In recent days, revelations from the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash” have revealed controversial Clinton Foundation financial deals, some including with the federal government.
The revelations have led to a campaign by Clinton allies to downplay the notion of wrongdoing. However, as a video montage shows in 2009, it was then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who championed this new “controversial” expansion of public and private sector mergers, which left the Obama administration free to pick so-called “winners and losers” from a pool of Clinton foundation donors.
Announcing the new “Global Partnership Initiative,” in 2009 at the Global Philanthropy Forum Conference, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “I’m here today to announce that the State Department is opening its doors to a new generation of public-private partnerships. We will expand current partnerships and embark on new ones.”
In 2009 Clinton then went directly to the Clinton Global Initiative and personally pitched the new business government partnerships directly to her husband former President Bill Clinton’s donors. While addressing world hunger, Clinton admits her private-public partnership idea was formed by working with the Clinton Foundation, saying, “I have to acknowledge that much of what we are attempting to do is derived from what I have seen happen here at CGI—the kind of new approach, the marrying of philanthropy and capitalism.”
Hillary Clinton then directly asked attendees at her family foundation for their involvement, saying, “There’s one last piece of our strategy that can make all the difference to our success: and that is all of you. The people in this room represent an incredible collection of talent, expertise, experience, energy, and heart. We need your ideas and your feedback, and we need your active support, in any and every capacity.”
In 2012, Hillary returned to the Clinton Foundation to tout the success of her public-private sector mergers, saying, “One example of this aid-to-investment approach is in Haiti. Five months ago, a shipment of sewing machines was unpacked at the brand new Caracol Industrial Park in northern Haiti. The first tenant was the Korean apparel company, Sae-A, one of the largest garment manufacturers in the world.”
She admitted the method that blurred the lines between the private sector and government was “controversial.”
“Now, I have to say this was controversial,” Clinton said. “When Cheryl and I first started working on this, there were a lot of development professionals and experts who really were quite concerned, and even skeptical. But you cannot have development in today’s world without partnering with the private sector, and that has been our mantra, and we are now creating examples.”
After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, when USAID partnered with the Clinton Foundation and Sae-A Trading, a Korean textile manufacturer to build Caracol Industrial Park in Haiti, the agency promised 65,000 jobs. To date, the park has created fewer than 5,000 jobs.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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