Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Panama Papers: Soros Beyond the Reach of Scrutiny

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Perspective of Soros political donations in 2012

May 2016: George Soros donates $8 million to boost Hillary

2014 was the year that launched the full ‘climate change’ mission.

TheHill: Adviser to President Obama John Podesta met with billionaires Tom Steyer and George Soros for a lunchtime meeting at the White House in February, according to meeting records. The White House visitor documents show that shortly after Steyer had committed to spend upward of $100 million on the 2014 election cycle for environmentally friendly candidates who helped put climate change on the map, he met with Podesta and Soros. The three met to discuss global climate change negotiations, and the process of the 2015 United Nations climate change convention to be held in Paris, a White House official told The Hill in an email.

The administration is looking to build momentum going into the talks where 120 nations will work to form a global climate treaty, and set emission reduction targets. President Obama will attend the UN climate summit in New York next month to build on negotiations.

Records show that Steyer met with Podesta again in March. The administration has received criticism from Republicans for its ties with the hedge fund manager turned climate activist.

Panama Papers reveal George Soros’ deep money ties to secretive weapons, intel investment firm

FNC: Billionaire George Soros, who has spent millions of dollars financing Democrats and left-wing causes, used a controversial Panamanian law firm to establish a web of offshore investment partnerships that operate around the world and out of the scrutiny of U.S. regulators, according to leaked documents.

The so-called Panama Papers, a trove of 11.5 million financial documents tracing the Mossack Fonseca law firm’s efforts to help politicians, celebrities and criminals shield their money from taxes, contain links to Soros, who funds the journalism group that is disseminating the information. So far, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has been silent on its benefactor’s ties to the law firm.

Three offshore investment vehicles controlled by Soros are catalogued in the Panama Papers. Soros Finance, Inc. was incorporated in Panama; Soros Holdings Limited was set up in the British Virgin Islands and a limited partnership called Soros Capital was created in Bermuda.

The laws of Panama, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and a score of “tax havens” allow foreign firms to hide ownership of cash, real estate and other assets from securities regulators and tax collectors in the countries where they are physically headquartered.

On May 9, client data stolen from the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama was published online by the ICIJ as part of its Offshore Leaks database. The searchable database contains a portion of the offshore financial records given to the journalists by anonymous whistle-blowers since 2013; it does not include leaked emails and other explanatory data that ICIJ reporters use to write about the offshore financial holdings of newsworthy individuals.

News stories about offshore bank accounts revealed by the Panama Papers brought down Iceland’s prime minister last month. Heads of state, Hollywood stars, heiresses, arms dealers and drug lords who established secret offshore companies and bank accounts are outed almost daily by the ICIJ. Incorporating a business offshore is not illegal, but President Obama has called for the tax loophole to be sealed shut, saying everyone should “pay their fair share.”

Soros, 86, is worth an estimated $25 billion. His Open Society Institute is one of ICIJ’s main funders, granting it $1.5 million last year. The Panama Papers data reveals only the tip of Soros’ offshore iceberg, the Quantum Group of Funds. The ICIJ’s leader, journalist Gerard Ryle, said he had not noticed Soros’ companies in the Offshore Leaks database until FoxNews.com called the matter to his attention.

“I suspect we would have more information [on Soros] because the public database … does not contain the underlying data,” Ryle said in an email FoxNews.com.

FoxNews.com has requested access to that data.

Because it is based offshore, the Quantum Group of Funds is not normally subject to regulation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. But in the mid-1990s, Soros Capital bought several SEC-regulated firms, an act which required it to disclose the basic design of the Quantum network of interlocking offshore companies and bank accounts that shield Soros’ billions.

Soros Capital set up an offshore company in the Cayman Islands for the purpose of investing private equity with the Carlyle Group, alongside members of Saudi Arabia’s Bin Laden family. Carlyle’s partners include ex-heads of state and former CIA officials. The private equity partnership specializes in buying and selling weapons manufacturing and intelligence gathering companies with government and military contracts and it also uses secret offshore companies to conduct business.

Offshore Leaks does not include SEC information, but it reveals Soros Capital as a major investor and corporate officer of AIF (Indonesia) Limited. AIF combines private investments with public funding contributed by Asian governments to develop massive infrastructure projects. The database links Soros Capital to Dongya Ports Limited, owned by a tangle of offshore entities.

Soros is certainly newsworthy. In 1992, the self-styled philosopher-economist nearly bankrupted the Bank of England by manipulating the price of the pound. Five years later, he exacerbated a regional economic crisis by betting against Thai and Malaysian currencies. Billions of dollars in profits from Soros’ currency-pummeling moves flowed through the Quantum Group of Funds.

Soros is the sole proprietor of Manhattan-based Soros Fund Management LLC, which controls his offshore empire. In July 2011, Soros closed the multibillion-dollar fund to all but members of his immediate family, allowing him to escape the Dodd-Frank Act mandate for hedge funds to disclose investors and conflicts of interest. A few months later, Soros lost the final appeal of his 2002 conviction by a French court for insider trading. But he remains a potent political force.

In 2014, Soros donated $381 million of Quantum Group of Funds shares to his Open Society philanthropy. The New York-based charitable foundation supports hundreds of advocacy groups, academic research and investigative journalists that align with Soros’ oft-stated goal to promote globalized capitalism and democracy.

On the other hand, the Panama Papers’ leaker, known as John Doe, said that he had exposed the vast cluster of offshore firms and bank accounts, because “income inequality” and “massive, pervasive corruption” are “the defining issues of our time.”

Soros’ offshore companies may not pay U.S. taxes (his spokesperson, Michael Vachon, declined to answer that question), but the billionaire donates lots of money to Democrats who write and enforce the tax laws. In the 2004 presidential election, he contributed $24 million to George Bush’s opponents. He is the largest donor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency, plunking down $8 million, so far. He has donated “up to $1 million” to the Clinton Foundation. And Secretary of State Clinton’s emails reveal that Soros has lobbied her on behalf of his interests, which encircle the globe, mostly in the dark.

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There is more, and it deals with Hedge Funds, Soros and even political action committee cooperatives.

HuffPo: On the list of the largest U.S. companies by market value, those in the $30 billion to $45 billion range are household names: Capital One Financial, DirecTV, Phillips 66, Yahoo.

But far fewer people know much, if anything, about Citadel Multi-Strategy Equities Master Fund Ltd., with a gross asset value of $33 billion, or Elliott International, L.P., at $30.8 billion, or AQR Style Premia Master Account, valued at $16.6 billion. All are hedge funds organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands.

They’re also just a handful of the funds under the control of some of the biggest political donors in the nation: Kenneth C. Griffin, Paul Singer and Cliff Asness.

Hedge funds — partnerships of big-money investors that, put simply, try to beat the market by pursuing riskier-than-normal investments, often using debt and other forms of leverage — have boomed in recent years, with many producing huge financial gains for an elite pool of individuals, pension funds or other repositories of great wealth. Private and exclusive, the funds are not for the average American; often, the customers are not Americans at all.

The industry has made certain Americans very, very rich, though — and has helped create a new class of megadonors in U.S. politics. Besides Griffin (of Citadel Advisors LLC), Singer (Elliott Management Corp.) and Asness (AQR Capital Management), they include Robert Mercer and James Simons (Renaissance Technologies), Donald Sussman (Paloma Partners) and Seth Klarman (Baupost Group). These seven individuals who lead six hedge fund firms have together given at least $60 million to candidates, super PACs and political party committees since the beginning of 2015.

(The fund once managed by George Soros, another major industry donor, is now a family office and has no SEC Form ADV on file.)

The release of the Panama Papers has brought fresh reminders of the stunning amount of wealth held offshore, but that’s a world these donors and their firms navigate routinely as part of a rarefied investment community far more wealthy and sophisticated than the market to which most people have access.

OpenSecrets Blog analyzed hundreds of pages of reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the six firms. The reports give new insight into these donors whose money is increasingly dominating political giving, thus allowing them disproportionate access to policymakers.

All told, the value of their 151 hedge funds is as high as $390 billion. Most of that is in the funds based overseas, mostly in the Cayman Islands. Of the 151 funds in the firms’ SEC reports, 67 are organized under the laws of the Caymans, where the firms manage some $282 billion in current asset value. About $103 billion of the wealth is held in Delaware-based hedge funds.

The six management companies reported that they themselves owned stakes in the hedge funds totaling approximately $38 billion. Don’t even think about trying to buy in with a few hundred thousand you may have lying around: The average minimum ante for an “accredited investor” is $5.4 million.

A quarter of the funds report greater than 50 percent ownership by non-U.S. investors (which could include offshore holding companies and other entities), and foreign investors own at least part of 41 percent of the funds. By far, most of the funds catering to these offshore entities are organized in the Cayman Islands.

In the presidential contest, hedge fund managers have played an enormous role in plumping up the coffers of several candidates’ super PACs. Sussman, for instance, who has given out more than $7 million this cycle in all, has contributed $4 million to Priorities USA Action, the group backing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Sussman and Simons combined have given Priorities $16 million in the past two cycles. (Priorities supported President Barack Obama’s second campaign for the White House before it pivoted to Clinton.)

Mercer, who socked $13 million into Keep the Promise I, one of the super PACs supporting Sen. Ted Cruz‘s (R-Texas) recently suspended run for the White House, is the largest individual donor to super PACs so far this cycle. Griffin provided $5 million to Conservative Solutions PAC, which backed Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio‘s presidential bid before he dropped out; add in gifts from Singer, Asness and Klarman and the total jumps to $11.6 million.

These seven major hedge fund industry donors whose firms filed Form ADVs with the SEC in recent months have made $135 million in political contributions since 1989, as far back as the Center for Responsive Politics’ data go. But it’s only since 2010, when super PACs came into being in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, that the big money has really flowed.

Every firm but Renaissance has funds organized in a tax haven like the Caymans or Bermuda. But their offshore dealings don’t mean they’re engaging in tax evasion or anything similarly nefarious, says Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and an expert on tax policy. Rosenthal wrote in 2012 that while managers can benefit from organizing their investment vehicles overseas, they often do so to cater to special kinds of clients like tax-exempt entities and foreign investors.

The larger point, though — rather than any illegal or hidden activity by the hedge fund managers — remains one of a few staggeringly affluent individuals investing heavily in the political system, giving many times what the average American could imagine contributing.

Their largess, in turn, could have an impact on how the government treats the rich — especially when it comes to the tax code. Capital gains tax rates levied on investment returns, for instance, are far lower than taxes on income. Indeed “tax issues affecting hedge funds” was one of the top issues listed on Renaissance Technologies’ lobbying reports in 2015, for example. (Sussman, the Priorities USA Action donor, it should be noted, has supported closing the carried interest loophole that allows hedge fund managers’ income to be taxed at the capital gains rate.)

“The world of capital is divided between those who have it and those who don’t,” Rosenthal said. “we’re taxing capital lightly. We tax labor fully. And so I think it fuels a lot of inequality.”

“I think the problem is how we look at capital,” he said. “When you look at the size of these investments by hedge funds, it’s eye-boggling.”

The Clinton’s and Panama Papers Friends

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There has been a constant recent argument that if you are a conservative and don’t vote Trump then you are effectively voting for Hillary. That is a straw man argument when the matter is twofold.

 

Newt Gingrich argued with Congressman Huelskamp over the weekend and admitted Trump is not a ‘Reagan conservative’ but he is better than Hillary. Of course that statement is true. The other matter is why are the Trump fans so fearful that Hillary will get the nomination? Of course she will. Are Republicans so terrified that Hillary cannot be defeated in the general election? If so, then where is the mettle and fire in the belly and force multiplier and a voting army defeat Hillary? If the will is there, the achievement can be so great such that no Democrat will successfully take over the Oval Office for perhaps up to 3 election cycles and it should that way given the last 8 years.

In case this argument needs more ammunition, here are some more political arrows for the quiver relating to the elitist circle of the Clintons. This demonstrates the alternate universe of collusion, money and favors.

Inside Panama Papers: Multiple Clinton connections

Washington/McClatchy:

Hillary Clinton recently blasted the hidden financial dealings exposed in the Panama Papers, but she and her husband have multiple connections with people who have used the besieged law firm Mossack Fonseca to establish offshore entities.

 

Among them are Gabrielle Fialkoff, finance director for Hillary Clinton’s first campaign for the U.S. Senate; Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining magnate who has traveled the globe with Bill Clinton; the Chagoury family, which pledged $1 billion in projects to the Clinton Global Initiative; and Chinese billionaire Ng Lap Seng, who was at the center of a Democratic fund-raising scandal when Bill Clinton was president. Also using the Panamanian law firm was the company founded by the late billionaire investor Marc Rich, an international fugitive when Bill Clinton pardoned him in the final hours of his presidency.

The ties are both recent and decades old, not surprising

for the Democratic presidential front-runner and her husband, who have been in public life since the 1970s.

Each is listed in the massive leak of data from Mossack Fonseca, a law firm with expertise in registering offshore companies, which can have legitimate business purposes, but can also be used to evade taxes and launder money. Several heads of state were found in the leak, leading to the departure of the leader of Iceland and investigations in several other countries.

McClatchy Newspapers and about 350 other journalists working under the umbrella of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists have searched an archive containing more than 11.5 million Mossack Fonseca documents, including passports, financial records and emails. After a series of articles earlier this month revealed how business owners and politicians used offshores, authorities raided the law firm’s offices in Panama. The law firm has denied all accusations of wrongdoing.

Hillary Clinton condemned what she called “outrageous tax havens and loopholes that super-rich people across the world are exploiting.”

“Now, some of this behavior is clearly against the law, and everyone who violates the law anywhere should be held accountable,” she said, speaking at the AFL-CIO convention recently. “But it’s also scandalous how much is actually legal.”

The Clintons themselves do not appear to be in Mossack Fonseca’s database, nor does it appear that their daughter, Chelsea, or her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, who co-founded a hedge fund, are listed. But Bill and Hillary Clinton’s connections to people who have used offshores is fuel for her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders.

Clinton has struggled throughout her campaign to show that she can relate to working Americans, while Sanders has cast her as a wealthy out-of-touch Washington insider who has accepted hefty paychecks for speeches and received millions of dollars in campaign contributions from those tied to big businesses. Her connection to the Panama Papers, even if indirect, could magnify that perception.

Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York, said it would draw voters’ attention once again to Clinton’s ties to big money. “It certainly would play into Sanders’ narrative,” he said.

Sanders said Clinton’s support of a free-trade agreement between the U.S. and Panama – one that he claims has allowed the wealthy to avoid paying taxes – should disqualify her from being the Democratic nominee for president.

“I don’t think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement, something I very strongly opposed, which has made it easier for wealthy people and corporations all over the world to avoid paying taxes owed to their countries,” Sanders said recently.

To be sure, a long life in politics has allowed the Clintons to accumulate relationships to wealthy people and businesses across the globe.

One such connection is to Jean-Raymond Boulle, a one-time diamond miner from the volcanic island nation of Mauritius whose company was once based in Bill Clinton’s hometown of Hope, Ark. In the mid 1990s, Boulle was listed as a director of Auk Limited, a British Virgin Islands offshore company, and Gridco Limited, a Bahamas offshore company.

After two meetings with Boulle, Bill Clinton, then-governor of Arkansas, signed legislation allowing his company to engage in exploratory mining in the state. Later, Boulle and his wife attended Clinton’s first inauguration. Boulle’s company did not respond to a message.

“Obviously there’s no wrongdoing – it’s a question of perception and values,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. “They’ve been in public life so long; when you enter that sphere you have these connections.”

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon declined to answer specific questions about her connections but referred to Clinton’s earlier comments that criticized the behavior last week. Bill Clinton’s office and the Clinton Foundation declined to comment.

Also among the Clinton connections is Fialkoff, now a senior adviser to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and director of the city’s Office of Strategic Partnerships. She, her brother, Brett, and her late father, Frank, are listed as shareholders of UPAC Holdings Ltd, a British Virgin Islands offshore company incorporated in June 2012.

Gabrielle Fialkoff said in an email that she has “no knowledge” of the company and referred questions to her brother.

Brett Fialkoff, who serves as chief operating officer at his family’s business, Haskell Jewels, a New York-based designer, marketer and distributor of costume jewelry, initially told McClatchy he didn’t know why his family would be in the documents. Later, he said that someone must have opened an account in their names.

Still, later, he said he set up an offshore company to export accessories from China to the United States. The documents indicate the company’s files are registered in Beijing.

But, he said, he abandoned the new business to give more attention to his family’s jewelry company. He said there’s no money in any bank account overseas and declined to provide details about his compliance with U.S. tax laws.

“I have news for you: There is no money,” he said in a phone interview. “We’re not like Vladimir Putin, trying to hide money.”

The most recent Mossack Fonseca information of December 2015 shows the company remains active, registered on behalf of the Fialkoffs in the British Virgin Islands by a Hong Kong-based consulting company on June 6, 2012. Brett Failkoff acknowledged the company is still “legally alive” but said it does not – nor has it ever – conducted any business.

Gabrielle Fialkoff, a longtime friend of de Blasio, was finance director for Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, which de Blasio managed. After serving as Haskell’s president and chief operating officer, she chaired de Blasio’s inauguration and led New York’s unsuccessful bid to host the Democratic National Convention in 2016.

She has been a regular donor to Democratic candidates, including Clinton, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. She also donated between $250 and $1,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Her father donated to Clinton as well. Her brother contributed money to Republicans, including presidential candidates Ben Carson and Rand Paul.

Another connection is Giustra, the director of UrAsia Energy Ltd, a British Virgin Islands offshore company registered in May 2005.

The company wanted to “conduct uranium exploration, development, production and marketing operations and related activities in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan,” according to a draft of the shareholders’ agreement.

UrAsia, based in British Columbia, Canada, finalized a deal in September 2005 to buy uranium mines for $500 million in Kazakhstan, according to published reports.

The deal came after Giustra joined Bill Clinton in Kazakhstan for the launch of a Clinton Foundation health initiative and dined with him and Kazakhstan’s president, among others. The timing prompted questions about whether Bill Clinton played any role in the agreement. Giustra denied that, saying it came after months of negotiations.

The following year, Giustra, who is also involved in filmmaking and founded Lionsgate Entertainment, made a donation of more than $30 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to published reports.

In total, Giustra has committed $100 million to the foundation, according to at least one report, though foundation records don’t give an exact amount, saying only that he is one of the largest individual donors giving more than $25 million. In 2007, he started an affiliated charity that bears his name and initially kept its donors secret despite a 2008 agreement between the Clintons and the Obama administration to make public foundation contributors.

Bill Clinton has flown around the globe on Giustra’s plane, sometimes with him, including to Kazakhstan.

Giustra’s attorney David S. Brown wrote in a letter to McClatchy that his client “had no dealing with the law firm of Mossack Fonseca.”

He also said the use of a company such as UrAsia Energy Ltd. is common in international mining transactions and was used at the direction of an international accounting firm.

“Far from being secretive, opaque or clandestine, UrAsia Energy Ltd. BVI was fully disclosed to the public and to the applicable regulators in 2005 _ to be clear, there was absolutely nothing untoward in the use of this entity,” he wrote.

He declined to answer additional questions.

Former fugitive billionaire Marc Rich’s name doesn’t appear in the Panama Papers, but his company does. The Bahamas offshore Industrial Petroleum Limited was registered in 1992, established by the commodities firm Glencore International in Switzerland, inactivated in 2001.

The allegations against Rich, who died in 2013, ranged from tax evasion to trading with Iran despite bans to selling oil to South Africa’s apartheid government. He fled to Switzerland in 1983, but before the pardon, his ex-wife Denise made a $450,000 donation to Clinton’s presidential library in Little Rock.

Rich’s business partners appear in the data too. And they also give generously to the Clinton Foundation.

Sergei Kurzin, a Russian engineer and investor, appears in a draft shareholders agreement in partnership with Giustra in the British Virgin Islands offshore UrAsia Energy Ltd. Kurzin worked closely with Rich in the 1990s looking for opportunities in the former Soviet Union when it was opened to mining and oil investment.

Kurzin, who has given the Clinton Foundation between $50,000 and $100,000, appears in the Panama Papers as the director and chairman of various oil companies. Kurzin was also a partner in the uranium deal involving Giustra.

In a 2009 interview with Forbes, the British-Russian dual citizen boasted of giving generously to a Clinton-Giustra initiative, noting: “I wrote a check for a million dollars. I don’t think you can call it a small amount.”

Messages left for Kurzin were not returned this weekend.

Also in the Panama Papers is Ronald Chagoury, who along with brother Gilbert leads the Chagoury Group, a Nigerian family-run construction business. The brothers were associated with Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, who died in 1998, and did business with Glencore and Rich, according to news reports.

Ronald Chagoury appears in the Panama Papers as the main shareholder of Echo Art Ltd. in the British Virgin Islands.

In 2009, the Chagoury Group pledged $1 billion in coastal erosion projects to the Clinton Global Initiative, an offshoot of the foundation, according to the initiative’s website.

The Chagoury Group is building Eko Atlantic, a peninsula city adjacent to Lagos that will be reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean. The company’s website cites the Clinton Global Initiative’s praise for it as an “environmentally conscious city” under construction.

Gilbert Chagoury’s ties to the Clintons stretch back years. He has given to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns and has donated between $1 million to $5 million to Clinton Foundation, foundation records show. In 2003 he organized a trip to the Caribbean where Bill Clinton was paid $100,000 for a speech.

Messages left for the Chagourys were not returned this weekend.

Another businessman in the Panama papers, Ng, is listed as a shareholder of two British Virgin Islands companies – South South News International Group Ltd in May 2010 and GOLUCK Ltd. in 2004.

He leads a real estate development company in Macau, China, and is one of the world’s wealthiest people. He was accused in 1996 of sending more than $1.1 million to a Little Rock restaurant owner who then contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic National Committee, according to a 1998 Senate committee investigation.

The restaurant owner, Charlie Trie, pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws. Ng was not charged. Another congressional report criticized Ng and others for failing to cooperate during the investigation.

Published reports say Ng visited the White House 10 times from 1994 to 1996, had his photograph taken with Bill and Hillary Clinton, sat beside Bill Clinton at an event at a Washington hotel, and rode in an elevator with Hillary Clinton.

Last year, Ng was charged with bribing a United Nations official and lying about what he was doing with $4.5 million in cash he brought into the U.S. over two years. Investigators say instead of spending it at casinos or on art, antiques or real estate, he used the money for bribes as he sought investments in Antigua and China. Another man listed in the same criminal complaint is president of the New York-based South South News, the same name of the British Virgin Islands company.

Ng’s lawyer, Kevin Tung, has said that his charges are based on a misunderstanding. Tung, Benjamin Brafman and Hugh Mo, two others who are or have represented Ng, did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2011, Sanders predicted in a Senate speech that the Panama trade deal would make it easier for the wealthy to hide their cash in Panama.

“I wish I had been proven wrong about this, but it has now come to light that the extent of Panama’s tax avoidance scams is even worse than I had feared,” he said in a statement earlier this month.

Hillary Clinton had opposed the deal in 2008 when she was running for president. But later, as secretary of state, she helped push the agreement through Congress. Her supporters, however, say that the trade pact did not open the door to additional tax evasion.

A Democrat-controlled Senate approved the trade deal. In October 2012, then-Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., lauded the deal’s “strong language to crack down on tax evasion and money-laundering in Panama.”

Both Clinton and Sanders have vowed to go after Americans who try to hide their wealth.

Clinton said she would shut down what she called the private tax system for the wealthy while Sanders has said he would end the trade deal with Panama within six months and investigate U.S. banks, corporations and individuals stashing their cash in Panama to avoid taxes.

“We’re going after all these scams and make sure that everyone pays their fair share here in America,” she said. “I’m going to hold them accountable, and we’re going to have a special effort to track all these resources wherever they might lead.”

McClatchy has much more here and it is worth the long read to understand more not only on the Clintons but of the elites around the world that our own elites entertained, manipulated, approved of and how some laws and sanctions were waived.

Millennium Challenge Corporation, Billions go Offshore

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President’s Budget Includes $1.25 Billion for Millennium Challenge Corporation

The current Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO is Dana Hyde.

Hyde grew up in a small town in eastern Oregon and received her undergraduate degree in political science from UCLA.

From 1989 to 1991, Hyde served as a legislative assistant for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She subsequently worked on President Bill Clinton’s first campaign for the White House. After Clinton’s inauguration, Hyde served as special assistant to the president in the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs, coordinating policy initiatives with the chiefs of staff of national security agencies. She remained in that post until 1995. She later served as special assistant to the Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Justice Department.

She received her law degree from Georgetown and passed the bar in 1997. From 1998 to 2000, Hyde worked as an attorney at the law firm Zuckerman, Spaeder. Then, from 2001 to 2002, she practiced law as part of the international arbitration group at WilmerHale. She also worked in London for the firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.

One of Hyde’s most prominent roles was as counsel to the 9/11 commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004. She focused on crisis management issues and the immediate response of the White House, the Pentagon, and the Federal Aviation Administration to the attacks.

After leaving the commission, Hyde was executive director of the Partnership for a Secure America. This organization has as its goal the advancement of bipartisan work on national security and foreign policy issues.

In 2009, after serving on the Obama-Biden transition team, Hyde was named a senior advisor for management and resources at the State Department. Then, in 2011, Hyde moved to the Office of Management and Budget, becoming associate director for general government programs.

Justification document for Congress

Where We Work

MCC forms partnerships with poor countries that show they are committed to good governance, economic freedom, and investing in their citizens. Click here to see the countries and then remind yourself about the terror and corruption in each.

Initiatives

Aid Effectiveness

Since its creation in 2004, MCC has been advancing and accelerating the conversation on aid effectiveness.

Climate Change

MCC is committed to helping our partner countries adapt to climate change and mitigate emissions through climate resilient, low carbon economic development.

Country-Led Poverty Reduction

Country ownership—or country-led development—has been broadly embraced by the international donor community as a critical element of international development aid.

Democracy

One of MCC’s core principles is that aid is most effective in countries with a sound commitment to accountable and democratic governance.

Digital Strategy

MCC has been at the forefront of transparency in delivering aid.

Environmental and Social Performance

MCC works with partner countries to integrate internationally-accepted principles of environmental and social sustainability into the design and implementation of compacts.

Fighting Corruption

Controlling corruption a key indicator in selecting countries for compact eligibility and throughout the compact lifecycle. MCC—with the MCAs—promotes measures to prevent, detect and combat corruption before it occurs and to address problems after they emerge.

Food Security

With its partner countries in the lead, the MCC portfolio of investments has been on the forefront of addressing food security priorities since MCC’s first compact in 2005.

Gender and Social Inclusion

MCC recognizes that gender and social inequality are significant constraints to economic growth and poverty reduction.

Governance Data Alliance

MCC leads the charge to uncover the best data available to fight corruption by partnering with experts to form a Governance Data Alliance. MCC and the alliance are committed to filling the gaps for measuring governance.

MCC & The African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA)

MCC has obligated nearly $3 billion for trade capacity building in AGOA countries on infrastructure like roads and power, on upping productivity of small and medium-size businesses and export-heavy sectors, and leveraging policy and regulatory reforms.

MCC and Power Africa

Through its compacts in partner countries, MCC has committed approximately $1.5 billion to support Power Africa, the U.S. Government’s effort to double access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa.

MCC and the Sustainable Development Goals

MCC supports its partner countries in their efforts to achieve the SDGs and improve the lives of their people by fighting poverty through inclusive economic growth.

MCC and the U.S. Global Development Policy

MCC applies the principles of economic growth, strong policies, country-led plans and rigorous evaluation to create a more stable and prosperous future for the world’s poor.

MCC’s Public-Private Partnership Platform

Development needs around the world will not be met by foreign assistance alone. Official development assistance must increasingly catalyze other resources to finance development – including private-sector investment. Here’s one way MCC is doing just that.

Measuring Governance

In selecting partner countries, MCC relies on independent public data that captures as clearly as possible the actions governments take to fight corruption. MCC is seeking improved and expanded indicators from the institutions that produce this data.

NGO Consultations

NGO consultations are at the core of MCC’s compact development process. By listening to the voices and experience of the broader NGO community, MCC leverages all available expertise from others to maximize our investments.

Open Government

MCC has been at the forefront of transparency in delivering aid.

Partnership for Growth

MCC and other U.S. Government agencies have joined together to coordinate Partnership for Growth (PFG), a partnership between the United States and a select group of high-performing developing countries to accelerate and sustain broad-based economic growth.

Smart Aid Series

Since its founding, MCC has sought innovative ways to reduce poverty through economic growth. Smart Aid brings together development practitioners and MCC staff to share best practices, lessons learned, and engage in a dialogue to effectively move aid forward.

Country Scorecards

The country scorecards consolidate an individual country’s scores for each of the policy indicators MCC uses to determine eligibility for its assistance programs. By using information collected from independent, third-party sources, MCC allows for an objective comparison of all candidate countries.

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The Potty President: Obama’s Legacy Policy

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So, no other crisis, issue, topic or war is on his plate….the focus for the Obama regime is the potty. Sheesh…this is extortion and defining yet a third gender…being genderless.

Remember, this is a president that alleges he is concerned about personal internet activity privacy…physical privacy? Not so much.

Jared Fox, the city Department of Education’s LGBT Community Liaison, also released a statement backing the directive, adding, “We have guidelines in place to ensure every school building provides a safe and supportive learning environment that allows students to use the bathroom of their gender identity.”

Safe? Really? Define safe and then define who determines the gender identity. What ever happened to the 10th Amendment anyway?

 What about the locker rooms?

Even the top government lawyer, Loretta Lynch is fretting over a rebirth of Jim Crowe using genderless bathrooms as the 2016 example.

NYT’s WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

A letter to school districts will go out Friday, adding to a highly charged debate over transgender rights in the middle of the administration’s legal fight with North Carolina over the issue. The declaration — signed by Justice and Education department officials — will describe what schools should do to ensure that none of their students are discriminated against.

It does not have the force of law, but it contains an implicit threat: Schools that do not abide by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid.

The move is certain to draw fresh criticism, particularly from Republicans, that the federal government is wading into local matters and imposing its own values on communities across the country that may not agree. It represents the latest example of the Obama administration using a combination of policies, lawsuits and public statements to change the civil rights landscape for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people.

After supporting the rights of gay people to marry, allowing them to serve openly in the military and prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against them, the administration is wading into the battle over bathrooms and siding with transgender people.

“No student should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus,” John B. King Jr., the secretary of the Department of Education, said in a statement. “We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are or wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and violence.”

Courts have not settled the question of whether the nation’s sex discrimination laws apply in matters of gender identity. But administration officials, emboldened by a federal appeals court ruling in Virginia last month, think they have the upper hand. This week, the Justice Department and North Carolina sued each other over a state law that restricts access to bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms. The letter to school districts had been in the works for months, Justice Department officials said.
“A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so,” according to the letter, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times.
A school’s obligation under federal law “to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections or concerns,” the letter states. “As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

As soon as a child’s parent or legal guardian asserts a gender identity for the student that “differs from previous representations or records,” the letter says, the child is to be treated accordingly — without any requirement for a medical diagnosis or birth certificate to be produced. It says that schools may — but are not required to — provide other restroom and locker room options to students who seek “additional privacy” for whatever reason.

Attached to the letter, the Obama administration will include a 25-page document describing “emerging practices” that are in place in many schools around the country. Those included installing privacy curtains or allowing students to change in bathroom stalls.

In a blog post accompanying the letter, senior officials at the Justice and Education Departments said they issued it in response to a growing chorus of inquiries from educators, parents and students across the country, including from the National Association of Secondary School Principals, to clarify their obligations and “best practices” for the treatment of transgender students.

“Schools want to do right by all of their students and have looked to us to provide clarity on steps they can take to ensure that every student is comfortable at their school, is in an environment free of discrimination, and has an opportunity to thrive,” wrote Catherine E. Lhamon, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, and Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Thomas Aberli, a high school principal in Louisville, Ky., said the new guidance would help administrators across the country who are trying to determine the best way to establish safe and inclusive schools. He said his school had little to work with when it drafted a policy that was put in place last year. More here from the NYT’s.

House Republicans Win Obamacare Lawsuit

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Today, when reporters questioned Josh Earnest about the Obamacare lawsuit loss to the House, his response: “They’ve been losing for 6 years and they’ll lose it again”. The judge ordered a ‘stay’ on the money.

FNC: A federal judge ruled Thursday for House Republicans in a challenge brought against the Obama administration over the legality of certain spending under ObamaCare.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled the spending unconstitutional — while putting the decision on hold pending appeal.

The ruling Thursday marks a win for House Republicans who brought the politically charged legal challenge, and a legal setback for the administration.

“Today’s ruling by the DC federal court is an important step toward restoring the separation of powers and stopping President Obama’s power grab. The Constitution is very clear: it is Congress’ job to write our laws and it is the President’s duty to enforce them,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a statement.

At issue was a $175 million program authorizing payments to insurers that Republicans claimed were not appropriated by Congress. On the question of whether the money could be distributed anyway under another program, Collyer wrote in her opinion: “It cannot.”

“None of the Secretaries’ extra-textual arguments – whether based on economics, ‘unintended’ results, or legislative history – is persuasive,” she wrote. “The Court will enter judgment in favor of the House of Representatives and enjoin the use of unappropriated monies to fund reimbursements due to insurers” under that section.

Collyer said the law is “clear,” and money was not allocated for that program.

She then said she would stay the injunction, giving the administration a chance to appeal. Collyer, with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is a George W. Bush appointee nominated in 2002.

The controversial payments to insurers were meant to reimburse them over a decade to reduce co-payments for lower-income people.

The House argued that Congress never specifically appropriated that money and denied an administration request for it, but that the administration is spending the money anyway.

The White House previously described the case as a “partisan attack” and predicted it would be dismissed.

Asked Thursday about the latest decision, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said this isn’t Republicans’ first legal fight over ObamaCare but warned “they’ll lose it again.”

He reiterated that the administration is confident in its legal arguments here.

The administration is expected to appeal Thursday’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

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“Paying out Section 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution,” Collyer wrote in her decision. “Congress authorized reduced cost sharing but did not appropriate monies for it, in the FY 2014 budget or since. Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one.”

The ruling is not final; the Obama administration will near certainly appeal this ruling to an appellate court.

While the Affordable Care Act authorized these cost-sharing subsidies when it was passed in 2010, the House lawsuit says it never appropriated the necessary funding to be sent over to Health and Human Services. Here’s the relevant bit of the lawsuit on this issue:

Congress has not appropriated any funds for Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers for Fiscal Years 2014 or 2015.

Notwithstanding the lack of any congressional appropriation for Section 1402 Offset Program payments, defendants [Jack] Lew and the Treasury Department, at the direction of defendants [Sylvia] Burwell and HHS, began making Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers in January 2014, and, upon information and belief, continues to make such payments.

The Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) has reported that Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers for Fiscal Year 2014 were estimated to be $3.978 billion. Later, the lawsuit argues that “the House has been injured, and will continue to be injured, by the unconstitutional actions of defendants [Treasury Secretary Jack] Lew … which, among other things, usurp the House’s legislative authority.” More here from Vox.