BREAKING: Obama DOJ Denied FBI Request For Full Investigation Into Clinton Foundation

a reply to: xuenchen

As for the second email. This is a bit more tricky because Gilbert Chagoury's company gave substantial funding to the foundation. What's never really discussed is how the Clintons reap some direct financial reward from the foundation as they don't pay themselves a salary and there's been no evidence that I've personally heard about them somehow embezzling funds from the non-profits.

Setting that aside, there are definitely bad "optics" to a billionaire's company contributing to a foundation whose overseer uses his connections to attempt to set up a meeting with the billionaire. However, it should be noted that Gilbert Chagoury is also an acquaintance of Bill Clinton's from before the creation of the William J Clinton Foundation or the Clinton Global Initiative. It should also be noted that the stated mission of the Clinton Global Initiative, from their website starts out thusly:

Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world's most pressing challenges.

Now Gilbert Chagoury seems a bit unsavory (money launderer) and he's also an acquaintance of Marc Rich, who Clinton infamously and to much criticism, pardoned on his last day in office. Their relationship reeks of the sort of cronyism typical of the oligarch class dating back to the beginning of written history.



The main questions I would have are:

1. Is there any evidence that Doug Band, who as Bill Clinton's right hand already knew Gilbert Chagoury long before there was such a thing as the CGI (which was btw, Doug Band's idea), was motivated to attempt to set up this meeting substantially out of an obligation owing to Chagoury's donations?

2. What was the nature of the meeting?

3. To what degree would HRC's aides be influenced by the donations, assuming they knew about the donations in the first place?

What has been released doesn't even come close to revealing anything of the sort. Again, it's mostly a whole lot of speculation based on "bad optics" but nothing concrete. Also interesting to me about this is that it's been insinuated by many right-wing sources, starting with JW, that these emails should have somehow been part of the emails that Clinton turned over.

Except these emails weren't to/from HRC nor was she copied on any of them. In other words, they would have never appeared in her mailbox to be turned over so that makes no sense at all.

At any rate, I'm not defending the Clintons' relationship with Chagoury and his brother but there's nothing damning in the emails released by JW. This is just another "smoking gun" that wasn't, dribbled out for political gain by the right-wing media machine.

You know what I'm talking about, you've gotten probably 2000 stars from these threads!

EDIT to add:

It's also interesting to note that Jeffrey Feltman is now on record saying that he never met with Chagoury, so if it was some sort of "pay-for-play" scheme , then apparently he didn't pay enough to get a meeting with a frickin' ambassador.

originally posted by: theantediluvian

They'd already looked into allegations about a year prior and didn't find anything that warranted launching an investigation?

Last year vs this year? What difference does it make at this point?

Well, start with 30,000 emails that were not available last year!

a reply to: whyamIhere

Our Founders would hang these people for High Crimes.

No they wouldn't have. Our FF were locking up newspaper editors for publishing editorials critical of the President (John Adams) at the start. I think you're confusing the FF with characters from the Bible who were incorruptible and beyond reproach.

I'm sure you know that the wealthiest man to ever become President of the U.S. was none other than the very first President, George Washington. Do you imagine that these men were blue collar philosophers, a quill in one hand and a musket in the other, praying for guidance and eschewing material wealth?

The ruling class has always been right there. What we have here is something closely related to the Golden Age Fallacy. The irrational belief that everything (including the people apparently) was better in some romanticized period. The fact is, cronyism has always existed. Political gamesmenship has always existed. Hell, the consolidation of political power into two main parties is essentially guaranteed by our election system (Google "Duverger's law") — thanks FF!

a reply to: burntheships

It's funny that there are popular threads on ATS where people whine about the "witch hunt" that Trump has been a victim of. Perhaps every single email sent by ever person in the government should be immediately investigated? In fact, everyone should be under constant investigation.

That's essentially what you're saying unless what you're REALLY saying is that any politician you don't support should be under constant investigation.

See the problem with that? That's why there has to be sufficient evidence of wrongdoing in order to launch a investigations. Putting people under investigation without sufficient evidence of wrongdoing is essentially the definition of "witch hunt." So you're all for political witch hunts? Daryl Issa (the car thief that he is and what was it? Arsonist? Insurance fraudster?) has been playing that game for years, holding his little kangaroo court to no real effect other than generating propaganda for the right-wing media.

It's nauseatingly how much people are taken with this poltical gamesmenship, the witch hunts, the expensive investigations that yield no results and launched purely for political gain. Remember the fiasco over Bill Clinton getting a bj in the Oval Office? Meanwhile, one of the biggest voices leading that charge was "family values" pushing hypocrite, serial child molesting, hush money paying slimeball.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Oh, but this thread is about the DOJ, and The Clinton Foundation.

So back on track, I think the most direct assessment of The Foundation
is to identify the "charity work" it does that is in keeping with its "Charity"
non profit classification, which by the way is designated as a Public
Health Care non profit.

Do you have any real evidence of this charity work?

a reply to: theantediluvian

In that photo, Hillary is looking at Donald Trump and wondering two things.. 1.) How much money she could get out of him for the Clinton foundation and 2.) What skeletons he may have that she can use as leverage to maximize the amount of the "donation".

Everything Hillary does is for self-enrichment and/or power. Bill like to simply have FUN for fun's sake from time to time. But not Hillary. It's evident in her mannerisms, every time you see her. Hillary represents pure leechism at its finest.

a reply to: xuenchen

It's funny (actually sad), that I once thought only companies could be deemed "too big too fail", but apparently I was wrong, apparently we have certain people in this world that are literally "too big too fail", because they all know if she goes down, she's taking everyone down with her.. The establishment would never allow that.. its easier to just do what they're doing...

Snowden and Assange will need to "T" this up for it to truly stick. It will need to be so damning that even the loyalist of Hillary supporters won't be able to stay in line..

a reply to: Sublimecraft

Everyone will be voting based upon this premise such that whoever wins will again have avoided needing to address relevant issues. Instead, the winner will be determined by who can dig up the best dirt and get out for public consumption. It's become a competition to prove who is the most unpopular, disguised as 'who has the most skeletons in their closet'

I can't disagree. Though I would add that if Trump doesn't start getting somebody to write everything for him to say and have it put on a teleprompter, there won't be any need for anyone to dig up anything.

Let's be honest, they've both got problems telling the truth (though in all fairness, HRC lies when it's politically expedient/advantageous — Trump lies because words are coming out of his mouth) and they're both consumate cronies. There's far FAR more compelling evidence that Trump paid off the Florida State Attorney to drop the case against Trump U and in fact, if you look closely at his dealings over the years, much of his business success involves "pay-for-play" relationships with politicians at every level.

It's a sad state of affairs but again, if we're being entirely honest, these are probably not actually the absolute worst candidates Americans have had to choose from in a Presidential election in our history.

If the choice is between two power mongering, backroom dealing liars, I'm still voting for the one who doesn't sound like an ignorant, half-crazy, third world dictator.

a reply to: xuenchen

I wonder how long Huma Abedin has to live...with all these other "mysterious deaths" that seem to follow those who know to much.

Hilliary makes Nixon look like a honest,straight shooter if that's possible.And we know what happened to Nixon.

a reply to: xuenchen

Obviously those blanked out areas are classified info.

Jeez. Let me clue you into something. For a guy who posts these threads frequently, you'd think you might know a bit more about what your looking at. The redactions are always accompanied by a FOIA excemption code.

Here's one of the emails

See where it says "B6?" That's the exemption code for "personal privacy information." In other words, things like names, phone numbers, addresses and the like. Infomation that is personal in nature and whose release would serve no substantial purpose to warrant the invasion of privacy.

a reply to: burntheships

Oh, but this thread is about the DOJ, and The Clinton Foundation.

Nice dodge? So you support different treatment for different people on a political whim?

Do you have any real evidence of this charity work?

I was going to tell you to Google it yourself but I'm done for the evening anyway so here's my parting gift to you.

Clinton Foundation - Annual Reports, Financials & Tax-Exempt Materials

Interesting. Around a month ago in 4chans /pol/ section, some dude claiming to be an FBI agent was posting about stuff relating to this.

That we should be looking at the Clinton Foundation, not Hillary, and that the FBI are investigation the foundation, not Hillary.
With the way he was talking and such, he clearly knew what he was talking about. So if he was a troll, then he's a very good one!

He claimed things like Bill Clinton most likely dying very soon, that they can't release info to the public because it's enough to spark war and even civil unrest. That they're trying to do something but its currently difficult.

Wow, just wow. Nothing is like it seemed to be.

If you don't like Hillary just don't vote for her, let Americans decide if they want her as their President or not.

You can moan and cry all you like but if the majority of Americans want her in then she will be in. And since you seem desperate to take her out of the running before the vote i'm guessing you are realising that she will be voted in as the best choice.

Have you noticed that in all of the emails Hillary and the State Dept released during her 4 year term, not one of them had the name of HER BOSS Obama on them? 30,000 emails and not a single one asking, "how you doing" or "here's what's happening..."? And likewise, not a single email from Obama to Hillary saying anything.

Instead, of the 33,000 emails that were deleted having only yoga, Chelsea's wedding arrangements and her vacation plans, I bet there's a lot of communications going back and forth between the WH and Hillary.

If Hillary goes down with the "deleted" emails finally exposed, Obama goes down with her.I think that's why FBI Director Comey and AG Loretta Lynch will lie, cheat and steal for these two because it would mean the utter destruction of the entire Obama Administration and the Democrat Party.

a reply to: SudoNim

Your picture just adds irony to your comments.

originally posted by: Konduit
a reply to: SudoNim

Your picture just adds irony to your comments.

In what way does a picture of Homer Simpson holding a gun to his own face add irony?

originally posted by: jhn7537
a reply to: xuenchen
It's funny (actually sad), that I once thought only companies could be deemed "too big too fail", but apparently I was wrong, apparently we have certain people in this world that are literally "too big too fail", because they all know if she goes down, she's taking everyone down with her.. The establishment would never allow that.. its easier to just do what they're doing...

That's a realization that people have to come to on their own. Being an elected official or nominated bureaucrat (ie public worker) does not make you any less fallible than a CEO or blue-collar employee (ie private worker.)

We are all human, and all prone to corruption.

The biggest difference is accountability. It's a lot easier to remove a private worker from power than a public one.

This is also why the Founders wanted government power diluted and distributed as much as possible, instead of concentrated into a central authority.