It hasn’t even been two months since the Associated press revealed how expensive it was for people outside the government to gain access to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On average the 85 people included in the Associated Press report, paid $1.835 million to see or speak with Secretary Clinton.
Now USA Today reports, that the Clintons’ pay to play scheme intertwined Crooked Hillary’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation into a relationship that was “closer and more complex than even Donald Trump has claimed.”
At least a dozen companies forked over “as much as $16 million.” At least four of the lobbyists they hired are “Hillblazers,” the Clinton campaign’s name for major Clinton campaign fundraisers who have raised $100,000 or more for her current presidential campaign. Two of the four also raised funds for Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid.
The USA Today figured out this part of the nefarious pay for play scheme by using federal lobbying data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics for 2009-2013, when Crooked Hillary was Secretary of State. Reporters then compared the data with donor lists made public by the Clinton Foundation and federal campaign financial records.
According to the article, some of the companies appear to have gotten what they wanted; others did not.
The donors to the Clinton foundation who also used Clinton-connected lobbyists at Hillary’s Department of State include:
- Microsoft, which gave between $1 million and $5 million to the foundations, as it lobbied for visa issues, protection of critical infrastructure and cybersecurity, software industry licensing and government procurement.
- Pfizer, which between $1 million and $5 million to the foundation, while lobbying for such issues as intellectual property rights overseas and issues related to medicines in Turkey and India.
- ExxonMobil, which gave the foundation between $1 million and $5 million. The company lobbied the Department of State for issues involving hydraulic fracturing, popularly known as fracking, oil sands and other provisions.
- The Northeast Maglev, which gave as much as $100,000 while lobbying the Department of State to help provide support for high-speed, magnetic levitation rail service in the U.S.
- Mexico TV network Azteca and its affiliates gave as much as $375,000 while lobbying for U.S. business opportunities, an education initiative involving students from the U.S., Mexico and Latin America, and other causes.
According to Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University, Hillary would be the first U.S. president to have had previous involvement with a foundation that raised millions of dollars tied to foreign interests and other donors.
The Clinton’s so-called charity has received millions of dollars in state or private contributions linked to Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kazakhstan and other nations whose interests at times conflict with those of the U.S. Millions more have been donated by U.S. companies and special interest groups, many of which stood to benefit from decisions made by the Department of State.
Just imagine the wealth the Clintons will be able to accumulate if Hillary becomes president and entire federal government become part of the pay to play scheme. Hillary has already said she will consider keeping Loretta Lynch on as Attorney General. All she needs is a Comey-like FBI Director.