Clinton Foundation Timeline
July – October, 2016: The Clinton machine floods the FBI with Trump-Russia dirt via State, Congress, Justice, and a top Democratic lawyer.
(…) “Between July and October 2016, Clinton-connected lawyers, emissaries and apologists made more than a half-dozen overtures to U.S. officials, each tapping a political connection to get suspect evidence into FBI counterintelligence agents’ hands, according to internal documents and testimonies I reviewed and interviews I conducted.
(…) Ex-FBI general counsel James Baker, one of the more senior bureau executives to be targeted, gave a memorable answer when congressional investigators asked how attorney Michael Sussmann from the Perkins Coie law firm, which represented the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party, came to personally deliver him dirt on Trump.
“You’d have to ask him why he decided to pick me,” Baker said last year in testimony that has not yet been released publicly. The FBI’s top lawyer turned over a calendar notation to Congress, indicating that he met Sussmann on Sept. 19, 2016, less than two months before Election Day.
(…) Baker’s detailed account illustrates how a political connection — Sussmann and Baker knew each other — was leveraged to get anti-Trump research to FBI leaders.
“[Sussmann] told me he had cyber experts that had obtained some information that they thought they should get into the hands of the FBI,” Baker testified.
“I referred this to investigators, and I believe they made a record of it,” he testified, adding that he believed he reached out to Peter Strzok, the agent in charge of the Russia case, or William Priestap, the head of FBI counterintelligence.
“Please come get this,” he recalled telling his colleagues. Baker acknowledged it was not the normal way for counterintelligence evidence to enter the FBI.
But when the bureau’s top lawyer makes a request, things happen in the rank-and-file.
The overture was neither the first nor the last instance of Clinton-connected Trump dirt reaching the FBI.
(…) During a trip to Washington later that month, Steele reached out to two political contacts with the credentials to influence the FBI.
Then-senior State Department official Jonathan Winer, who worked for then-Secretary John Kerry, wrote that Steele first approached him in the summer with his Trump research and then met again with him in September. Winer consulted his boss, Assistant Secretary for Eurasia Affairs Victoria Nuland, who said she first learned of Steele’s allegations in late July and urged Winer to send it to the FBI.
(If you need further intrigue, Winer worked from 2008 to 2013 for the lobbying and public relations firm APCO Worldwide, the same firm that was a contractor for both the Clinton Global Initiative and Russia’s main nuclear fuel company that won big decisions from the Obama administration.) (Read much more: The Hill, 1/22/2019)
July 6, 2016 – State and foreign governments are investigating charity fraud at the Clinton Foundation
(Credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
“Charles Ortel, a successful investor and independent journalist, spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon on Wednesday about the state and foreign governments investigating charity fraud at the Clinton Foundation, despite FBI Director James Comey’s decision not to charge Hillary Clinton for her handling of top secret emails while she was Secretary of State.
“Many month ago, I thought to myself charity fraud is a state matter. And because this is an international global charity, it’s a foreign matter,” said Ortel, who’s spent more than 15 months researching the Clinton Foundation’s public records, donor disclosure data, federal, and state-level tax filings.
“Let’s go after potential infractions. Let’s see if there’s potential illegal acts at the state level and at the foreign level,” he continued. Because if we go down those avenues, the President [Obama] cannot pardon those crimes. There’s no way that he can do that, neither by executive action or any other means.”
“And I can tell you that many states and many foreign countries are actively looking at this,” Ortel said.”
(…) “In his interview, Ortel told Bannon that “there are massive diversions” and “major discrepancies” between what donors reported that they gave to the Clinton Foundation and what the Clinton Foundation’s public disclosures said they received.
“And they’re easy to track down,” Ortel said. “If I can do it, as a private citizen, imagine what government authorities and state and foreign levels can do.” (Video: Breitbart News, 7/06/2016)
FBI Director James Comey refuses to say whether the Clinton Foundation is being investigated.
Bill and Hillary Clinton attend an open plenary session for the Clinton Global Initiative on September 22, 2014. (Credit: John Moore / Getty Images)
In a Congressional hearing, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R) asks Comey: “Did you look at the Clinton Foundation?”
Comey replies, “I’m not going to comment on the existence or nonexistence of any other investigations.”
Chaffetz then asks, “Was the Clinton Foundation tied into this investigation?”
Comey responds, “Yeah, I’m not going to answer that.” (CNN, 7/7/2016)
It has previously been reported by Fox News in January 2016 that the Clinton Foundation is being investigated by the FBI, but that hasn’t been officially confirmed. An unnamed “FBI source” also told the Daily Mail in April 2016 that the FBI is conducting an investigation of the Clinton Foundation separate from its Clinton email investigation. (The Daily Mail, 7/7/2016)
In October 2016, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post will report that there actually is an FBI investigation and it has been in existence since at least 2015, but it has been hobbled by a lack of support from the Justice Department.
July 9, 2016 – Sailing on the River Denial with Clinton Foundation & Friends
Gotta hand it to Bill. At least he lent his name to his winter vacation spot’s “health needs.” ~Amy Sterling Casil (Credit: Getty Images)
“One of the stated goals of the Clinton Foundation is to improve Health and Wellness. When I saw they listed it as one of their areas where they did work, I was like “Why Coachella Valley?” Boh-de-oh.
When I first decided to look at the Clinton Foundation programs and records, the “Coachella Valley” was listed as one of five “Health and Wellness” programs in the U.S. Now these programs listed on the Foundation’s website are far murkier with more than a dozen new links of uncertain provenance. None of the new links one may see listed in apparent desperation are actually conducted by the Clinton Foundation, nor are most of them “programs” but we’ll put that issue aside for the time being.
I’m going to walk you through an analysis of this “charitable venture” since I know the area well, know the real needs, and unlike the Clinton Foundation, Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), Clinton-Giustra Global Whatever, Clinton Global Initiative, William Jefferson Clinton Foundation and all the rest, I’ve been involved in actual nonprofit work for half of my adult working life.” (Read more: Amy Sterling Casil, 7/09/2016)
July 22, 2016 – The IRS launches an investigation of the Clinton Foundation
John Koskinen (Credit: Getty Images)
“IRS Commissioner John Koskinen referred congressional charges of corrupt Clinton Foundation “pay-to-play” activities to his tax agency’s exempt operations office for investigation, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
The request to investigate the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation on charges of “public corruption” was made in a July 15 letter by 64 House Republicans to the IRS, FBI and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). They charged the foundation is “lawless.”
The initiative is being led by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican who serves as the vice chairwoman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees FTC. The FTC regulates public charities alongside the IRS.
The lawmakers charged the Clinton Foundation is a “lawless ‘pay-to-play’ enterprise that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years and should be investigated.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 07/26/2016)
July 31, 2016 – Opinion: The Clinton Foundation, State and Kremlin Connections
The Skolkovo Innovation Center opens in 2010 and is often referred to as Russia’s “Silicon Valley.” (Credit: Valeny Meinkov/Sputnik)
By Peter Schweizer
“Hillary Clinton touts her tenure as secretary of state as a time of hardheaded realism and “commercial diplomacy” that advanced American national and commercial interests. But her handling of a major technology transfer initiative at the heart of Washington’s effort to “reset” relations with Russia raises serious questions about her record. Far from enhancing American national interests, Mrs. Clinton’s efforts in this area may have substantially undermined U.S. national security.
Consider Skolkovo, an “innovation city” of 30,000 people on the outskirts of Moscow, billed as Russia’s version of Silicon Valley—and a core piece of Mrs. Clinton’s quarterbacking of the Russian reset.
Following his 2009 visit to Moscow, President Obama announced the creation of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state directed the American side, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov represented the Russians. The stated goal at the time: “identifying areas of cooperation and pursuing joint projects and actions that strengthen strategic stability, international security, economic well-being, and the development of ties between the Russian and American people.”
The Kremlin committed $5 billion over three years to fund Skolkovo. Mrs. Clinton’s State Department worked aggressively to attract U.S. investment partners and helped the Russian State Investment Fund, Rusnano, identify American tech companies worthy of Russian investment. Rusnano, which a scientific adviser to President Vladimir Putin called “Putin’s child,” was created in 2007 and relies entirely on Russian state funding.
What could possibly go wrong?
Soon, dozens of U.S. tech firms, including top Clinton Foundation donors like Google, Intel and Cisco , made major financial contributions to Skolkovo, with Cisco committing a cool $1 billion. In May 2010, the State Department facilitated a Moscow visit by 22 of the biggest names in U.S. venture capital—and weeks later the first memorandums of understanding were signed by Skolkovo and American companies.
By 2012 the vice president of the Skolkovo Foundation, Conor Lenihan —who had previously partnered with the Clinton Foundation—recorded that Skolkovo had assembled 28 Russian, American and European “Key Partners.” Of the 28 “partners,” 17, or 60%, have made financial commitments to the Clinton Foundation, totaling tens of millions of dollars, or sponsored speeches by Bill Clinton.
Russians tied to Skolkovo also flowed funds to the Clinton Foundation. Andrey Vavilov, the chairman of SuperOx, which is part of Skolkovo’s nuclear-research cluster, donated between $10,000 and $25,000 (donations are reported in ranges, not exact amounts) to the Clinton’s family charity. Skolkovo Foundation chief and billionaire Putin confidant Viktor Vekselberg also gave to the Clinton Foundation through his company, Renova Group.
Amid all the sloshing of Russia rubles and American dollars, however, the state-of-the-art technological research coming out of Skolkovo raised alarms among U.S. military experts and federal law-enforcement officials. Research conducted in 2012 on Skolkovo by the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Program at Fort Leavenworth declared that the purpose of Skolkovo was to serve as a “vehicle for world-wide technology transfer to Russia in the areas of information technology, biomedicine, energy, satellite and space technology, and nuclear technology.” (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 7/31/2016)