Cap and Trade DID Not Go Away

Posted on August 25, 2016August 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

New Principles to Help Accelerate the Growing Global Momentum for Carbon Pricing

2015:

New report shows the number of implemented or planned carbon pricing schemes around the world has almost doubled since 2012, with existing schemes now worth about $50 billion.

About 40 nations and 23 cities, states or regions are using a carbon price. This represents the equivalent of about 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or 12 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions.

And new report lays out six key principles to put a price on carbon – the FASTER principles – for putting a price on carbon based on economic principles and experience of what is already working around the world

The spotlight is on New York now with the upcoming United Nations meeting on the new Sustainable Development Goals, Climate Week New York, and in about two months, global leaders will meet again in Paris for COP 21. More from the World Bank.

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California’s Cap-And-Trade Program Is Sick And Will Take High-Speed Rail Down With It

Chuck DeVore, Contributor

Forbes: California concluded its most recent cap-and-trade program auction last week. Out of 44,268,323 metric tons of carbon dioxide credits offered for sale by the state Air Resources Board, only 660,560 were sold, 1.5 percent of the total, raising a paltry $8.4 million out of a hoped-for $620 million. Last May’s auction was almost as bad, raising $10 million out of an anticipated $500 million.

California’s carbon dioxide cap-and-trade auction program was expected to bring in more than $2 billion in the current fiscal year that ends June 30, 2017, a quarter of which is earmarked for the high-speed rail project narrowly approved by voters in a 2008 ballot initiative. As a hedge against uncertainty, a $500 million reserve was built into the cap-and-trade budget. But, with the August auction falling 98.5 percent short, the entire reserve was consumed in the first of four auctions for the fiscal year.

Further complicating matters is a pending lawsuit against the legality of California’s cap-and-trade program. Business groups and fiscal conservatives claim the program amounts to a tax, under a 2010 ballot initiative that better defined what exactly constitutes taxes and fees under California law, thus would requiring a two-thirds majority vote of the legislature.

Further, with the program slated to end in 2020, many businesses that are forced to buy the carbon credits are conflicted by the risk that they may end up buying the California equivalent of Confederate bonds, doomed to be worthless when the state loses its cap-and-trade war.

In the meantime, the High-Speed Rail project, currently promised to cost “only” $68 billion to run from the Bay Area some 400 miles south to Los Angeles may be looking at $50 billion in overruns. To fund the costly train, which was sold to voters as not costing a dime in new taxes, the expected revenue stream from cap-and-trade has been securitized, putting the state on the hook to Wall Street for billions in construction money advanced on the promise of future cap-and-trade revenue.

But the cap-and-trade market is showing dangerous signs of weakness. Not only have auction revenues collapsed in the last two auctions in May and August, but the competitive landscape for the auctions has collapsed as well. The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), a commonly-used measure of competitive markets, signaled that last May’s auction was dominated by a sole market player. Last week’s auction improved somewhat, but was still moderately concentrated among a small number of buyers and sellers.

The lack of interest in California’s cap-and-trade carbon credits shows that the Golden State will likely have to come up with a significant amount of General Fund tax revenue, more than $2 billion annually, to build out its government-run rail project—something that isn’t likely to last much beyond the end of Gov. Jerry Brown’s fourth term in office in January 2019.

California’s Cap and Trade Auction is Collapsing

**** Back in 2014:

In part from Politico: Cap and trade was a key part of the George H.W. Bush administration’s strategy for reducing acid rain in 1990, and it would have been the centerpiece of the climate bill that stalled and died in the Senate in 2010.

Despite the concept’s bipartisan heritage, cap and trade has become politically toxic in some circles — especially among supporters of coal, the carbon-intensive fuel that would face the heaviest costs under any trading system. Republicans derided the climate bill as “cap and tax,” while West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin famously unloaded a rifle into a copy of the legislation during a Senate campaign commercial.

Still, cap and trade never went away.

With RGGI and California combined, about a quarter of the U.S. population lives in areas covered by trading programs designed to drive down carbon emissions, said Janet Peace, vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, at a Senate briefing Thursday.

Other programs exist in Alberta, Canada; Australia; New Zealand; Norway; and South Korea. Next year, cap-and-trade programs are expected to launch in Switzerland, Tokyo, the United Kingdom and South Africa. Others are in development or undergoing pilot tests in Brazil, China, India, Japan, Mexico and even Kazakhstan.

“Eventually, 250 million people will be covered by a carbon price in China,” Peace said. The full article here.

*** The New York Times stays current on Cap and Trade.

C’mon Hillary and Bill, Really?

Posted on August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

Hillary State Dept. Helped Jailed Clinton Foundation Donor Get $10 Mil from U.S. for Failed Haiti

The new batch of emails showing that the State Department gave special access to top Clinton Foundation donors while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state brings to mind the case of a shady Miami businessman serving a 12-year prison sentence after scamming the government out of millions. His name is Claudio Osorio, a Clinton Foundation donor who got $10 million from the government after the Clinton State Department reportedly pulled some strings.

Osorio got the money from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a federal agency that operates under the guidance of the State Department, to build houses in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. The OPIC supposedly promotes U.S. government investments abroad to foster the development and growth of free markets. Osorio’s “Haiti project” was supposed to build 500 homes for displaced families in the aftermath of the earthquake. The project never broke ground and Osorio used the money to finance his lavish lifestyle and fund his illicit business ventures. He also ran a fraudulent international company with facilities in the U.S., United Arab Emirates, Germany, Angola and Tanzania that stole millions from investors. Some of the OPIC Haiti money was used to repay investors of his fraudulent company (Innovida), according to federal prosecutors. In September 2013, Osorio was sentenced to 150 months imprisonment and three years of supervised release.

Not surprisingly, the Department of Justice (DOJ) never mentioned Osorio’s Clinton connections and seemed to downplay the $10 million scam of taxpayer funds by focusing on the “victims” that invested in his bogus company. More here.

The inside story of how the Clintons built a $2 billion global empire

In part from WashingtonPost: The foundation now includes 11 major initiatives, focused on issues as divergent as crop yields in Africa, earthquake relief in Haiti and the cost of AIDS drugs worldwide. In all, the Clintons’ constellation of related charities has raised $2 billion, employs more than 2,000 people and has a combined annual budget of more than $223 million.

As donations have surged, particularly as her bid for the Democratic nomination grew closer, she has been forced to answer for whether those supporters have been not merely giving to a charity but also paying to curry favor with a former secretary of state and a would-be president.

Sights on something big

In the beginning of it all, Bill Clinton was feeling unfulfilled.

More photos here.

In the months after he left the White House in 2001, he was living at his family’s new home in Chappaqua, N.Y. His wife was in the Senate. His daughter was away, first at Stanford, then at Oxford. He stewed about leftover legal bills and bad press over last-minute pardons.

To pass the time, he turned to TiVo.
No sign of that pesky server though.

At the same time, Clinton did more formal planning with aides. He was just 56. He would be an ex-president for a long time. He wanted to do something big. And something international. He wanted to stay out of domestic policy, so it didn’t look as though he was meddling in the domain of the president who had succeeded him. Or the senator he was married to.

Ira Magaziner, a longtime aide, had an idea that fit both criteria.

New drugs were available to fight the progress of HIV and AIDS, but in Africa the drugs were too expensive for many people. Magaziner wanted to lower the cost. He knew Clinton didn’t have the money to help, because he was still fundraising for the library and his own legal bills.

But, Magaziner told Clinton, he had a name brand with limitless value.

“We should use that reputation and your contacts for something big. If we succeed at this, we can help save millions of lives,” Magaziner wrote in a memo he handed to Clinton at an AIDS conference in 2002. “If we are not so successful, we still might help save tens of thousands of lives which would not be so bad.”

Expanding in all directions

“Now here’s something else in my hot little hand,” Clinton said, standing on a stage at the Sheraton Times Square, according to media reports. “My old friend Carlos Slim Helú here has just said he’s willing to develop a cellphone network for Gaza and link it to Jordan’s network. Why, thanks, Carlos. Come up here and be recognized.”

It was September 2005. A year and a half after Band’s brainstorm, the first meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative was a smashing success. Some Clinton aides had been skeptical that it would work, but Clinton had shrewdly timed it to coincide with a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly — when New York was already chockablock with world leaders looking for something more interesting than a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.

This is quite the story so please read it in full here. There are stunning connections, people, agendas, timelines, money and access. A real picture has emerged on the collusion and the work of Hillary and Bill’s circle of friends. This is hardly the whole story but it does begin to explain why they had at least 2 private servers and refused FOIA requests.

Last year, the Washington Post offer an early comprehensive summary:

The Post identified donations from roughly 336,000 individuals, corporations, unions and foreign governments in support of their political or philanthropic endeavors — a list that includes top patrons such as Steven Spielberg and George Soros, as well as lesser-known backers who have given smaller amounts dozens of times. Not included in the count are an untold number of small donors whose names are not identified in campaign finance reports but together have given millions to the Clintons over the years.

The majority of the money — $2 billion — has gone to the Clinton Foundation, one of the world’s fastest-growing charities, which supports health, education and economic development initiatives around the globe. A handful of elite givers have contributed more than $25 million to the foundation, including Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra, who is among the wealthy foreign donors who have given tens of millions.

Keep reading here as it is full of names and under-handed requests and access.

The Empire State Building a New Taliban Home?

Posted on August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

Remember when Obama released the top 5 Taliban commanders from Gitmo in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl? Qatar became their new home where they were allowed to move freely.

Sure the headline is a stretch…or is it?

As recently as last year, Qatar was hosting peace talks with the Taliban while today, the Taliban holds more territory in Afghanistan than any other time in history. As a reminder, it was and is the Taliban that protects al Qaeda factions going back to the attacks on America on 9/11.

One more fact: How Qatar is funding the rise of Islamist extremists

The fabulously wealthy Gulf state, which owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East, is a prime sponsor of violent Islamists

So, American icons such as the Empire State Building is in the ownership of a terror state? Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr are rolling in their graves with disgust.

<– His son graduated from West Point and Obama was there the same weekend that the Gitmo prisoner swap happened with Bergdahl.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — VOA: Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has made an iconic purchase in America — a stake in the company that owns New York’s Empire State Building.

The $622-million purchase by the Qatar Investment Authority comes as the Doha fund increases its investments in the U.S. as the small country on the Arabian Peninsula tries to cope with low global oil and gas prices.

The Empire State Realty Trust Inc., which manages the 102-story, 1,454-foot (443-meter) -tall building, announced the Qatari purchase late Tuesday, saying the fund would gain a 9.9-percent stake in the company. The trust owns a total of 14 office properties and six retail properties around the New York area.

The Qatar Investment Authority did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The pointed top of the Art Deco-style Empire State Building, once the tallest structure in the world, still stands out in New York’s famed skyline. It remains a major tourist attraction and has been the centerpiece of major American films from “King Kong” to “Sleepless in Seattle.”

Tiny Qatar, an OPEC member, is a strong regional ally for Washington and hosts American bombers and the forward headquarters of the U.S. military’s Central Command at its vast al-Udeid air base. Aircraft and personnel there are involved in the ongoing U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup and has been on a building boom, mirroring on a smaller scale the one that gripped the United Arab Emirates’ city-state of Dubai. However, its government coffers have been hard hit by the drop of global oil prices, which have fallen from over $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014 to around $50 now.

The nation’s investment authority, estimated to be worth some $335 billion by the Las Vegas-based Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, has been increasingly eyeing opportunities in the U.S. Last September, it announced plans to open an office in New York and committed to investing $35 billion in the U.S. over the next five years.

The fund’s existing American holdings include a more than 10-percent stake in New York-based luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co. It sold its share of the American film studio Miramax to Qatar-based media group beIN in March for an undisclosed sum.

Government-backed Qatar Airways, meanwhile, has been rapidly expanding its operations in the U.S., provoking a backlash from American carriers.

Also among the Qatari fund’s interests in America is a 44-percent stake in the $8.6 billion redevelopment project in New York known as Manhattan West, which includes remodeling the building that’s now home to the global headquarters of The Associated Press. The AP announced in August 2015 it planned to move from that building to another near the World Trade Center.

Wenxia Man, Chinese Spy Found Guilty Stealing Aircraft Secrets

Posted on August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

Illegally Export Fighter Jet Engines and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to China

Wenxia Man, aka Wency Man, 45, of San Diego, was sentenced today to 50 months in prison for conspiring to export and cause the export of fighter jet engines, an unmanned aerial vehicle – commonly known as a drone – and related technical data to the People’s Republic of China in violation of the Arms Export Control Act.

The sentence was announced by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin, U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida, Special Agent in Charge Mark Selby of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) in Miami and Special Agent in Charge John F. Khin of the Department of Defense’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS).

On June 9, 2016, Man was convicted by a federal jury in the Southern District of Florida of one count of conspiring to export and cause the export of defense articles without the required license.

According to evidence presented at trial, between approximately March 2011 and June 2013, Man conspired with Xinsheng Zhang, who was located in China, to illegally acquire and export to China defense articles including: Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines used in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofan engines used in the F-22 Raptor fighter jet; General Electric F110-GE-132 engines designed for the F-16 fighter jet; the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper/Predator B Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, capable of firing Hellfire Missiles; and technical data for each of these defense articles. During the course of the investigation, when talking to an undercover HSI agent, Man referred to Zhang as a “technology spy” who worked on behalf of the Chinese military to copy items obtained from other countries and stated that he was particularly interested in stealth technology.

HSI and DCIS investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Walleisa of the Southern District of Florida and Trial Attorney Thea D. R. Kendler of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case.

Photo: balicad24.com

Announcement by the Justice Department

Related reading: 5 Weapons China Stole & Copied from the US

In part from FreeBeacon:

Michael Walleisa, assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence of 78 months for the weapons conspiracy conviction.

“There is hardly a more serious case than a case such as this that involves some of our most sophisticated fighter jet engines and unmanned weaponized aerial drones,” Walleisa said in a sentencing memorandum.

“The potential for harm to the safety of our fighter pilots, military personnel, and national security which would occur had the defendant been successful is immeasurable, particularly where, as here the clear intent of the co-conspirators was to enable the People’s Republic of China to reverse engineer the defense articles and manufacture fighter jets and UAV’s.”

The conspiracy revealed that China was seeking to “increase its military capabilities and might to the potential detriment of the United States,” Walleisa said.

The U.S. government imposed an arms embargo on China in 1990 following the Chinese military’s massacre of unarmed pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square a year earlier.

Between 2011 and 2013, Man and Zhang worked together to solicit three sets of General Electric and Pratt and Whitney turbofan engines for the F-35, F-22, and F-16 jets, as well as a General Atomics Reaper drone and technical details of the equipment. The Chinese were prepared to pay $50 million for the embargoed items.

Authorities launched an investigation of the case after Man contacted a defense industry source who alerted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations unit in Miami. The Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service also investigated the case.

Man used a company called AFM Microelectronics, Inc. in trying to buy the military equipment. She disclosed to an undercover federal agent in 2012 that the jet engines were meant for the Chinese government and that she knew it was illegal to export them, according to court papers.

China is engaged in a major military buildup that includes two new advanced stealth jet fighters that U.S. intelligence agencies say benefitted from stolen American aircraft technology.

The attempt to buy embargoed jet fighter engines highlights what military analysts say is China’s major technology shortfall—its inability to manufacture high-quality jet engines. Turbofan engines require extremely precise machine work and parts because of the high speeds of their spinning engine fans.

Zhang was described by the government in court papers as a “technology spy” working for China’s military-industrial complex. The Chinese government buys arms and military technology from Russia and other states “so that China can obtain sophisticated technology without having to conduct its own research,” the indictment in the case states.

The name of the Chinese entity was not disclosed. China’s government defense industry group is SASTIND, an acronym for State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

Zhang sought to buy the operating system and aircraft control system for the MQ-9 Reaper as well as the unmanned aerial vehicle itself and the technical design data for the aircraft. The drone sought was an armed version capable of firing Hellfire missiles.

Man, 45, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to export defense goods with a license.

At sentencing on Friday, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom told the court that Man hoped to get a $1 million commission on the illegal export and that she wanted to help China compete with the United States militarily.

“I’m innocent,” Man told the judge, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported. “This is my country, too.” She plans to appeal the conviction that was reached after a jury trial in June.

Michael Pillsbury, a China specialist at the Hudson Institute, said the Man case highlights China’s large-scale technology theft program.

“The scope and the ambition of their technology intelligence collection is breathtaking,” said Pillsbury. “They’re not after petty secrets.”

The Man case is similar to an earlier Chinese technology acquisition operation headed by Chi Mak, another naturalized Chinese citizen. In 2007, Mak, an electrical engineer at the U.S. firm Power Paragon, was convicted of conspiracy to export sensitive electronics defense technology to China.

Mak was a long-term technology spy who operated for 20 years. U.S. officials believe Mak provided China with secrets to the Aegis battle management system, the heart of current Navy warships.

China has deployed a similar version of the Aegis ship, known as the Type 052D warship.

AP’s Report on Access to Hillary After the Checks Cashed

Posted on August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

Hillary’s top people are calling this comprehensive report by Associated Press cherry-picking. Given the vast list of names, organizations and timeline, it is hardly cherry-picking. Hat tip to AP.

We cant know at this point the wider implications when it comes to government money authorized and spent via the State Department and other agencies as a result of requests from donors and collusion stemming from the Clinton Foundation and policy coming out of the White House and the State Department. Another question is how much was known by the White House and approved?

Foreign governments, organizations and leaders knew and know what we have not, in order to get a meeting or a phone call, just write a check first. No wonder we are hated due to RICO and yet we fret over Davos and the Bilderbergers. Sheesh….We fret over the money that went into the Foundation(s) but not much if at all is reported about charity distributions.

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.

At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.

Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton’s help with a visa problem; and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm’s corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa.

The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors.

The AP’s findings represent the first systematic effort to calculate the scope of the intersecting interests of Clinton Foundation donors and people who met personally with Clinton or spoke to her by phone about their needs.

The 154 did not include U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives. Clinton met with representatives of at least 16 foreign governments that donated as much as $170 million to the Clinton charity, but they were not included in AP’s calculations because such meetings would presumably have been part of her diplomatic duties.

Clinton’s campaign said the AP analysis was flawed because it did not include in its calculations meetings with foreign diplomats or U.S. government officials, and the meetings AP examined covered only the first half of Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

“It is outrageous to misrepresent Secretary Clinton’s basis for meeting with these individuals,” spokesman Brian Fallon said. He called it “a distorted portrayal of how often she crossed paths with individuals connected to charitable donations to the Clinton Foundation.”

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump fiercely criticized the links between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department, saying his general election opponent had delivered “lie after lie after lie.”

“Hillary Clinton is totally unfit to hold public office,” he said at a rally Tuesday night in Austin, Texas. “It is impossible to figure out where the Clinton Foundation ends and the State Department begins. It is now abundantly clear that the Clintons set up a business to profit from public office.”

Last week, the Clinton Foundation moved to head off ethics concerns about future donations by announcing changes planned if Clinton is elected.

On Monday, Bill Clinton said in a statement that if his wife were to win, he would step down from the foundation’s board and stop all fundraising for it. The foundation would also accept donations only from U.S. citizens and what it described as independent philanthropies, while no longer taking gifts from foreign groups, U.S. companies or corporate charities. Clinton said the foundation would no longer hold annual meetings of its international aid program, the Clinton Global Initiative, and it would spin off its foreign-based programs to other charities.

Those planned changes would not affect more than 6,000 donors who have already provided the Clinton charity with more than $2 billion in funding since its creation in 2000.

“There’s a lot of potential conflicts and a lot of potential problems,” said Douglas White, an expert on nonprofits who previously directed Columbia University’s graduate fundraising management program. “The point is, she can’t just walk away from these 6,000 donors.”

Former senior White House ethics officials said a Clinton administration would have to take careful steps to ensure that past foundation donors would not have the same access as she allowed at the State Department.

“If Secretary Clinton puts the right people in and she’s tough about it and has the right procedures in place and sends a message consistent with a strong commitment to ethics, it can be done,” said Norman L. Eisen, who was President Barack Obama’s top ethics counsel and later worked for Clinton as ambassador to the Czech Republic.

Eisen, now a governance studies fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that at a minimum, Clinton should retain the Obama administration’s current ethics commitments and oversight, which include lobbying restrictions and other rules. Richard Painter, a former ethics adviser to President George W. Bush and currently a University of Minnesota law school professor, said Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton should remove themselves completely from foundation leadership roles, but he added that potential conflicts would shadow any policy decision affecting past donors.

Fallon did not respond to the AP’s questions about Clinton transition plans regarding ethics, but said in a statement the standard set by the Clinton Foundation’s ethics restrictions was “unprecedented, even if it may never satisfy some critics.”

State Department officials have said they are not aware of any agency actions influenced by the Clinton Foundation. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday night that there are no prohibitions against agency contacts with “political campaigns, nonprofits or foundations — including the Clinton Foundation.” He added that “meeting requests, recommendations and proposals come to the department through a variety of channels, both formal and informal.”

Some of Clinton’s most influential visitors donated millions to the Clinton Foundation and to her and her husband’s political coffers. They are among scores of Clinton visitors and phone contacts in her official calendar turned over by the State Department to AP last year and in more-detailed planning schedules that so far have covered about half her four-year tenure. The AP sought Clinton’s calendar and schedules three years ago, but delays led the AP to sue the State Department last year in federal court for those materials and other records.

S. Daniel Abraham, whose name also was included in emails released by the State Department as part of another lawsuit, is a Clinton fundraising bundler who was listed in Clinton’s planners for eight meetings with her at various times. A billionaire behind the Slim-Fast diet and founder of the Center for Middle East Peace, Abraham told the AP last year his talks with Clinton concerned Mideast issues.

Big Clinton Foundation donors with no history of political giving to the Clintons also met or talked by phone with Hillary Clinton and top aides, AP’s review showed.

Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering low-interest “microcredit” for poor business owners, met with Clinton three times and talked with her by phone during a period when Bangladeshi government authorities investigated his oversight of a nonprofit bank and ultimately pressured him to resign from the bank’s board. Throughout the process, he pleaded for help in messages routed to Clinton, and she ordered aides to find ways to assist him.

American affiliates of his nonprofit Grameen Bank had been working with the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative programs as early as 2005, pledging millions of dollars in microloans for the poor. Grameen America, the bank’s nonprofit U.S. flagship, which Yunus chairs, has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the foundation — a figure that bank spokeswoman Becky Asch said reflects the institution’s annual fees to attend CGI meetings. Another Grameen arm chaired by Yunus, Grameen Research, has donated between $25,000 and $50,000.

As a U.S. senator from New York, Clinton, as well as then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and two other senators in 2007 sponsored a bill to award a congressional gold medal to Yunus. He got one but not until 2010, a year after Obama awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Yunus first met with Clinton in Washington in April 2009. That was followed six months later by an announcement by USAID, the State Department’s foreign aid arm, that it was partnering with the Grameen Foundation, a nonprofit charity run by Yunus, in a $162 million commitment to extend its microfinance concept abroad. USAID also began providing loans and grants to the Grameen Foundation, totaling $2.2 million over Clinton’s tenure.

By September 2009, Yunus began complaining to Clinton’s top aides about what he perceived as poor treatment by Bangladesh’s government. His bank was accused of financial mismanagement of Norwegian government aid money — a charge that Norway later dismissed as baseless. But Yunus told Melanne Verveer, a long-time Clinton aide who was an ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues, that Bangladesh officials refused to meet with him and asked the State Department for help in pressing his case.

“Please see if the issues of Grameen Bank can be raised in a friendly way,” he asked Verveer. Yunus sent “regards to H” and cited an upcoming Clinton Global Initiative event he planned to attend.

Clinton ordered an aide: “Give to EAP rep,” referring the problem to the agency’s top east Asia expert.

Yunus continued writing to Verveer as pressure mounted on his bank. In December 2010, responding to a news report that Bangladesh’s prime minister was urging an investigation of Grameen Bank, Clinton told Verveer that she wanted to discuss the matter with her East Asia expert “ASAP.”

Clinton called Yunus in March 2011 after the Bangladesh government opened an inquiry into his oversight of Grameen Bank. Yunus had told Verveer by email that “the situation does not allow me to leave the country.” By mid-May, the Bangladesh government had forced Yunus to step down from the bank’s board. Yunus sent Clinton a copy of his resignation letter. In a separate note to Verveer, Clinton wrote: “Sad indeed.”

Clinton met with Yunus a second time in Washington in August 2011 and again in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka in May 2012. Clinton’s arrival in Bangladesh came after Bangladesh authorities moved to seize control of Grameen Bank’s effort to find new leaders. Speaking to a town hall audience, Clinton warned the Bangladesh government that “we do not want to see any action taken that would in any way undermine or interfere in the operations of the Grameen Bank.”

Grameen America’s Asch referred other questions about Yunus to his office, but he had not responded by Tuesday.

In another case, Clinton was host at a September 2009 breakfast meeting at the New York Stock Exchange that listed Blackstone Group chairman Stephen Schwarzman as one of the attendees. Schwarzman’s firm is a major Clinton Foundation donor, but he personally donates heavily to GOP candidates and causes. One day after the breakfast, according to Clinton emails, the State Department was working on a visa issue at Schwarzman’s request. In December that same year, Schwarzman’s wife, Christine, sat at Clinton’s table during the Kennedy Center Honors. Clinton also introduced Schwarzman, then chairman of the Kennedy Center, before he spoke.

Blackstone donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Eight Blackstone executives also gave between $375,000 and $800,000 to the foundation. And Blackstone’s charitable arm has pledged millions of dollars in commitments to three Clinton Global aid projects ranging from the U.S. to the Mideast. Blackstone officials did not make Schwarzman available for comment.

Clinton also met in June 2011 with Nancy Mahon of the MAC AIDS, the charitable arm of MAC Cosmetics, which is owned by Estee Lauder. The meeting occurred before an announcement about a State Department partnership to raise money to finance AIDS education and prevention. The public-private partnership was formed to fight gender-based violence in South Africa, the State Department said at the time.

The MAC AIDS fund donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In 2008, Mahon and the MAC AIDS fund made a three-year unspecified commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. That same year, the fund partnered with two other organizations to beef up a USAID program in Malawi and Ghana. And in 2011, the fund was one of eight organizations to pledge a total of $2 million over a three-year period to help girls in southern Africa. The fund has not made a commitment to CGI since 2011.

Estee Lauder executive Fabrizio Freda also met with Clinton at the same Wall Street event attended by Schwarzman. Later that month, Freda was on a list of attendees for a meeting between Clinton and a U.S.-China trade group. Estee Lauder has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The company made a commitment to CGI in 2013 with four other organizations to help survivors of sexual slavery in Cambodia.

MAC AIDS officials did not make Mahon available to AP for comment.

When Clinton appeared before the U.S. Senate in early 2009 for her confirmation hearing as secretary of state, then- Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, questioned her at length about the foundation and potential conflicts of interest. His concerns were focused on foreign government donations, mostly to CGI. Lugar wanted more transparency than was ultimately agreed upon between the foundation and Obama’s transition team.

Now, Lugar hopes Hillary and Bill Clinton make a clean break from the foundation.

“The Clintons, as they approach the presidency, if they are successful, will have to work with their attorneys to make certain that rules of the road are drawn up to give confidence to them and the American public that there will not be favoritism,” Lugar said.