Hillary Clinton's brother landed lucrative gold-mining permit in Haiti after Bill Clinton helped country recover from earthquake devastation
Book due out in May describes alleged sweetheart deal that netted VCS Mining a gold concession that hadn't been issued to anyone in 50 years
Tony Rodham, Mrs. Clinton's brother, sat on the company's board
Another board member co-chaired a relief effort with former President Bill Clinton following a devastating 2010 earthquake'
Clinton Cash' is the latest from Peter Schweizer, who turned heads in 2011 with an expose about insider trading by members of Congress
By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 13:02 EST, 6 March 2015 | UPDATED: 15:09 EST, 6 March 2015
An unusual nexus of mining interests, relief work in Haiti, and a former U.S. first family is raising new ethics questions that could affect Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions.
Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, was a board member of a North Carolina mining company that enjoyed prime access to Haitian gold deposits in the wake of post-earthquake relief work organized in part by former president Bill Clinton through the Clinton Foundation.
Another board member of the firm, VCS Mining, was former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, who co-chaired the charitable Interim Haiti Recovery Commission with Mr. Clinton.
The revelation, smacking of cronyism and back-room government dealing, is part of a forthcoming book by Government Accountability Institute founder Peter Schweizer, whose work exposing the investment 'insider trading' habits of members of Congress caused national outrage in 2011 even though the practice was legal.
ONE-STOP SHOP: Clinton presided over the grand opening of a Haitian industrial park in October 2012, two months before VCS Mining got a lucrative gold mining permit
'Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,' his latest book, will go on sale May 5.
At the time VCS Mining's 'gold exploitation permit' was awarded, according to a press release from the company, it was one of only two firms to get one. The Haitian government hadn't issued such a permit in more than 50 years.
Tony Rodham, brother of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, sat on the board of a company that landed a gold mining deal in Haiti after Bill and Hillary Clinton directed millions into post-earthquake relief
Breitbart News first reported on the investigative nonfiction book's coming release.
The January 2010 Haiti earthquake killed more than 100,000 people and affected more than 3 million. That disaster was followed nine months later by a cholera epidemic of historic proportions.
The Clinton Foundation raised at least $36 million to help, according to its website.
The Obama administration pledged $3.6 billion. 'Much of the U.S. assistance is provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development,' a department of the State Department that Mrs. Clinton led at the time, according to the department's website.
Rodham's company got its gold mining rights in December 2012, according to the VCS press release.
Schweizer's publisher, HarperCollins, said in a press release Thursday that it 'reveals how the Clintons went from "dead broke" on leaving the White House to being millionaires, describing in detail the way in which the Clintons habitually blur the lines between politics, philanthropy, and business.'
The Clintons' family philanthropy came under fire in February for admitting it had accepted money directly from foreign governments including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman.
Some of those donations came while Mrs. Clinton was the U.S. secretary of state.
Breitbart reported that the terms of Rodham's gold windfall upset members of Haiti's senate: The government's royalties under the deal were pegged at just 2.5 per cent, half the customary rate. And VCS mining has an option to renew the terms for 25 years.
HarperCollins executive editor Adam Bellow, son of the famed novelist Saul Bellow, said in a statement that in Schweizer's book, he 'coins a new term to describe the unique way in which Bill and Hillary tend to mingle their political, personal and philanthropic interests.'
He calls it 'the Clinton Blur.'
'Schweizer’s exhaustively researched book raises serious questions about the sources of the Clintons' sudden wealth, their ethical judgment, and Hillary's fitness for high public office,' Bellow added.
Mrs. Clinton was America's first lady and a U.S. shuhenator before losing the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama in 2008 and joining his administration the following year.
In addition to howls from the political right about her foundation's role in attracting donors from among countries with whom she negotiated – $500,000 of the Clinton Foundation's Haiti donations came from the Algerian government, for example – she is under fire for using a private email address run on her own server, during her years at the State Department.
She never had a 'state.gov' address. Instead she ran her professional and personal emails through her own Internet domain, 'clintonemails.com,' creating ethical and possibly legal issues because of the possibility that the State Department has not archived all her messages.
CLOSE: Clinton greeted Haitian President Michel Martelly warmly when she arrived for the industrial ribbon cutting in 2012 |
