Clinton changed stance on trade deal after donations to foundation

[EdwardBernays]

Another one for the "show me one time I ever changed a position based on donations" pile.

The Clinton Foundation reportedly accepted millions of dollars from a Colombian oil company head before then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to support a trade deal with Colombia despite worries of human rights violations.

The report in the International Business Times comes as Clinton readies an expected run for president. She’s been dogged by questions about whether foreign donations to her foundations could have influenced her official decisions.

The report centers on donations from Frank Giustra and the oil company that he founded, Pacific Rubiales. In a Wall Street Journal story from 2008, Giustra is described as a “friend and traveling companion” of former President Clinton who donated more than $130 million to Clinton’s philanthropies. He’s also a Clinton Foundation board member and has participated in projects and benefits for the foundation.

When workers at Pacific Rubiales decided to strike in 2011, the Columbian military reportedly used force to stop the strikes and compel them to return to work, IBT reports, citing the Washington office of Latin America, a human rights group. Those accusations of human rights violations were part of the criticism of the United States-Colombia Free Trade Promotion Agreement, which was passed by Congress later that year. Pacific Rubiales has repeatedly denied charges that it infringed on workers’ rights.

On the campaign trail in 2008, Hillary Clinton, along with then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, opposed the deal as a raw deal for workers, according to IBT. The pair changed their tune after the election and publicly supported the trade agreement. As secretary of State, Clinton’s State Department certified annually that Colombia was “meeting statutory criteria related to human rights.”

The deal had originally been negotiated by the administration of former President George W. Bush, and the Obama administration won changes on labor and environmental issues not included in the original deal.

Just months after Congress approved the agreement, IBT reported, Giustra helped raise $1 million for the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, supported by Pacific Rubiales.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/238313-clinton-changed-stance-on-trade-deal-after-donations-to

[Hoyt]

1. Could it be that Obama got changes to Labor and environmental issues? Or, that the name of project

is Clinton Glustra Sustainable Growth Initiative?

Last two lines of link in OP:

"The deal had originally been negotiated by the administration of former President George W. Bush, and the Obama administration won changes on labor and environmental issues not included in the original deal.

Just months after Congress approved the agreement, IBT reported, Giustra helped raise $1 million for the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, supported by Pacific Rubiales."

[EdwardBernays]

2. If you dig a bit more

The answer is relatively easy to determine.

It's kinda like asking why Clinton signed off on a deal between Boeing and Saudi Arabia, against the wishes of our regional allies and many others in State... Was it related the to 25m the Saudis gave the Clinton Foundation? Or the hundreds of thousands Boeing gave to Bill in speaking fees?

And is that related to the fact that her campaign manager owns one the biggest lobbying firms in DC, and they got an extremely lucrative lobbying contract with Saudi Arabia after the deal?

Etc etc etc etc....

[Hoyt]

3. We've been trading with Saudi Arabia for over 75 years. I'm sure it was not Clinton's decision

alone.

[EdwardBernays]

4. trading

is not the same thing as selling them 10s of billions of weapons while they are being publicly called out by the state department for serial and endless human rights abuses, and while the state department publicly says their military is engaged in war crimes...

nice try though

http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187

[RiverLover]

5. Its amazing and sad, to see so many ignore the outright corruption.

How the hell is this acceptable?

You know if a republican had done just 1/3 of the things she's done, you would be calling them out as sleaze.

This isn't what I want for our party, our country. No one should want this corruption in the WH.

[Hoyt]

6. Thing is, there is not one person alive who has done as many things as she has -- First Lady, Sec of

State, Senator, etc. People are gonna find something to criticize someone like that, even if it is BS.

[EdwardBernays]

9. nonsense

She hasn't just done a lot of things, she's done a lot of dodgy things and tried to cover her tracks.

Like when she broke her commitment she made to Obama, and at her confirmation hearing, to release a complete list of Foundation donors annually...

Despite Hillary Clinton promise, charity did not disclose donors

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-clinton-donations-idUSKBN0MF2FQ20150319

Or when the Foundation used a Canadian charity to obscure it's donor list:

Canadian Partnership Shielded Identities of Donors to Clinton Foundation

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/us/politics/canadian-partnership-shielded-identities-of-donors-to-clinton-foundation.html


That's not something that just happens because you have a lot of experience, ask Bill.

He lied about meeting with Kazatomprom

"Both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Giustra at first denied that any such meeting occurred. Mr. Giustra also denied ever arranging for Kazakh officials to meet with Mr. Clinton."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?pagewanted=all

And why lie?

"Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Within two days, corporate records show that Mr. Giustra also came up a winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom."

So Bill rubber stamped a dictators PR campaign and hooked up their campaign and foundation financier with a HUGE uranium deal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?pagewanted=all

No wonder the pair lied through their teeth about the subsequent meet, in the Clintons house.

Especially considering that after the deal, Giustra donated 31M to the Clinton foundation.

[cannabis_flower]

10. That's the key phrase though... even if it is BS

It's not BS.

[paleotn]

11. Sorry, but I've been watching the Clinton's for nearly 25 years....

Their point of view on many issues is the same as mine. But quid pro quo is certainly not one of them. They're firm believers in getting paid and backing legislation accordingly. God knows what Bill got for signing Graham, Leech, Bliley.

[EdwardBernays]

14. 100%

This is the thing, if you traded the name Clinton for Bush people on here would literally be calling for his arrest.

But Clinton... well, it's either a big misunderstanding, or a right-wing smear, or just the price of doing business...

I remember... do you remember how the GOP always said, "you can't criticise a wartime President" re: GW? And then as soon as Obama was elected they tore into him, despite the fact he was also a wartime President (as is almost every US President)... the LEFT was ENRAGED!!!

Well.. they pretended to be, one must assume, after seeing all justifications for Clinton's utterly unethical and corrupt behaviour.

[azurnoir]

7. well the deals made for money cooming into the Foundation is well known but

what I'd like to see is where it's going especially to which domestic charities and organizations

[cpwm17]

8. Hillary says that those millions of dollars that she has received from wealthy donors

and corporation have not influenced her decisions, so we can rest easy:

[Ligyron]

12. Yer gettin a heart for that one!

[cpwm17]

15. Thank you.

[wolfie001]

13. American Legislative Exchange Council

Clinton-style........

[amborin]

16. kick