Criminal Minds – Clinton Cash

Clinton Cash – The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich – Peter Schweizer (Harper)

The Watergate conspiracy and investigation spawned many things; it brought into vogue so-called investigative journalism and added the famous catch phrase “follow the money” to the lexicon. There is a striking coincidence that Hillary Clinton came of age in Washington during the Watergate era as a member of the House Judiciary Committee staff charged with investigating that scandal. She was later removed from the investigation because she “… engaged in a variety of self-serving unethical practices in violation of House rules.”

Bestselling author Peter Schweizer has served up Clinton Cash – The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, in which he details what I can only describe as a series of complex and multi-layered enterprises; that are chock full of cut outs and bag men who seemingly shield the Clinton’s from leaving direct fingerprints. At times this thing reads like a criminal indictment, building a dense series of circumstantial evidence that point directly at the Clinton’s involvement in a lucrative criminal conspiracy.

Bill and Hillary come off like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde without the Tommy guns and certainly without the Mont Blanc pens of white collar criminals, because nothing is ever written down on paper and as far as electronic communications, we know who owns the server. The problem may be that to “follow the money” through the intricate webs of Friends of Bill and Hill, scumbag business types, tin pot dictators and other lowlifes that the Clintons have chosen to do business with, may be just a little too complex for the average, low information, Clinton/Obama voter.

The astounding thing is it is those same people who get jacked up about the Koch brothers, two successful, U.S. citizens who make above board (legal), public donations to support candidates and causes they believe in. Yet they will go out of their way to say there is nothing fishy about the Clintons getting paid massive amounts for speeches or the Clinton Foundation accepting donations from foreign dictators and tyrants, many of whom stand accused of heinous crimes and human rights violations. Laughably those donations often offer these dirt bags a form of International cleansing or legitimacy due to their association with the Clintons.

Schweizer and his team of investigators offer up a densely notated collection of information that ties the Clintons and their associates to what I can only describe as shady dealings. It gives new meaning to Bill Clinton’s recent protestations to NBC News that “I have to pay our bills” when you see the number of sycophants, hangers on, defenders and contributors that have reaped a windfall from their association with the Clintons.

It may be hard to believe after wading through uranium deals, donations from dictators and so many other scummy shenanigans that perhaps the most damning chapter of the book is the one that details the billions of dollars, many of them U.S. taxpayer dollars, of Haitian earthquake relief funds that were in the direct control of Bill and Hillary. While they detailed many grandiose plans to not only rebuild, but also to modernize and bring Haiti into at least the 20^th century with new infrastructure and industrial facilities, what we bought with our billions didn’t even come close.

Massive and possibly criminal cost over-runs, shortfalls on promised basics like housing and projects were piles of money were allocated and spent and yet there was nothing delivered abound. Along the way, plenty of Clinton contributors and friends, many often NOT remotely qualified to deliver on the contracts they were rewarded, became staggeringly enriched. Again, follow the money. Five years after the earthquake that devastated the third world nation, much of Haiti remains in a state of disrepair and tens of thousands still live on the street. Why there has not been an audit or accounting of how the taxpayer’s money was spent is a mystery accept to those who understand how the Obama/Democrat, Justice Department operates.

Has Schweizer uncovered that one smoking gun piece that nails the Clintons? No, but he and his team have built a solid case for a much closer, much more detailed examination of the potential corruption of not only U.S. policy, but of the finances and operations of the Clinton Foundation and their associates. Will that happen? Based on the history of the Clintons, I wouldn’t hold my breath.