The gift of stock was given to Bill, not to Hillary. The entire transaction from gift to sale was completely concluded before Hillary ran for the White House.

The fact is Bill did nothing wrong. He got stock as a gift. He sold it. It was listed on the record and disclosed. It had nothing to do with Hillary. It had only to do with his foundation. I fail to understand your problem.

Btw, there is nothing wrong with a company being tied to the Chinese Government. In fact many of our most valuable stocks on the NYSE, and NASDAQ have affiliations with the Chinese. Many of our loans are with the Chinese banks. As a country-government we’re currently in debt to the Chinese.

Did you also notice that Jim McElhatton did not actually identify his convicted felon? Who was this felon? How much did he actually contribute to the company in dollars and cents. Is he a real partner or a partner by courtesy alone? Where is he located now? Is he still with the company? What was he convicted for? Which country is he from?

All these questions remain unanswered by McElhatton.

In fact this person may not exist. If he does he should be named so that the rest of the founders of the company that gifted Bill Clinton with stock, are not besmirched by this very sweeping accusation of a “felony fraud conviction of one of the company’s founders.”

This is worse than bad reporting. It is damaging to every partner of that company, because the felon is not named … if there really is a felon?

That would be and is my first question, but then I was taught as a reporter not to believe everything I read, unless it was and is backed up with undeniable traceble facts.

Cee, you on the other hand, seem willing to swallow whole the McElhatton/Huffington version of things.

Maybe we should make it a law that no one may accept any gift unless there is full disclosure of the giver’s facts and status, prior to the acceptance of the gift.

That would put a crimp in birthday and holiday gift giving, wouldn’t it. LOL.

Since you mention Penn, I might as well use this to point out that he and Bill are joined at the hip.

Where are those tax returns?

#

2: Mark Penn’s representation of foreign government sovereign wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates

Sovereign wealth funds — the enormously wealthy investment funds owned by foreign governments, many of them oil-rich states — are playing an ever larger role in the U.S. economy. For example, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority recently purchased a 5% stake in Citigroup.

As a sovereign wealth fund, The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is an instrument of a foreign government, Abu Dhabi, an emirate in the United Arab Emirates.

Guess who represents the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority in the United States?

That’s right: Burson-Marsteller, the public affairs firm run by Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist Mark Penn.

Indeed, ADIA isn’t the only sovereign wealth fund that Burson represents. There’s more, including Dubai Group and Dubai International Capital.

Whether or not it’s a bad thing for foreign governments to be buying up important companies in the United States is one question, but you almost certainly don’t want the next President of the United States top strategist to be representing them.

This is something the media needs to examine. If there is a firewall between Burson-Marsteller’s representation of foreign governments and its CEO Mark Penn, that firewall needs to be examined in the public media. This is something the public has a right to know.

Perhaps there are no conflicts of interest, but we won’t know until the media does its job.

There’s vetting to be done.

#3a: Bill Clintons’ ventures in the United Arab Emirates

Were Bill Clinton’s ventures in the United Arab Emirates connected with Mark Penn’s company, its subsidiaries, or its middle east partners, and if so, does that pose a conflict of interest?

We know that Bill Clinton raised millions from foreign governments and foreign nationals for his library.

The Post confirmed numerous seven-figure donors to the library through interviews and tax records of foundations. Several foreign governments gave at least $1 million, including the Middle Eastern nations of Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the governments of Taiwan and Brunei.

We also know some of his biggest speaking fees have come from foreign entities. This is not unusual — George H. W. Bush did it as well.

But that doesn’t mean there might not be a conflict of interest. It’s a question worth asking. We deserve to know.

Look at how it turned out with Dick Cheney and Halliburton. Not so good for America.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/7/172450/1018/223/471683

Nonsense. This goes to judgement and what favors Hillary would have to repay.
The Clinton camp isn’t the only one with a kitchen sink. We’re justing vetting Hill. Don’t be offended.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/accoona-corp

Bill Clinton profits from company tied to felon, China
By Jim McElhatton
March 7, 2008

Former President Bill Clinton speaking at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Thursday, Feb. 28

——————————————————————————–

The spring before his wife began her White House campaign, former President Bill Clinton earned $700,000 for his foundation by selling stock that he had been given from an Internet search company that was co-founded by a convicted felon and backed by the Chinese government, public records show.

Mr. Clinton had gotten the nonpublicly traded stock from Accoona Corp. back in 2004 as a gift for giving a speech at a company event. He landed the windfall by selling the 200,000 shares to an undisclosed buyer in May 2006, commanding $3.50 a share at a time when the company was reporting millions of dollars of losses, according to interviews.

A spokesman for the William J. Clinton Foundation declined to identify the buyer who was willing to pay so much for a struggling company’s stock, saying only that the transaction was handled by a securities broker. It occurred seven months before Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her bid to run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

The spokesman, Ben Yarrow, declined last week to say whether Mr. Clinton knew about the Chinese government’s connection to Accoona or the felony fraud conviction of one of the company’s founders.

“President Clinton gave a speech; he did not endorse a product,” Mr. Yarrow said.

The $700,000 capital gains was listed on the tax returns of Mr. Clinton’s foundation that were reviewed by The Washington Times.

The lack of disclosure about the buyer and the general activities of former presidents’ foundations troubles some ethics experts.

Sheila Krumholz, executive director for the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which studies political money and ethics, said even though the law doesn’t require former presidents to disclose donations and stock transactions to their foundations, they should do so to avoid the appearance that money was buying special access.

Wolfson is as big a liar and hypocrite as Hillary.
This is what he did to press Rick Lazio to turn over his tax returns.
Ken Starr didn’t even do this.

Enough with the projection.

In recent months, the team has been trying to focus public scrutiny on Lazio. Wolfson himself, along with a Democratic State Committee member dressed as Uncle Sam, showed up at a Lazio event in Harlem in August, taunting Lazio with the first lady’s New York property tax returns and challenging him to release his returns. In any other campaign, it might have been the candidate who seized such a photo op; but with his boss invested in preserving her dignity, it occasionally falls to Wolfson to supply those moments of semi-slapstick.

As Wolfson’s public profile was steadily rising, his personal life was pretty much flat-lining until his girlfriend of three years, Terri McCullough, moved from Washington to join him last winter. ”New York was always the last place I thought I’d want to be,” says McCullough, a redheaded, native Californian who is now communications director for Pencil, a nonprofit educational organization. But now she’s the one enjoying the city, while Wolfson experiences it vicariously through her. He pores over the offerings in Time Out, ticking off ”things I’d like to do but can’t,” while McCullough goes to plays and concerts. The only time she managed to get Wolfson to the theater, to see ”True West,” he fell asleep mid-production. ”It was no comment at all on the performances,” McCullough says dryly.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDB1739F934A2575AC0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Oh, one last thing: Should Members of Congress be held accountable for their votes? Yes or No. Simple question, really. Best to answer with an excuse. Hey, I don’t’ blame Hillary–National Intelligence Estimates are some turgid prose; no kiddin’…