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You cant even trust a bank employee, much less the bank? And a big banking network. So who pays the fine, who goes to jail, who does the formal walk of shame?
CNN: Wells Fargo is being slapped with the largest penalty since the CFPB was founded in 2011. The bank agreed to pay $185 million in fines, along with $5 million to refund customers.
“We regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request,” Wells Fargo said in a statement.
Wells Fargo confirmed to CNNMoney that the firings represents about 1% of its workforce.
“At Wells Fargo, when we make mistakes, we are open about it, we take responsibility, and we take action,” the bank said in a memo to employees on Thursday.
Wells Fargo to pay $185 million to settle allegations its workers opened fake accounts
LATimes: City and federal officials have reached a $185-million settlement with Wells Fargo over allegations that the bank’s employees, driven by strict sales quotas, regularly opened new accounts for customers without their knowledge.
The settlement, announced Thursday morning, calls for the San Francisco banking giant to pay $100 million in penalties to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — the largest fine the federal agency has ever imposed — and $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, another federal regulator.
It also will pay $50 million in penalties to local officials and to compensate account holders for fees related to bogus accounts.
The bank did not admit any wrongdoing in the consent order but apologized to customers and announced steps to tighten its sales practices.
The questionable practices were uncovered by a 2013 Times investigation that found Wells Fargo pressured its employees to open more accounts and that some employees resorted to opening fake ones to meet sales goals.
Last year, Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer filed a lawsuit that alleged Wells Fargo “victimized their customers by using pernicious and often illegal sales tactics” including unrealistic quotas and policies that have “driven bankers to engage in fraudulent behavior.”
Feuer’s suit caught the attention of the CFPB and OCC, which conducted their own investigations into the bank’s sales tactics. The CFPB, citing an analysis by Wells Fargo, said bank employees may have opened as many as 2 million accounts — including more than 500,000 credit cards — without customers’ authorization.
The investigations found that employees would illegally transfer funds into unauthorized accounts, create PINs for debit cards customers never asked for and even created bogus email addresses to secretly sign customers up for online banking.
“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” said Richard Cordray, director of the CFPB, in a statement Thursday. “Because of the severity of these violations, Wells Fargo is paying the largest penalty the CFPB has ever imposed.”
On a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Feuer called the bank’s practices “a major breach of trust.”
“It’s outrageous for a bank to use a customer’s private information without permission to open an unwanted account,” he said. “Customers must be able to trust their banks.”
The bank has consistently said such practices are not widespread and that workers who cheat to meet sales goals are disciplined or fired. In a statement Thursday, Wells Fargo confirmed the settlements and said it has set aside $5 million to cover refunds to customers.
The bank said it has already provided refunds to about 100,000 customers, paying a total of $2.6 million so far with payments averaging $25. The bank said the number of accounts refunded represent “a fraction of one percent of the accounts reviewed.”
“Wells Fargo is committed to putting our customers’ interests first 100 percent of the time, and we regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request,” the bank said in its statement.
The Times’ 2013 story, based on court records and interviews with dozens of former and current Wells Fargo employees, reported that workers opened duplicate accounts, ordered credit cards for customers who did not ask for them and even forged customers’ signatures.
In many cases, customers say they’ve had to pay fees related to accounts they never opened.
In a more extreme case, Mexican pop star Ana Bárbara this summer sued Wells Fargo, saying an employee opened up accounts without her knowledge then spent more than $400,000 in her name.
Wells Fargo employees have sued the bank alleging they were forced to work unpaid overtime as they tried to meet goals, while bank customers have sued alleging that fake accounts were opened in their names.
But the customers have so far been unsuccessful in their lawsuits. At Wells Fargo, as at many other banks, when customers sign up for accounts, they agree that any dispute with the bank will be handled in private arbitration rather than in court.
Judges have ruled that those arbitration agreements hold up even in cases in which customers are suing over accounts they never authorized.
Along with reimbursing customers and paying $25 million to the city of Los Angeles and another $25 million to the county, the bank will send notices to customers asking them to stop by a branch so that employees can “help you close any accounts or discontinue services you do not recognize or want,” according to the settlement agreement with Feuer’s office.
Already, Wells Fargo officials said the bank has hired an outside firm that has reviewed customer accounts looking for bogus accounts. The bank said the outside review was finalized before the settlements.
The bank said it has also disciplined and fired managers and employees who “acted counter to our values,” and has worked to improve training and monitoring programs.
Regulators said Thursday that their actions against Wells Fargo should send a message that banks must ensure their sales tactics do not lead to consumer harm.
The CFPB’s Cordray said banks can have sales goals and financial incentives for employees to open accounts for customers, but those goals and incentives must be carefully structured and monitored.
“What happened here is Wells Fargo built an incentive-compensation program that made it possible for Wells Fargo employees to pursue underhanded sales tactics,” he said. “Companies need to pay very close attention … to ensure that customers are protected.”
McClatchy: HOUSTON — A Texas oilman who’s accused of defrauding the Nigerian government by illegally pumping and exporting 10 million barrels of oil is a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Kase Lawal of Houston is at least the fourth person accused or convicted of criminal wrongdoing to help finance Clinton’s political ambitions since 2000 and the second in her quest for the White House. The list also includes Chinese and Pakistani fugitives and a former Miami lawyer who was convicted of defrauding Cuba.
There’s no indication that Clinton’s campaign was aware of Lawal’s legal problems when it accepted his help in raising more than $100,000, but a McClatchy investigation in the U.S. and Nigeria suggests that her campaign did little to scrutinize the background of one of its top fundraisers.
****
In 2010, Kase Lawal, Member, Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations for the White House. CAMAC Energy, NYSE (CAK) was founded in 2005. CAMAC Energy Inc. has offices in Hartsdale, New York; Houston, Texas; Beijing, China and Lagos, Nigeria.
Lawal describes himself as a devout Muslim who began memorizing the Quran at age 3 while attending an Islamic school. “Religion played a very important role in our lives,” he told a reporter in 2006. “Every time you finish a chapter they kill a chicken, and if you finish the whole thing, a goat.” In Africa, Lawal has been at the center of multiple criminal proceedings, even operating as a fugitive. Over the last decade, he faced charges in South Africa over an illegal oil scheme along with charges in Nigeria of illegally pumping and exporting 10 million barrels of oil.
…as Boko Haram began to ramp up its terror campaign in 2011 and 2012, Hillary Clinton obstructed the official terror designation of the group over the objections of Congress, the FBI, the CIA and the Justice Department.
Why did Hillary Clinton’s State Department drag its feet on the terror designation in the face of near unanimous opposition from the rest of the U.S. government?
A recent series of reports exposes that a close Clinton family confidante — and Hillary campaign bundler — profited from Nigeria’s lucrative oil fields. He engaged in multiple illegal deals throughout Africa. …
Why is no one in the media talking about Hillary and Boko Haram?
Hillary Clinton’s willful obstruction in the matter is easy to document:
Members of Congress discovered in 2014 that the Clinton State Department intentionally lied and downplayed the threat from Boko Haram, and worked to kill bills in both the House and the Senate calling for their designation in 2012.
As Reuters reported, the Justice Department’s National Security Division strongly urged the State Department to designate Boko Haram, but then a group of 21 American academics rallied to the State Department’s aid by sending a letter to Hillary Clinton strongly arguing against Boko Haram’s designation.
We also now know that the Obama administration was sitting on intelligence— obtained as a result of the Bin Laden raid— that revealedBoko Haram’s direct connection to al-Qaeda and the international terror network in 2011 and 2012. In other words, Hillary’s State Department was arguing that Boko Haram had no such connections, that it wasn’t a transnational terror threat, even though the Obama administration — and likely Clinton herself — knew that was false.
An important two-part investigative series by WORLD magazine reporters Mindy Belz and J.C. Derrick provides some insight:
Belz and Derrick discovered that Hillary Clinton’s obstruction of the Boko Haram designation, and the continuing chaos in northern Nigeria — Africa’s largest economy and the 10th largest oil producer in the world — directly benefited Clinton Global Initiative donors and a close Clinton confidante who bundled campaign cash for Hillary.
Perhaps the most prominent Nigerian with ties to the Clintons is Houston-based Kase Lawal. The founder of CAMAC Energy, an oil exploration and energy consortium, Lawal had a long history with Bill Clinton before becoming a “bundler” for Hillary’s 2008 presidential bid, amassing $100,000 in contributions and hosting a fundraiser in his Houston home — a 14-room, 15,264-square-foot mansion. Lawal maxed out donations to Hillary’s 2016 primary campaign, and his wife Eileen donated $50,000 — the most allowed — to President Obama’s 2009 inaugural committee.Lawal describes himself as a devout Muslim who began memorizing the Quran at age 3 while attending an Islamic school. “Religion played a very important role in our lives,” he told a reporter in 2006. “Every time you finish a chapter they kill a chicken, and if you finish the whole thing, a goat.”
Today the Houston oil exec — who retired in May as CEO but continues as chairman of the board of CAMAC, now called Erin Energy — tops the list of wealthiest Nigerians living in North America. His firm reports about $2.5 billion in annual revenue, making it one of the top private companies in the United States.
In Africa, Lawal has been at the center of multiple criminal proceedings, even operating as a fugitive. Over the last decade, he faced charges in South Africa over an illegal oil scheme along with charges in Nigeria of illegally pumping and exporting 10 million barrels of oil.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lawal arranged a 2011 plot to purchase 4 tons of gold from a rebel warlord, Bosco Ntaganda, linked to massacres and mass rapes.Ntaganda was on a U.S. sanctions list, meaning anyone doing business with him could face up to 20 years in prison. Lawal contacted Clinton’s State Department, and authorities in Congo released his plane and associates in the plot.
He never faced charges in the United States, and he remains a commissioner for the Port Authority of Houston.
Lawal’s energy firm holds lucrative offshore oil licenses in Nigeria, as well as exploration and production licenses in Gambia, Ghana, and Kenya, where he operates in a conflict-ridden area largely controlled by Somalia’s al-Shabaab militants.
The firm also has held contracts in Nigeria for crude oil lifting, or transferring oil from its collection point to refineries. Until last year, when newly elected President Muhammadu Buhari began an effort to reform the process, contracting for lifting has been awash in kickbacks, bribes, and illegal activity.
Overland lifting contracts often involve partnership with the North’s past and present governors, including those who serve as quasi-warlords with ties to Boko Haram and other militants.
Lawal’s enterprises have long been rumored to be involved in such deals, as have indigenous oil concerns like Petro Energy and Oando, Nigeria’s largest private oil and gas company, based in Lagos and headed by Adewale Tinubu, another controversial Clinton donor.
In 2014, Oando pledged 1.5 percent of that year’s pre-tax profits and 1 percent of future profits to a Clinton Global Initiative education program. This year, Adewale gained notoriety when the Panama Papers revealed he holds at least 12 shell companies, leading to suspicion of money laundering, tax evasion, and other corruption.
In 2013 Bill Clinton stood alongside Adewale’s uncle, Bola Tinubu, while attending the dedication of a massive, controversial reclamation project called Eko Atlantic. Critics call Bola Tinubu, leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress party, Nigeria’s “looter in chief.” A Nigerian documentary says that when the billionaire landowner was governor of Lagos State (1999-2007), he funneled huge amounts of state funds — up to 15 percent of annual tax revenues — to a private consulting firm in which he had controlling interest.
In the United States, where he studied and worked in the 1970s and ’80s, Tinubu is still a suspect in connection with a Chicago heroin ring he allegedly operated with his wife and three other family members. In 1993 Tinubu forfeited $460,000 to American authorities, who believe he trafficked drugs and laundered the proceeds.
But wait, there’s more:
Beneath the surface, literally, Boko Haram was making it possible for illicit operators to lay claim to the area for their own purposes, and to pump oil from Nigeria’s underground reserves to Chad. Using 3-D drilling, Chad operators can extract Nigerian oil — without violating Nigerian property rights — to sell on open markets. One benefactor of the arrangement is Ali Modu Sheriff, a leading politician in the North, Borno State governor until 2011, and an alleged sponsor of Boko Haram, who is close friends with longtime Chad President Idriss Déby.The very terrorism that seems to be deterring oil exploration in reality can help illicit extraction, forcing residents to flee and giving cover to under-the-table oil traders. In 2015, a year when overall oil prices dipped 6 percent, Lawal’s Erin Energy stock value skyrocketed 295 percent—the best-performing oil and gas stock in the United States.
…
Hillary Clinton’s obstruction of the Boko Haram terror designation in the face of FBI, CIA, DOJ, and Congressional urging to do so is a documented fact. But the reason for Hillary’s obstruction, which the establishment media has never pressed Clinton for, remains unanswered.
Russian jet flies within 10 feet of US Navy spy plane, defense official says
FNC: A Russian fighter jet zoomed within just 10 feet of a U.S. Navy spy plane over the Black Sea on Wednesday, the latest in a string of daring maneuvers involving Russian aircraft and the U.S. military, a defense official with knowledge of the incident told Fox News.
The Russian Su-27 Flanker jet flew dangerously close to a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft used primarily for anti-submarine warfare while on routine patrol in international airspace, defense officials said.
The Russian defense ministry accused the Navy plane of flying with its transponder—which emits an identifying signal—turned off. A U.S. defense official would neither confirm nor deny the accusation but told Fox News, “It is not a requirement for a military aircraft to have its transponder turned on.”
The official said Russian military jets routinely fly with their transponders turned off, which helps the U.S. military identify them because other planes in the area are emitting an identifying signal from their transponders. The Navy spy plane was roughly 40 miles from Russia in the Black Sea when the Russian jet approached, according to a separate defense official.
Fox News is told a classified photo of the close call exists, but officials have not decided whether to release it. The entire encounter lasted 19 minutes, according to the Pentagon.
“We have concerns when there is an unsafe maneuver like this. These actions have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions, and could result in a miscalculation or accident,” Navy Captain Jeff A. Davis told reporters. Russian defense officials reportedly claimed they did not violate any international rules.
The Black Sea is about 500 miles south of Moscow.
In April, Russian jets buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Baltic Sea, coming within 30 feet of the Navy ship.
Photos and video also showed a series of provocative moves from Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard targeting the U.S. military.
On Sunday, the Guard’s fast-attack boats came within some 500 yards of the USS Firebolt, with one stopping right in front of the coastal patrol boat in the Persian Gulf, said Cmdr. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain. Urban said the USS Firebolt turned and missed the boat by only about 100 yards. Iranian speedboats fired rockets near U.S. warships and commercial traffic in December, and an Iranian drone overflew an American aircraft carrier in January.
This latest Russian provocation comes as Secretary of State John Kerry is negotiating a cease-fire with Russia in Syria. Earlier today, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said Russian officials were “trying to play by their own rules” and making the situation in Syria “more violent.”
Carter added, “Russia’s actions in recent years – with its violations of Ukrainian and Georgian territorial integrity, its unprofessional behavior in the air, in space, and in cyber-space, as well as its nuclear saber-rattling – all have demonstrated that Russia has clear ambition to erode the principled international order.”
Carter was speaking at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.
Mexico issues transit visas to surge of African migrants
MEXICO CITY (AP)— Mexican immigration authorities say 424 migrants from African countries arrived at the southern state of Chiapas over two days last week.
The National Immigration Institute said Tuesday that it has issued them 20-day transit visas that will allow the migrants to reach the U.S.-Mexico border, where they plan to request asylum.
Officials call it an unusual surge and say most of the migrants first went to Brazil or Ecuador to start their journey through Latin America.
Most of the Africans presented themselves voluntarily to immigration officials in the Chiapas town of Tapachula. They did not specify their nationalities. Immigration support staff in Tijuana has been aiding migrants from the Congo, Somalia and Ghana to arrive at the U.S. port of entry at San Isidro.
Guatemala is facing an influx of African immigrants on their way to the United States, having caught 56 times more so far in 2016 than they did in all of 2015.
Only 13 African immigrants were caught in Africa in all of 2015, and by September 2, 2016 729 Africans had been caught by Guatemalan authorities, La Prensa reports. The majority of the African immigrants are from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Senegal, and Somalia.
The country is facing an increase of immigrants in general. In 2015, the national police reported 1,131 immigrants caught from various countries. By August 29, 2016, they had intercepted 2,514 immigrants, an increase of 122.2 percent.
Jorge Pereza Breedy, head of the International Organization for Migration in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Hondoras, said that changes in the situation in Europe has led these immigrants to come to Central America. “The saturation of the transit route in Europe and the increase in border security is one of the principal factors in the increase of Asian and African emigrants in Central America,” Breedy told La Prensa.
The African immigrants aren’t in Guatemala to stay there and instead are making there way northward towards Mexico and the United States. “It’s not that they want to come to this country to stay, they want to get to the United States,” Danilo Rivera of the Central American Institute for Social and Development Studies said to La Prensa. (RELATED: Mexico Shipping Hundreds Of Illegal Africans To US Border)
Recently, El Salvadoran authorities busted a human smuggling ring which generated $150,000 a year bringing immigrants illegally to the United States from Brazil.
**** But there is still more:
The New Face of American Immigration
This year candidates have focused on migrants from Mexico, but nationally and in most states, India and China have become the top sources for new arrivals.
Going back to 2010, the matter of Africans fleeing to Latin America and then to the United States began for several reasons.
YaleGlobal: Latin America is becoming an increasingly common destination for African immigrants as Europe tightens its immigration controls and suffers from xenophobia and migration-related violence. Brazil, for example, which has the largest black population outside Africa, offers a more culturally receptive society. Though most of the population is white, Argentina receives a fair share of African migrants too. That country is attractive because immigrants can legalize their status and receive temporary work permits, even with the high level of unemployment, and have access to free healthcare and Spanish classes taught by Catholic church charities. While Europe shutters its borders, and the US tightens immigration, other countries that have historically grown through immigration are picking up the slack. – YaleGlobal
More African Immigrants Finding a Home in Latin America
As European countries tighten up border controls, a rising number of Africans fleeing trouble in their homelands are arriving at ports in Latin America
ABC Channel 5 Cleveland/ Scripps: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has the power to force the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Health Access Initiative to publicly disclose the names of foreign governments and the millions they donate each year to the charities but he’s not doing it, a Scripps News investigation has found.
Schneiderman’s failure to require compliance with New York law and written instructions from his own office keeps the public in the dark about whether the foreign governments that gave money to the Clinton charities also had special access to Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state, experts in private foundation law say. New York state has long required more transparency from non-profits operating within its borders than many other regulators.
A Scripps Washington Bureau review of tax returns and regulatory filings found that year after year the Clinton charities have ignored New York law and related instructions. However, the office of Attorney General Schneiderman, a Democrat whom Hillary Clinton named to her campaign’s “leadership council” in New York, did not respond to Scripps’ questions about the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), which has never publicly disclosed in New York filings the identity of its foreign government contributors or the amounts they give each year. Scripps also discovered CHAI did not report hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign government donations to the state.
However, Schneiderman’s office said it considers the Clinton Foundation, which is a separate charity, “in step” with state rules.
“He’s not doing his job in that case,” said David Nelson, an attorney and former partner at the accounting firm of Ernst & Young who served on the regulations and legislation committee of the Council On Foundations, the philanthropy industry’s equivalent of the American Bar Association.
In 2009, Secretary Clinton’s first year heading the State Department, the Clinton Foundation disclosed to New York only a lump sum of $122 million in foreign government donations, listing the amount on a required form that directs all charities to “list each government contribution (grant) separately.” The foundation continued to provide the lump sum disclosures for foreign governments in every year that followed.
Nelson said, “The Clinton Foundation cannot say they are in compliance with New York regulations.”
Here’s what you need to know
The Internal Revenue Service has long required charities to disclose on their federal tax returns the total amount of contributions they receive from all governments, foreign and domestic. The federal form does not require a charity to publicly identify its government contributors. However, any charity that wishes to operate or raise funds in New York must also, according to a state law, meet more rigid transparency requirements and publicly disclose “the name of each agency” and “the amount of each contribution” received from any government agency, every year.
A partial review by Scripps of charities registered in New York found inconsistent compliance with the instructions.
The New York Attorney General’s office published a set of detailed instructions for all charities to follow. It directs them to make sure the total amount of government contributions disclosed to the state is equal to what the charities report to the IRS. From 2010-2014, for every year it has filed disclosures with the state, the Clinton Health Access Initiative has ignored this direction.
The $225 million discrepancy
By 2010, Hillary Clinton was entering her second year as secretary of state and the Clinton Health Access Initiative had just split off from the Clinton Foundation as part of an agreement with the Obama administration. The separation was intended to help bring “greater transparency” to the Clinton charities during her tenure at the State Department, according to a memorandum of understanding with President Obama’s transition team.
That year, CHAI reported only $242,099 in “Total Government Contributions” to New York regulators, and that number included only domestic grants. But for the same time period in 2010 it told the IRS it received $26,740,319 in foreign and domestic government grants.
By not telling New York about millions in foreign government grants it received that year, CHAI avoided the state’s more stringent disclosure rules that would have required the charity to itemize publicly each domestic and foreign government donation. In a letter written in November 2014, as Clinton began eyeing a run for the White House, CHAI itemized domestic government grants but told the New York attorney general’s office it “also received foreign government contributions and can provide those in more details if needed.”
Every disclosure CHAI has ever made since separating from the Clinton Foundation has come during Schneiderman’s tenure as attorney general. CHAI spokesperson Regan Lachapelle told Scripps that if Schneiderman’s office wants more information, it can ask for it.
“We believe that we are following instructions by recording the (domestic government grants) we receive on the New York form and indicating that we will provide them with foreign government donor information if they would like it,” Lachapelle wrote in an email. “We clearly state in our cover letter that we would provide details on funding from international governments upon request.”
The charity says it provided “aggregate” amounts of all government grants to New York that are found on its federal tax returns. “The officials in New York have never questioned our way of doing this,” Lachapelle said.
John Wonderlich, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog that has a special focus on the flow of political money, says the disclosure rules for all charities in New York are clear and the Clinton charity should follow them.
“It appears as though the Clinton Health Access Initiative is attempting to disclose less than the law requires, and to deflect blame onto the attorney general’s office as though financial disclosure requirements are individually negotiated on a by-request basis,” he said.
Between 2010 and 2014, with no one stepping in, records show a $225 million discrepancy between what CHAI told New York it received in government grants and what it told the IRS. The impact means, experts say, details on the foreign government donations remain out of public view for anybody who might wish to know which governments gave what, and when. The charity did tell New York it received $8.2 million in domestic government grants over the same timeframe, signaling the vast majority of its government money comes from overseas.
While public scrutiny of foreign donations flowing to Clinton charities has largely focused on the Clinton Foundation, tax records show the amount of foreign government money flowing to CHAI was more than six times the amount given to the foundation from 2010-2014, the years after the organizations split.
The Clinton Foundation recently pledged it would stop accepting foreign government donations if Hillary Clinton becomes president. CHAI, as a separate entity, has made no such commitment.
“CHAI’s Board will soon determine its next steps,” Lachappelle said in an email.
Chelsea Clinton is a member of CHAI’s board and her father, President Bill Clinton, is the chairman of the board. Ira Magaziner, the CEO of CHAI and vice chairman of the board, is a longtime Clinton devotee who served as senior adviser for policy development for President Clinton.
“We believe we are in compliance,” Lachapelle wrote. “The state of New York has not notified us otherwise.”
Keeping the details slim
Before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state and in advance of when CHAI split off, the Clinton Foundation disclosed to New York a lump sum amount in foreign government donations of $97 million for 2008 and $122 million for 2009, according to state filings. But records show the charity stopped disclosing even lump sum amounts during her second year at the State Department.
“Every instance where there was an opportunity to be more transparent or less they chose to be less transparent,” Nelson, the tax expert, said.
From 2010-2013, the foundation originally did not disclose to New York any foreign government grants. For three of those four years, it checked a box on regulatory forms signed by the foundation’s chief financial officer claiming it had no government grants. But this past January as Secretary Clinton was campaigning in the presidential primaries, the foundation filed revised disclosures in New York indicating it had in fact received $17.8 million in previously undisclosed foreign government grants from 2010-2013, along with several smaller domestic government donations. In the revisions, the foundation itemized domestic government grants but continued to provide only lump sums for foreign government money.
“It looks like they are being dragged kicking and screaming into any disclosure at all about their foreign (government) donors, and ultimately still failing to live up to the letter of the law,” said the Sunlight Foundation’s Wonderlich.
Balanced to the left?
The attorney general’s own website notes, in the second sentence of its biography for Eric Tradd Schneiderman, that “Eric has taken on the tough fights to protect New Yorkers – because he believes there has to be one set of rules for everyone, no matter how rich or powerful.”
No doubt, the Harvard law grad has made national waves since settling into his job, teaming up with California Attorney General Kamala Harris to push for tougher penalties for big banks following their illegal foreclosure practices and more recently taking on daily fantasy sports companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel that some have compared to gambling operations.
In August, Schneiderman won an important legal victory in federal court against the right-leaning organization Citizens United. A judge ruled the group must disclose key information about its major donors. “Today’s decision is a victory for common sense oversight of New York’s vast nonprofit sector,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “New Yorkers deserve to know their donations are protected against fraud and abuse, and today the court protected that right.”
The Clinton Foundation says it has turned in a list of major donors, which remains confidential, to Schneiderman’s office. But when it comes to the foundation’s failure to publicly disclose all government grants every year, Wonderlich and Nelson look to Schneiderman to enforce the law evenly.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman speaks during a press conference at the office of the New York Attorney General, July 19, 2016, in New York City. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The attorney general’s office did not respond to questions about Schneiderman’s role on the Clinton campaign’s leadership council or whether his office was operating in an unbiased manner. Last year, Schneiderman gave the Clinton campaign $2,700, the maximum personal contribution allowed under federal law.
In June, Scripps asked the attorney general’s office about the New York laws that require charities to itemize all government grants – domestic and foreign. The office responded on the same day the press secretary for Schneiderman was quoted as defending the Clinton Foundation’s filings in an article written by Politifact. The press secretary noted in the article that other charities, such as the Carter Center, also have filed disclosures by only providing a lump sum amount for foreign government donations. The attorney general’s office said the article “serves as any comment” for the attorney general, but added, the office was now working on clarifying the rules.
“We intend to provide guidance clarifying our disclosure rules in the months ahead,” the office said in a statement.
Wonderlich, of The Sunlight Foundation, says he is alarmed at the move to “clarify” the rules, which he believes could not be more clear. He says the problem is instead with lax enforcement, adding that changing the disclosure requirements now could rob the public of a valuable window into the operations of all charities, not just those operated by the Clintons.
Former Secretary of State and first lady Hillary Clinton speaks at a press conference announcing a new initiative between the Clinton Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, titled Data 2x on Dec. 15, 2014, in New York City. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
“Even if there have been other organizations that failed to disclose their foreign donors, that’s not an excuse for the Clinton Foundation to not disclose their foreign donors, and it’s not an excuse for Schneiderman’s office to fail to enforce the law,” Wonderlich said.
A Scripps check of filings from separate charities reveals others complied with New York’s instructions and itemized their foreign government grants.
Action Against Hunger disclosed a wide range of donations in 2010 including $8 million from the UK Department of International Development, and other donations from entities including the Canadian Government, Royal Norwegian Embassy, and the French Government. The Catholic Medical Mission Board told New York it received $140,038 in 2011 from Kenya. In 2013, The George W. Bush Foundation revealed it received just under $5 million from the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia and another $500,000 from the embassy of the state of Kuwait.
Brian Cookstra, director of media relations for the Clinton Foundation, did not directly address questions about the appropriateness of lump sum reporting, but he referred Scripps instead to the same Politifact article that quoted the attorney general’s press secretary.
Josh Schwerin, a spokesperson for the Clinton campaign, declined to answer questions and also referred Scripps to the article and the Carter Center’s practice of lumping foreign donations together for New York.
Neither the Clinton campaign nor the foundation responded to follow up questions about the state’s regulations or the attorney general’s published instructions to all charities, but the Carter Center did.
Phil Wise, vice president of operations and development for the Carter Center, explained that the center focuses on its charitable work, while contracting out to a private company all the regulatory paperwork various states require.
“We give them the detailed list of every government grant. They decide how best to disclose it,” said Wise, who added that going forward, the Carter Center will always file itemized disclosures with New York for government grants.
Within two hours of hearing from Scripps, Wise sent a detailed list of every domestic and foreign government grant the Carter Center received for fiscal year 2014.
“Basically, we are pretty transparent,” he said.
Limited disclosure
Click image to open documents for Original Clinton Foundation Filings, Revised Clinton Foundation Filings, and Clinton Health Access Initiative Filings
Both the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Health Access Initiative do voluntarily provide on their web sites general disclosures about all donors, including governments. For instance, CHAI notes that Ireland and New Zealand gave somewhere between $5 million and $10 million at some time since CHAI began filing separately from the Clinton Foundation in 2010. It received $25 million or more from Norway, Australia and the United Kingdom.
The Clinton Foundation on its website offers similar broad ranges of donations over the “lifetime” of the foundation that give no window into when or how often the money rolled in, and in what amounts.
The Clinton charities do not reveal on their websites if donations from governments came all at once, in multiple contributions over time, during Clinton’s time as secretary of state or after. They also do not provide a window into how much money might have rolled in during specific years the governments could have had business before the secretary of state.
“The law requires foreign donors to be disclosed and the [New York] attorney general, the [New York] attorney general’s office is permitting them to go undisclosed,” Wonderlich said. “Voters deserve to have a full picture of what Secretary Clinton, and the Clintons together have created, and all the ways that that might be entangled in a presidency.”
