Once Upon a Time, There Was a Secretary of State

…who made sure she set her husband up as fast as possible at the scene of the crime natural disaster, to maximize efficiency in the recovery of their share of the pie.

No one is talking about Clinton and Haiti. They should be.
This poor fellow held a sign up in the background of a Trump Towers CNN interview, and I’m sure the few who noticed it scratched their heads.

Let’s start with a year old primer on how it all went down…the drain.

How the Clintons Worked the Angles in Haiti
Bill handled earthquake aid while Hillary was secretary of state. The nation deserved better.

The U.S. Founding Fathers went out of their way to establish a republic guided by the rule of law and not the rule of men. If there is a singular principle that has set the U.S. apart from countries south of the Rio Grande it’s the checks and balances that protect against caudillo power.

Yet in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake, while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, the Obama administration and Congress gave Bill Clinton carte blanche in handling hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars flowing to Haiti for recovery and reconstruction. This translated into enormous political power for the former president in the poorest country in the hemisphere, making him a de facto cacique.

Mr. Clinton loves to paint himself as a third-world redeemer, as he did in an interview in Africa with an NBC reporter that aired last week. The reporter asked about charges that the Clinton Foundation’s practice of pulling in big money from governments and wealthy donors during Hillary’s tenure as secretary of state was a conflict of interest.

Mr. Clinton countered that he’s helping the poor…

…Within two weeks of Haiti’s January 2010 earthquake, the word had already gone out from the State Department that Bill Clinton would be in charge of U.S. reconstruction efforts.

“That means,” one individual told me and I reported in a Jan. 25, 2010 column, “if you don’t have Clinton connections, you won’t be in the game.”

The “game,” as my source called it, meant securing hundreds of millions of dollars in no-bid contracts from the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development and grants from multilateral institutions like the InterAmerican Development Bank, which gets the bulk of its funding from the U.S.

The Clintons deny that Bill’s power over State’s purse was used to secure donations to the Clinton Foundation. But at least two contributors who gave more than $1 million as I described in a March 9 column, including the InterAmerican Development Bank, benefited from U.S. earthquake aid.

There’s a lot that didn’t get done. In the north of the country, the Clinton-proposed Caracol Industrial Park was supposed to feature some 40 buildings for apparel assembly supporting up to 65,000 jobs. It remains a mystery why there are still only three buildings in full operation and only 5,000 jobs, despite plenty of tenant interest.

Bill’s first concern is always helping the poor. Remember he and Hillary went from “dead broke” to $53M now?
And they both STILL have to work, you know.
It’s tough.

One Response to “Once Upon a Time, There Was a Secretary of State”

1. Kathy Kinsley says:

   May 11, 2016 at 6:20 pm

   I’d be dancing in the streets for 1% of that “tough”…