This is what Hillary and her people managed to do as Secretary of State. One can only imagine what they can pull off from the White House.
In a series of candid email exchanges with top Clinton Foundation officials during the hours after the massive 2010 Haiti earthquake, a senior aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly gave special attention to those identified by the abbreviations “FOB” (friends of Bill Clinton) or “WJC VIPs” (William Jefferson Clinton VIPs).
“Need you to flag when people are friends of WJC,” wrote Caitlin Klevorick, then a senior State Department official who was juggling incoming offers of assistance being funneled to the State Department by the Clinton Foundation. “Most I can probably ID but not all.”
“Is this a FOB!” Klevorick writes later, when a Clinton Foundation aide forwards a woman’s offer of medical supplies. “If not, she should go to cidi.org,” she adds, directing the person deemed not to be a Clinton friend to a general government website.
Klevorick and Amitabh Desai, the director of foreign policy for the Clinton Foundation, exchanged dozens of emails, which were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Republican National Committee and then shared with ABC News. ABC News independently authenticated the emails.
Why was there a sudden interest in charity? It wasn't charity.
Scarcely a month into the reconstruction process, it was being described in a diplomatic cable as a “gold rush” for government contractors and aid groups.
Desai forwarded a note to Klevorick from Garry Mauro, who served twice as the Texas state chairman for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns and has donated $25,000 to $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The offer was for “major assets in Haiti” from a company called DRC Emergency Services. On its website, the company boasts of having performed emergency response work at disasters around the globe, with over $2 billion in disaster response contracts. Desai noted that Mauro was “a friend of WJC.”
Klevorick replied, “also note hrc friend,” using initials for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The email chain does not indicate if Mauro’s recommendation led to a contract for DRC, though the company’s website states, “Within 24 hours of the earthquake’s occurrence, DRC assembled and mobilized a team of highly experienced and dedicated personnel to Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas.”
A week after the earthquake hit, Klevorick wrote to the USAID’s congressional liaison, Kate Beale, who previously served as a policy staffer in the offices of then–New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.
“Wjc/hrc friends come to you now,” she writes. “Would be great since you likely get this paradigm.”
And then there's good old Warren.
For example, the Clinton Foundation selected Clayton Homes, a construction company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, to build temporary shelters in Haiti. Buffett is an active member of the Clinton Global Initiative who has donated generously to the Clintons as well as the Clinton Foundation. The contract was supposed to be given through the normal United Nations bidding process, with the deal going to the lowest bidder who met the project’s standards. UN officials said, however, that the contract was never competitively bid for. Clayton offered to build “hurricane-proof trailers” but what they actually delivered turned out to be a disaster. The trailers were structurally unsafe, with high levels of formaldehyde and insulation coming out of the walls. There were problems with mold and fumes. The stifling heat inside made Haitians sick and many of them abandoned the trailers because they were ill-constructed and unusable.
The Clintons also funneled $10 million in federal loans to a firm called InnoVida, headed by Clinton donor Claudio Osorio. Osorio had loaded its board with Clinton cronies, including longtime Clinton ally General Wesley Clark; Hillary’s 2008 finance director Jonathan Mantz; and Democratic fundraiser Chris Korge who has helped raise millions for the Clintons. Normally the loan approval process takes months or even years. But in this case, a government official wrote, “Former President Bill Clinton is personally in contact with the company to organize its logistical and support needs. And as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has made available State Department resources to assist with logistical arrangements.” InnoVida had not even provided an independently audited financial report that is normally a requirement for such applications. This requirement, however, was waived. On the basis of the Clinton connection, InnoVida’s application was fast-tracked and approved in two weeks. The company, however, defaulted on the loan and never built any houses. An investigation revealed that Osorio had diverted company funds to pay for his Miami Beach mansion, his Maserati, and his Colorado ski chalet. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in 2013, and is currently serving a twelve-year prison term on fraud charges related to the loan.