As Hillary Clinton begins her second run for the Democrat nomination for president, serious questions of corruption while she was Secretary of State continue to circle around her, especially over her connections to millions in donations from foreign governments.
Aside from the foreign donations, though, Hillary has also now been connected to another politician’s corruption investigation. It has been revealed that a man indicted on corruption charges along with Senator Robert Menendez (D, NJ) may have hosted both Bill and Hillary at a high-cost vacation getaway in the Dominican Republic.
As part of the case against Senator Menendez, Dr. Salomon Melgen has been indicted and accused of corruption, but he also has ties to the Clintons.
A recent article in The New York Post reports that Melgen had hosted the former President and First Lady at a vacation getaway at his villa in Casa de Campo, “a luxury seaside resort in La Romana.” Records also show that Melgen and his wife donated thousands to the Clintons.
Clinton flack Terry McAuliffe, now Governor of Virginia, was also a frequent Casa de Campo guest.
But Melgen now stands accused of giving millions in gifts and donations and in kind contributions to Menendez in exchange for numerous “favors” allegedly bestowed upon him by the Senator.
Melgen is also under suspicion of engaging underage prostitutes at his Casa de Campo villa.
The Dominican Republic figures in with a second scandal comprised of allegations that Clinton took millions in donations from that country and others, both during and after she was Secretary of State.
This week the Clinton Foundation has done an about face on donations from foreign nations. Since accusations that the Clinton Foundation continued to take millions in donations from foreign nations, even as Hillary was the Secretary of State, the charity group has abruptly stopped taking donations from a new list of foreign countries. The Dominican Republic is now on the ban list.
This comes after a new book says that the Clinton Foundation did take donations from a host of Central and South American, as well as Caribbean, countries while Hillary was at the State Dept., and that she may have performed some quid pro quo for the money.
In the new book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Clinton Rich, author Peter Schweizer claims that in once case Hillary worked to put in place a free-trade agreement with Colombia after her foundation received a large donation from the region.
“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Schweizer writes of the donations made during Hillary’s time as Sec. of State.
As to funds from the Dominican Republic, up to $25 million seems to have come from a government agency called Copresida. The agency works to combat HIV/AIDS, a cause the Clinton Foundation has supported. Schweizer noted that these donations came after Hillary left the Sec. of State’s office.
The Clintons have also been criticized for taking millions in donations from some of these countries with a spotty record on human rights.
For now, the Clinton Foundation has decided to allow donations only from the governments of Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom.
This new list now excludes nations that had until now given tens of millions to the Clinton Foundation. Excluded are nations such as the Dominican Republic, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Kuwait, Italy, Brunei, and Taiwan, all now cut off.
These new scandals are added to charges that Hillary violated the law using secret email addresses while at State and that she has since illegally deleted many of her official communications, an action that could prevent Congressional investigators from learning all the facts about her role during the murders of four Americans in the terror attacks at Benghazi, Libya in 2012.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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