, and they’re hanging around with the Tomlinsons, who are multimillionaires and everybody else? Not for long, buddy! So, hello, Susan McDougal and Jim what’s-his-face over at Whitewater and all this started a train rolling. And that gave us John Huang, Charlie Trie, dubious Chinese barbecue place in Little Rock. I mean, it all adds up.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It’s not just the New York Times getting in on this, and it’s not just Judicial Watch, and it’s not just the cable networks. “For Clintons, Speech Income Shows How Their Wealth Is Intertwined with Charity —
“Bill Clinton was paid at least $26 million in speaking fees by companies and organizations that are also major donors to the foundation he created after leaving the White House, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records and foundation data. The amount, about one-quarter of ClintonÂ’s overall speaking income between 2001 and 2013…” Clinton made over $100 million making speeches.
Now, who does that? Granted it was over 12 years, but who makes $100 million doing speeches? Hell, Henry Kissinger didn’t get that much per speech. Nobody got that much! (interruption) Me? Oh, come on. I’ve never charged for a speech in my life, and I never would. You know, that’s another thing about this. I know that there are a lot of people who they’re part of a speakers agency and they charge, you know, 40 or 50 grand.
It’s unseemly to me. I don’t know why. I have never charged for a speech. (interruption) The Rush to Excellence Tour is not a speech. That’s a performance, but the revenue always goes to charity or to the affiliate radio station. You know, I sometimes took… In the early days, I think I took $15,000 or whatever, but there were ticket prices. It wasn’t some organization’s paying me to come in and do a speech. I’ve had that offered. (interruption)
Ah, no. No. They wouldn’t. (interruption) No, they wouldn’t! No, no, no, Snerdley. He said, “People would offer me a million.” No, no, no, no, no. Anyway, that’s always seemed unseemly. But the $100 million doing speeches. (interruption) I know. I know. Bush and Reagan. Was it Reagan or Bush who got a million dollars from…? (interruption) Yeah, the left had a cow. Reagan earned $1 million for a speech in Japan or something. Yeah. But it was a one-time thing. Here’s Clinton, $100 million!
Anyway, so $100 million total.
The Washington Post says a $26 million of that “demonstrates how closely intertwined Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable work has become with their growing personal wealth.” See, that’s why people are now starting to call this a crime family operation. “Now that she has formally entered the presidential race, the family may face political pressure and some legal requirements to provide further details of their personal finances and those of the foundation, giving voters a clearer view of the global network of patrons that have supported the Clintons and their work over the past 15 years.”
What work?
What work?
This is clearly influence buying, and it’s buying it on the come. Everybody’s known that Hillary’s gonna run in 2016, particularly the Democrats, particularly the Clintons. So Bill’s out there giving speeches and she’s secretary of state. They are raising money from foreign entities, and the New York Times has blown the whistle on a big one about helping the Russians and Vladimir Putin become power players in the global uranium market. That is not a good deal.
Anyway, the Washington Post continues to discuss in this story the very curious way that Bill Clinton got personally wealthy from donations to a charity. Remember, we revealed this earlier in the program thanks to TheFederalist.com. They have examined it, and there’s a 15% pass through rate at the Clinton Foundation, meaning you donate $1, and 15¢ goes to some charity. Yes, 85¢ of every $1 to the Clinton Foundation went to salaries, expenses, travel, and the big category: 60% “other expenses,” undefined.
Ben Shapiro at Breitbart: “Hillary Clinton 2.0, the Money Machine Launches — Hillary ClintonÂ’s manufactured ‘little people’ campaign is about to take a back seat to raising as much cash from as many wealthy donors as possible. According to the Huffington Post, Hillary is already pumping her fundraisers, telling them that they ought to become part of the so-called ‘Hillstarters’ campaign in which they raise $2,700 from ten people, and in exchange, get an audience with” Hillary herself.
And then Reuters, ladies and gentlemen, has a story talking about how the Clinton Family Foundation is having to go back and refile years and years worth of tax returns because of the information that has been made public this week shows it’s significant the amount of tax returns they’re having to refile. They are altering, they are changing, they’re recategorizing income into different categories.
I mean, it’s a clear admission that they tried to get away with something. So it’s the New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, the Federalist, PJMedia.com, which comes right out and says that all of this is essentially a crime family operation. And then Ron Fournier, who is at the National Journal, says, “I don’t know what’s in Peter Schweizer’s book. But I know what the Clintons are capable of.” Here’s how he starts this thing:
“Gennifer Flowers. Cattle futures. The White House travel office. Rose Law Firm files. The Lincoln Bedroom. Monica Lewinsky. And now, the Clinton Foundation. What ties these stories together is the predictable, paint-by-numbers response from the Bill and Hillary Clinton political operation. 1. Deny: Salient questions are dodged, and evidence goes missing. The stone wall is built. 2. Deflect: Blame is shifted, usually to Republicans and the media. 3. Demean: People who question or criticize the Clintons get tarred as right-wing extremists, hacks, nuts, or sluts.
“The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation is both an admirable charity and a shadow political operation awash in conflicts of interest… The seedy side of the foundation is a legitimate campaign issue. While the Clintons deserve credit for making foundation donations largely transparent…” But, Ron, only 15% of every $1 donated gets re-donated. Fifteen percent! There isn’t any good works going on here. He then goes on to ask: “What did donors expect from the Clintons?
“Did they receive favors in return? Why did the Clintons do business with countries that finance terrorism and suppress the rights of women? Did family and friends benefit from their ties to the foundation? And, in a broader sense, what do the operations of the foundation say about Hillary Clinton’s management ability and ethical grounding?” Ethical grounding! What, do we want to pretend there still is some?
“These questions are reportedly explored by conservative author Peter Schweizer in a soon-to-be-published book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. I say ‘reportedly’ because I haven’t read the book; I have no idea whether Schweizer reveals any wrongdoing or relevant information. Scheduled for publication May 5, its contents are unknown. That hasn’t stopped the Clintons from denying, deflecting, and demeaning.”
So it is a veritable storm that has been launched on the Clintons with details. It doesn’t appear that much is being held back, and it’s devastating. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen the Drive-By Media do and report about prominent Democrats, particularly the Clintons. Here are the Reuters details: “Hillary Clinton’s family’s charities are refiling at least five annual tax returns after a Reuters review found errors in how they reported donations from governments, and said they may audit other Clinton Foundation returns in case of other errors.
“The foundation and its list of donors have been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks. Republican critics say the foundation makes Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, vulnerable to undue influence. Her campaign team calls these claims ‘absurd conspiracy theories.’ The charities’ errors generally take the form of under-reporting or over-reporting, by millions of dollars, donations from foreign governments, or in other instances omitting to break out government donations entirely when reporting revenue…
“The errors, which have not been previously reported, appear on the form 990s that all non-profit organizations must file annually with the Internal Revenue Service to maintain their tax-exempt status. A charity must show copies of the forms to anyone who wants to see them to understand how the charity raises and spends money.” That’s how it has been discovered that they have a pass-through rate of 15%. They can’t hide that.
As Michael Walsh asks here in reporting the Reuters story: What difference it make who the head of the crime syndicate is?
“For three years in a row beginning in 2010, the Clinton Foundation reported to the IRS that it received zero…” Oh, now, this is big. For three years in a row beginning in 2010,” which would be ’10, ’11, ’12, “the Clinton Foundation reported to the IRS that it received zero in funds from foreign and US governments, a dramatic fall-off from the tens of millions of dollars in foreign government contributions reported in preceding years. Those entries were errors, according to the foundation.”
Yes, it turns out that it wasn’t no money that was donated.
Oops, we goofed up!
It turns out it was millions and millions.
So they’re having to refile now. They’re refiling because they got caught. They’re not refiling because they caught themselves.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, let me go back to this Washington Post story for one more detail. I did not make it clear enough, because… Well, the Post makes it somewhat confusing. They talk about $26 million that Clinton made from speeches, but then they get to the $100 million figure over 12 years. But the point is — it’s a crucial distinction to make here — the hundreds of millions of dollars that both Bill and Hillary got for their speeches went right to their pockets.
None of it went to the Clinton Foundation.
There was zero pass-through on that money. That money did suffice as their income. So it’s not that the money went to the foundation and they siphoned some of it back; it never went to the foundation. Now, I don’t know if they were pledging that it would go to the foundation as a cover for these donors, but regardless. The donors, the payees, were nevertheless expecting something for it. That’s the real point of the Washington Post article.
It’s not really about the donations to the foundation; it’s about the millions that Bill got for his speeches and the donors that Bill and Hillary hid, including foreign and domestic fat cats who definitely had business before the State Department. While they were slipping Bill Clinton 500 grand a pop for a speech (some of these groups gave Bill several million), there was also some side money it went to the foundation.
It’s slimy.