Last week Hillary Clinton was under fire for taking around $1.8 million in speaking fees from colleges – many of which were increasing tuition on students – since leaving the State Department.  Over the holiday weekend Clinton tried to clean-up the PR mess by saying that those fees had been donated to a charity – her own, the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Given the foundations track record of lavish spending this raises some questions about just how the Clinton Foundation charity cash has been spent since Hillary left the White House.

1. Is the Foundation paying for Clinton’s political staff or being used as a holding ground for future Clinton Presidential staff? 

In 2013, The New York Times reported that “the foundation could serve as a base…to build up a stable of trusted staff members who could form the core of a political campaign.” Among those on the payroll at the time were a handful of Clinton 2008 presidential campaign staff including Huma Abedin and Dennis Cheng, the finance director of her 08 campaign leading what some Clinton donors describe as a “dry run” for the 2016 campaign at the Foundation. 

Its hard to argue that lavish speaking fees are going to a charity when that charity is paying for presidential campaign prep.

2. Do the college speaking fees help underwrite the CGI meetings? 

According to a Clinton Foundation press release in 2013, CGI was reincorporated into the Clinton Foundation when Secretary Clinton left the State Department. That adds substantial overhead cost to the foundation that can’t be described as “charitable.”

For example: In 2012 the total CGI budget was $28 million. Of that, $25 million was spent on their annual meetings. According to the 990 CGI spent over $1 million of that on “production” vendors including stage crews and technical production.

Not your typical charity expenditures.

3. Is the Foundation still footing the bill for the Clintons ostentatious travel? 

A 2013 report by the New York Post found that the Clinton Foundation spent $60 million on travel from 2003-2012. When combined with their other initiatives that number ballooned past $85 million.

If the universities fees are being used so that the Clintons can fly around on private jets and stay in luxurious presidential suites, is that really a charitable contribution?

4. What about travel for celebrities? 

Clinton Foundation events are often replete with celebrity star power. In one instance, Natalie Portman was given a first class ticket for her and her Yorkie to an event in Austin.

I’m sure the students paying a higher tuition next Spring would be happy to hear that the university cash went to pay for celebrity dog travel.

5. Is the Clinton Foundation still paying  Teneo a 7 figure consulting fee? 

Founded by former top Clinton aides, Teneo has been a preferred consulting firm for the Clintons. Previous reports indicated that they made $250k per month from the Clinton Foundation, which is approximately what Hillary was making from each college speech.

This just scratches the surface of what we don’t know about the Clinton Foundation finances. As POLITICO reporter Ben White noted, until we do saying that she donated speaking fees to charity isn’t much of an answer.

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Bill Clinton came to the defense of Hillary Clinton amidst criticism of her out of touch comments about being “dead broke” after leaving the White House and currently are unlike the “truly well off” because of their tax payments.

Former President Clinton argued that they were not out of touch since they “talk to people in their town” in ritzy Chappaqua New York, the 40th wealthiest town in America with a median income of over $160k. He also volunteered that they “go to the grocery store” and that he had the “lowest net worth” of any 20th Century President when he took office.

The 1% bubble they are living in might be even thicker than we first imagined.

CLICK HERE to see more. 

Transcript

BILL CLINTON: “I think I had the lowest net worth of any American president in the 20th century when I took office. But I still could have been tone deaf. And, you know, now I don’t. And we’ve got a great life and I’m grateful for it. But I still, we go to our local grocery store on the weekend. We talk to people in our town. We know what’s going on. 

In a devastating Washington Post article that covered how Democrats are wary that the Clintons “imperial image” could damage Hillary’s 2016 campaign, there were several damning quotes from Democrats worried she projects more “Downton Abbey” than everyday America.

But the quote that most caught our eye was one that came ostensibly in Hillary’s defense.

John Morgan, a Democratic donor, hosted Bill Clinton at his Florida home last year for a fundraiser. Morgan recalled that when his son complimented Clinton on his black dress shoes, the former president showed him the label: Allen Edmonds. (They cost about $250 at Macy’s.) Of Hillary Clinton, Morgan said: “I don’t see jewels. She may get some nice pantsuits, but they’re not flashy people.”

Well then I guess we can consider this argument closed. The Clintons are slumming it in everyman $250 dress shoes! Forget we said anything about being out of touch with people who are actually struggling to pay their mortgage.

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The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll discovered that only 38 percent of voters think Hillary Clinton is “honest and straightforward” – THIRTY EIGHT PERCENT! From theWall Street Journal:

Today, 38% of voters say she is “honest and straightforward,” compared with 40% who say she isn’t. That figure is better for Mrs. Clinton than in March 2008, during the Democratic primaries, when 33% said she was honest and 43% said she wasn’t. But she may have trouble making up more of that ground as she moves out of her self-imposed break from politics and is increasingly seen as a 2016 presidential candidate… .

A week into her book tour, Mrs. Clinton has faced criticism that she hasn’t given straight answers. She had to quickly walk back her comment that she and Bill Clinton were “dead broke” when they left the White House in 2001 and struggled when asked when she began favoring gay marriage, during an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross.

See more HERE. 

Today, at an event in Toronto, Hillary Clinton spoke about the conflict in Syria and her support for the President’s “red line” on Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons.

Then she claimed that President Obama’s decision to seek congressional authorization before enforcing his red line was “his and his alone,” implying she did not support it, distancing herself from the controversial move, seen as political at the time.

The problem is at the time of the debate in September 2013, Clinton came out in support of Obama’s effort to seek a congressional vote.

“Secretary Clinton supports the president’s effort to enlist the Congress in pursuing a strong and targeted response to the Assad regime’s horrific use of chemical weapons,” says a statement from a Clinton aide sent to USA TODAY. The aide was not authorized to speak publicly.

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Appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, Mitt Romney struck at the heart of the faults with the Hillary State Dept Foreign Policy.

What you’ve seen from this administration, whether from Hillary Clinton with the reset button to Russia which by the way should have been called the repeat button, this administration from Secretary clinton to President Obama has repeatedly underestimated the threats that are faced by America, has repeatedly underestimated our adversaries. Whether that’s Russia or Assad or ISIS or al-Qaeda itself, its not taken the action necessary to prevent bad things from happening. It has not used our influence to do what’s necessary to protect our interests.

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The Washington Free Beacon reports on newly discovered audio from the 1980s in which Hillary Clinton talked about the most significant criminal case of her legal career: defending a man accused of raping a 12 year old girl. Clinton – at times laughing – recounts how she pled down the charges against her client, Thomas Alfred Taylor, who she appeared to believe was guilty, based on a legal technicality. According to a sworn affidavit, Clinton planned to question the victim’s credibility should the case go to trial.

From the Beacon

Newly discovered audio recordings of Hillary Clinton from the early 1980s include the former first lady’s frank and detailed assessment of the most significant criminal case of her legal career: defending a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl.

In 1975, the same year she married Bill, Hillary Clinton agreed to serve as the court-appointed attorney for Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old accused of raping the child after luring her into a car.

The recordings, which date from 1983-1987 and have never before been reported, include Clinton’s suggestion that she knew Taylor was guilty at the time. She says she used a legal technicality to plead her client, who faced 30 years to life in prison, down to a lesser charge. …

The full story of the Taylor defense calls into question Clinton’s narrative of her early years as a devoted women and children’s advocate in Arkansas—a narrative the 2016 presidential frontrunner continues to promote on her current book tour. …

A lengthy yet largely overlooked 2008 Newsday story focused on Clinton’s legal strategy of attacking the credibility of the 12-year-old victim. …

In a July 28, 1975, court affidavit, Clinton wrote that she had been informed the young girl was “emotionally unstable” and had a “tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing.”

“I have also been told by an expert in child psychology that children in early adolescence tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences and that adolescents in disorganized families, such as the complainant’s, are even more prone to exaggerate behavior,” Clinton said.

Clinton said the child had “in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body” and that the girl “exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”

This case was covered during the 2008 campaign by Clinton reporter Glenn Thrush, his story with additional background here.

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In a soft-ball interview, Hillary Clinton lamented how tough the U.S. political system can be on candidates saying, “Politics is so unpredictable, whoever runs has to recognize that the American political system is probably the most difficult, even brutal, in the world.”

Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post highlights just how absurd this claim is.

@Hillaryclinton tells @cbssunday that US political system is most “brutal” in world. Would Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto agree?

— Ed O'Keefe (@edatpost)

June 15, 2014

See more HERE.

In an interview with the BBC, Clinton spun her Russian “Reset” policy as a “brilliant stroke.”

Actually Clinton’s spin that the “Reset” ended with Putin returning to the role of Russian President belies her own words. In 2012, nearly six months after Putin assumed office, Clinton defended Russia against Republican criticism of the “Reset” declaring, “Russia has been an ally.”

BBC TRANSCRIPT

QUESTION: “You famously pressed the reset button. Are you embarrassed by that now, that gesture?”

CLINTON: “No I think it was a brilliant stroke which in retrospect it appears even more so, because look at what we accomplished. Between the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008, which of course torpedoed relations between United States and the Russia for good reason. We come into office, and for that period of time, the interregnum if you will, Medvedev is President, Putin is Prime Minister, and there were jobs that we wanted to get done. We wanted to get Russia on board with tough sanctions against Iran. We wanted to have a new START Treaty to limit nuclear weapons. We wanted to get their help in transiting across through huge country to get things we needed into Afghanistan. We got all that done. Putin comes back. Look where we are now. He invaded another country, so yes, but while we had that moment, we seized it, we used it, and succeeded.”

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n contrast to the panning of Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices that we point to here, America Rising’s e-book on the Clinton State Department, Failed Choices has been highlighted by reviewers as a valuable resource ahead of a 2016 campaign. According to Emma Roller in National Journal, Failed Choices  “serves as a playbook for how conservatives may attack Clinton on her foreign policy record, come 2016.” She goes on: 

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi… . America Rising PAC puts forth a more refined argument in its book: Clinton put the wheels in motion that eventually led to the embassy attack. “It was this unraveling of the government of Libya and the country’s violent descent into jihadist control that serves as the backdrop for the events leading up to the tragic terrorist attacks in Benghazi on September 11, 2012,” the authors write.

Clinton Inc. . . . But in Failed Choices, the authors go beyond that depiction, calling Hillary Clinton a “salesperson for select U.S. business interests” by using “economic statecraft.” The authors highlight a few shady deals, implying pay-to-play. Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide (and Anthony Weiner’s long-suffering spouse), did not disclose that she worked for the consulting firm Teneo while she was still working for Clinton. The book also notes that Boeing donated $2 million to a Shanghai Expo, possibly violating the State Department’s code of ethics. The defense company also donated $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation in 2010. Boeing isn’t the only big-name contractor the book goes after; another one is a name you may not have heard in awhile: Blackwater. Despite Clinton’s pledge to ban Blackwater from government contracts when she ran for president in 2008, the State Department continued to employ the company (after it changed its name to Academi).

Dustin Hawkins at About.com also has good things to say about Failed Choices:

For those actually seeking insight into Hillary’s tenure there is an alternative read: Failed Choices, a new e-book created by the brains behind America Rising. And when compared to Hillary’s “contrived” and “newsless” “campaign mumbo-jumbo,” Failed Choices clocks in at 5% the cost, a fraction of the pages, and at least 50 times more informative.

Coming in at 112 pages of solid information, Failed Choices is an important read for conservatives ready to combat Hillary’s inevitable presidential campaign. With no accomplishments to point to as either First Lady or as a US Senator, the Clinton team will try to portray her time as head of the State Department as a success. While many conservatives are familiar with many of her failures,Failed Choices delivers the full picture of Hillary’s failures. The topics contained in this book will be mostly avoided by team Clinton. Why? Because the easiest choice they have is to ignore them.

If you haven’t yet,  head over to Amazon.com to read America Rising’s Failed Choices!

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