Should CFR make an example of Clinton Cash?

Politicians and their self interest

The self interest of politicians cannot be eradicated. They are frequently confronted with conflicts between self interest and their public duty, and they sometimes choose self interest ahead of public duty.

Politicians may at times justify putting their self interest first, on the grounds that such is needed to get elected or stay in office, and that their intention is ultimately to do good in elected office for the public.

Generally it is imperative for politicians to hide from the voters the politicians' actions in which they put their self interest ahead of the public's interest. This is because of the risk the politician will not be elected or reelected if the voters know the extent to which the politician's self interest was put ahead of the public's interest.

In the current movement to "get money out" of politics, the complaint is that the politicians allow themselves to be corruptly influenced by campaign contributions, which they need to get elected and reelected.

The politicians will not own up to voters about this corrupt influence and will deflect the voters as much as possible away from the subject. This is because an honest addressing of the issue with the voters would likely lead to difficult problems for the politician, the politician's donors, and also for fellow politicians and their donors.


The Clintons since 2000

Peter Schweitzer's book Clinton Cash (subtitle The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich), published in May, investigates the activities of the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation they created after Bill Clinton left office in 2000.

It cannot be doubted that the Clintons have a great deal of self interest they have promoted for decades.

It is also not to be doubted they have undertaken much for advancing public interests.

In their careers, the Clintons have many times confronted choices between advancing their self interest and acting for the public interest. As with politicians generally, the Clintons have endeavored to keep hidden from the public information about actions of theirs that have advanced their self interest in derogation of the public interest. The Clintons may even deny it ever happened, and they are not going to cooperate to help the public learn adequate information about those actions.

In particular, the Clintons are not going to help the public understand the extent to which the Clintons have, since 2000, used their Foundation to advance their self interests to the detriment of the public interest.

If the Clintons are not going to help the public on this, the public, with the help of investigative reporters, can endeavor to learn and understand what it can about the Clintons' actions.

The Clinton Cash book is a helpful start.

It is impossible to get inside the Clintons' heads to determine the calculations made by them, starting in 2000, in creating and using the Foundation to advance their self interests, including gaining wealth and getting Hillary Clinton elected as President down the line. While it is impossible to get in their heads, adequate information and facts can provide a good basis for drawing important conclusions.

If the Clintons are not going to explain themselves to the public, first it is fair for the public to be skeptical about characterizations coming from the Clintons concerning the nature of their actions and be skeptical when Clintons endeavor to play up their their actions as being humanitarian and for the public good and avoid any discussion of how their actions advanced their self interests.

A starting place is a general recognition that there is huge corruption in some foreign countries.

It is also the case that the greater the  corruption in foreign countries, the greater the profits that can be made in finding ways to benefit from the corruption.

For the Clintons, there has been an opportunity that the most corrupt countries are also some of the poorest and most in need of humanitarian aid. The opportunity is that humanitarian activities could be used as a good cover for actions that seek to benefit from the corruption.

The exploitation of corruption in foreign countries has been curtailed by Western countries, including the United States, which have passed laws making it illegal to pay bribes to foreign officials in order to obtain commercial contracts. These laws need to be circumnavigated if one is going to attempt to profit from foreign country corruption.

As Clinton Cash narrates, the Clintons picked some of the most corrupt countries in the world for dispensing humanitarian aid through the auspices of their Foundation.

In entering these corrupt countries to dispense humanitarian aid, the Clintons brought along with them many business friends for introduction to the governments and the officials of these corrupt countries, and to establish contact with local businesses in the foreign countries which participate in the foreign country corruption. Clinton Cash provides extensive information about many transactions which the Clintons played key roles in bringing about, and in which the business friends the Clintons brought along were, together with corrupt foreign country officials and local foreign country businesses, able to profit enormously from corruption..

As a part of this picture, these Clinton friends and the corrupt foreign countries, and their officials and local business cohorts, made large donations to the Clinton Foundation.

In addition, Bill Clinton got huge speaking fees from such friends of his and from the corrupt foreign governments and their officials and local business cohorts.

The humanitarian activities of the Clinton Foundation potentially provided excellent cover of allowing the Clintons to play up the humanitarian activities, and to keep information hidden about the profiting that went on for the Clinton friends and the foreign officials and local business cohorts, who were making donations to the Foundation and paying Bill Clinton huge speaking fees.

Besides having to skirt laws prohibiting the bribery of foreign officials, the Clintons also needed to avoid United States campaign finance laws prohibiting foreign governments and foreign nationals.from making campaign contributions to Hillary Clinton. Donations that foreign governments and foreign nationals made to the the Clinton Foundation, and speaking fees paid to Bill Clinton, were not subject to such limitations.

To repeat, it is impossible to get inside the heads of the Clintons about the their plan, strategy and tactics they employed after 2000 in connection with the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton's speaking fees.

The only recourse for the public is to learn facts and information about the Clinton Foundation activities and the speaking fees which are sufficient to reach reasonable conclusions. The Clintons have not and will not be cooperative with the public in this regard and have striven and will strive to keep such facts and information away from public knowledge.

A noteworthy element is the huge entourage that surrounds the Clintons, and whose loyalty has essentially been purchased by the Clintons. These include untold numbers of persons who have been elevated in their professional careers by the Clintons. Other untold numbers have been on payrolls under the control of the Clintons. These persons are potentially an important source of information that would help the public to understand the extent to which the Clintons put their self interests ahead of the public good. The extent to which these persons are silenced by the Clintons is something else the Clintons will endeavor to prevent the public from knowing.

In addition to playing up the Foundation's humanitarian activities, Clinton Cash reports that Bill Clinton has argued that what the Clintons have done with the Foundation and the speaking fees is in the vein of public/private partnerships, and they are the wave of the future for addressing some of the world's problems.

It is fine to tout the value of public/private partnerships, but anyone doing so also needs to consider whether the public/private partnership paradigm can expand the quantum of corruption that goes on. It is doubtful that Bill Clinton has spoken much about how the corruption can be expanded under the paradigm or that he has offered much in the way of suggestion about what is needed to defend against the expansion of corruption growing out of public/private partnerships, such as have been pursued by the Clintons through the Foundation. Without Bill Clinton willing to be forthcoming about this, the public is relegated to what information and facts it can get to evaluate the extent to which the Clinton Foundation and the speaking fees have abetted and increased corruption..

Finally, it should be noted that the questionable nature of what the Clintons have been doing with their Foundation and the speaking fees has been sufficient to attract Congressional and executive branch oversight over the Clintons' activities. Whether such oversight was sufficiently rigorous, or whether it was compromised by Washington DC's  culture of corruption, needs to be part of the evaluation of what the Clintons have done.


What should CFR'ers make of Clinton Cash?

Campaign finance reformers, who are decrying the corruption of money in politics, and decrying the oligarchy of billionaires that, in the minds of campaign finance reformers, runs the country, should read Clinton Cash, and decide whether the example of the Clintons can be used in the campaign finance reform cause.

To me the book reveals money running amuck in United States political affairs in an unprecedented way. It is suggestive of  political corruption being abetted and expanded by the Clintons. It should open the eyes of Americans about how far the corruption of money may have been carried by a former President, who is held in high regard by Americans and who may have egregiously put the self interest of the Clintons and of their friends, based almost solely on money, ahead of the public interest. This is compounded by the power of the Clintons, and how they are insulated by that power and have purchased silence of their huge entourage. It offers a potential good case in point of the culture of corruption in Washington resulting in Congressional and executive branch oversight being wanting.

I think campaign finance reformers should pound on the example of Clinton Cash in trying to open the eyes of American people about the corruption of money in politics.

Bernie Sanders should use this in his Presidential campaign. If he declines to bring the corruption of the Clintons up, Sanders supporters should do so on their own, in order to advance the cause of campaign finance reform and to advance their candidate.

Update 1/17/16
If you received a tweet from me giving a link to this blog entry, and you want to learn what #DeclareForDemocracy is about, please go to  2016 Congressional candidates' Declarations.