Clinton Charity Spends Nearly 80 Percent on Administrative Costs

The Canadian affiliate of the Clinton Foundation is spending an astounding 78 percent of the money it raises on administrative costs, according to the Globe and Mail.

The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP) spent nearly 8 dollars for every 10 that it raised on salaries, office supplies, expenses, salaries and consulting fees, according to filings with the Canada Revenue Agency. The charity only spent 22 percent on “charitable programs.”

The CGEP was set up by Canadian mining investor Frank Giustra,  who is one of the largest contributors to the Clinton Foundation and a frequent traveling partner with Bill Clinton.  Most of the funding has come from mining executives and companies.  The CGEP was primarily set up so that Canadians contributing to the Clinton Foundation would receive a tax deduction in Canada.

CGEP officials defended the amount of money spent on administrative costs.

“These expenditures—far from being overhead—are critical to the operational success of CGEP’s work, and help maximize the impact of CGEP’s programs;  ensure that more people are reached; and that these programs are run in an effective way,” they noted in a statement released to the Global and Mail.

CGEP also noted that the staff in Canada (including four full time positions) works on “partnership development and marketing, investor prospecting, and finance.”

This is not the first time CGEP has been in the headlines. The Canadian charity has also served as a conduit for undisclosed donations flowing to the Clinton Foundation. Frank Giustra admitted in 2015, after the publication of Clinton Cash, that there were more than 1,000 undisclosed donations to the Clinton Foundation. Many of those had come via CGEP.

Hillary Clinton promised the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee during her confirmation hearings to be Secretary of State that the Foundation would disclose all of its donors. Clinton Foundation also executives signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Obama White House promising the same in late 2008.

Giustra has figured in several stories involving the Clinton Foundation and foreign financial deals. Giustra was involved in a small Canadian uranium company that received a lucrative uranium concession in Kazakhstan after Bill Clinton visited the country with him in 2005. The company was later sold to the Russian government in a deal which needed approval from Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Giustra also has considerable financial holdings in Colombia, where the Clinton Foundation is active.

In June 2010,  several of his companies received deals or concessions from the Colombian government following back-to-back meetings that Bill Clinton and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had with the President of Colombia.

Giustra has given tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation since 2005.