Included on a guest list for a state department dinner on education when Hillary was Secretary of State was a representative from “Laureate International Universities”. Laureate is a for profit university system around the world. Hillary wanted someone from Laureate because the owner of the company was Doug Becker, someone “who Bill likes a lot”.
Nine months after the state department dinner Laureate hired Bill Clinton as an advisor and “honorary chancellor.” Over the next five years the University paid Clinton $17.6 million. The contract ended last year when Hillary decided to run for President.
Interesting that Bill Clinton decided to become a “consultant” in 2009, at the same time Hillary became Secretary of State. During Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State Bill Clinton made $65.4 million in speaking and consultant fees. From the Washington Post,
Bill Clinton has proved particularly marketable because of his global celebrity, enhanced by his foundation, his continued visibility on the political scene and his wife’s stature as a senator, Cabinet official and potential president.
But there is no pay to play with the Clintons or their foundation. Nope. Nothing to see here, move along. And the Clintons are removing themselves from their foundation while leaving their daughter Chelsea in charge and the poor dear makes a measly $900,000 a year. Chicken feed compared to her parents’ income from their ‘charitable’ foundation, of which only 15% of the foundation’s donations actually go to charity. More from the Washington Post,
The Laureate arrangement illustrates the extent to which the Clintons mixed their charitable work with their private and political lives. Many of those who paid Bill Clinton to consult or speak were also foundation donors and, in some cases, supporters of political campaigns for one or both Clintons.
Becker (owner of Laureate), for example, donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and last year donated $2,700 to her current effort. Laureate has given between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the charity’s website, and made millions of dollars of charitable commitments through the Clinton Global Initiative, an arm of the foundation that arranged for corporations to make public pledges to their own philanthropic projects. Meanwhile, Laureate portrayed its association with the Clintons as a symbol of its legitimacy rather than the result of a business deal.
Much more on this shaky arrangement between the Clintons and Becker here. While Hillary was Secretary of State Laureate university received a grant of $15 million. The university turned around and gave Bill Clinton that much and more. Money laundering? More on the that story here.
The only thing surprising about this story is the Washington Post reporting it.
Does America really want to put these crooks back in the White House?
