The Clintons took in $3.1 million from their books, while Bill Clinton’s consulting business brought in almost $1.7 million.
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In 2000, Chagoury was convicted in Switzerland for laundering money from Nigeria. In fact, many point to Clinton’s Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills as an example of the State Department’s involvement in the Clinton Foundation.
Representatives from the Clinton Foundation, FBI and DOJ declined to comment.
In a 2009 email exchange, Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band pushed two of Clinton’s top aides to put Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire and top foundation donor Gilbert Chagoury in contact with the USA ambassador to Lebanon.
The emails were obtained by the group through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch against the State Department in 2015.
Mr Clinton also said the email server should not be a cause for distrust and that people in the national security community would not endorse his wife’s candidacy if it was.
We’ve learned that what initially grabbed the FBI’s attention to this a bank notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation noting that there was “suspicious activity” surrounding a foreign donor to the Clinton Foundation.
“We need Gilbert Chagoury to speak to the substance person re Lebanon”, Band wrote. “As you know, he’s key guy there and to us and is beloved in lebanon.
Very imp”.
Abedin replied a few hours later that the right person at State was Jeff Feltman, the recent ambassador to Lebanon serving as an assistant secretary of state. ‘I’m sure he know him. In an interview with CNN Wednesday, Feltman denied he ever met with Chagoury.
The organization released 296 pages of Clinton’s emails this week including 44 that the former secretary of state didn’t initially hand over to the State Department, Judicial Watch said.
Neither Bill Clinton, president of the foundation, nor daughter Chelsea, who is vice chair, have announced what their relationship to the eponymous foundation will be should Hillary become president.
This cozy arrangement was called “volunteer work for a charitable foundation” by Mill’s lawyer, according to CNN.
‘Neither of these emails involve the secretary or relate to the Foundation’s work, ‘ said Clinton campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin in an emailed statement to the network. A longtime donor, Chagoury contributed from $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, and in 1996, donated $460,000 to a voter registration effort benefiting Democrats.
The Clinton campaign’s responses are so far unsatisfactory. However, the investigation found that the claims presented in the book were unsubstantiated and that there was not sufficient evidence to open a formal case against the organization.
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Setting out the rules for the road now would help the public judge her intentions, and, if she wins the White House, it would help keep her administration away from genuine conflicts of interest.
