Hillary's woes take their toll on brand Clinton

UNTIL a few months ago Bill Clinton was the golden boy of American politics. As the most successful Democratic president of recent times, he opened doors across the world.

His Clinton Foundation and its Clinton Initiative offshoot led the way in global philanthropy, bringing industrialists, rock stars and world leaders together to promise action on poverty, Aids and global warming. He had every expectation of following his former vice president, Al Gore, by collecting a Nobel Peace prize.

Hillary's expected coronation as the next president seemed assured, anchoring the couple's place as Washington's supreme power couple and also as a multi-billion-dollar 'brand'.

But the battering his wife has taken in her losing battle with Barack Obama has threatened to change all that, with the 'brand' now under fire and the Clintons accused of using their good works as cover for making money and peddling influence.

It began in January with Bill's decision to wade in and help a campaign stunned by the unexpected phenomenon of Barackomania.

Breaking with the custom that former presidents do not take sides in nomination contests, Bill not only sided with his wife, but went into battle for her.

The plan backfired in spectacular fashion when he labelled Obama's opposition to the Iraq war as a "fairy tale".

And when he appeared to label Obama's appeal as limited to black voters only, the media christened him the campaign's "attack dog".

This image was reinforced by the sight of him staging angry confrontations with journalists. And then those journalists started to dig.

Already in 2007, the media had zeroed in on one of his top backers, data collection firm Info USA. The media reported that its chairman, Vin Gupta, is being sued by his shareholders for misspending company money after he paid Bill Clinton the equivalent of £400,000 for two years of unspecified consultancy work.

In January, the Wall Street Journal questioned another Bill Clinton consultancy contract, with US supermarket giant Yucaipa, claiming by being employed as a consultant Bill stood to make a £10m profit on his five-year association.

Then the New York Times

reported that back in September 2005, Canadian mining mogul Frank Giustra had flown Bill Clinton to Kazakhstan for a meet-and-greet session with the country's autocratic president Nursultan Nazarbayev. Bill Clinton backed the president to chair the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, despite the OSCE's criticism of the country's fraudulent elections. Three days later, Kazakhstan awarded Giustra valuable Uranium export contracts. Later Giustra donated £16m to the Clinton Foundation.

It was further revealed that Giustra and Bill were partners in another mission, backing a free trade agreement with Columbia, where Giustra has multi-million-dollar oil contracts.



The Clintons' reputation further soured in April when it emerged that Hillary's chief strategist, Mark Penn, was advising her on opposition to the trade deal while at the same time being paid as a lobbyist by Colombia to support it. Penn was fired.

None of these revelations, nor Bill Clinton's support of Leonid Kuchma, overthrown by Ukraine's pro-Democracy Orange Revolution, show anything illegal, but critics now accuse Bill Clinton of renting out his good name for profit.



Bill Clinton insists that he works for supermarket Yucaipa for philanthropic reasons, because it involves itself in "three things I care about: In under-served communities, in under-performing companies that are friendly to their workers and their families, and in minority-owned businesses."

The release of the Clinton tax returns caused further questions to be asked, in particular the news that Bill Clinton has made £20m for speeches since leaving the White House.

All of this might not matter if not for the fact that some of this money is being used to finance the Hillary Clinton election campaign. The couple have a joint bank account, and to date £5.5m of their fortune has gone to plug gaps in funding. Strict campaign laws make it illegal for corporations to sponsor US presidential nominees, leaving many wondering if the couple have found a spectacular loophole to sell influence.

The uproar has been further stoked by the Clintons' refusal to come clean about their finances. The details of much of Bill's consultancy work remain secret, as do the names of those who sign the cheques for his speeches. Likewise, Bill has refused to release the list of donors for his £90m presidential library, until his wife has made it to the White House.

Evidence of his tarnished reputation comes from a series of polls by ABC news and the Washington Post which show Bill's unfavourable rating jumping from 42% in January to 51% now. Polls also show that Hillary, partly due to a false claim to have braved sniper fire in Bosnia, is now is distrusted by 60% of the electorate.

This has prompted critics to zero-in on controversies from the Clintons' past, such as the money accepted by her brothers, Tony and Hugh, from felons who were granted presidential pardons by husband Bill.

And more damage to their reputation may follow. Hillary has launched a fresh wave of attacks on Obama, claiming on Friday that she was the best candidate for white voters, in a campaign which is in dire straights following her heavy loss in North Carolina.

With Obama supporters ridiculing suggestions that Hillary would be accepted as his vice president, her one remaining hope is that she can so tarnish Obama's reputation with negative campaigning that the party superdelegates, who have the casting vote, decide in August that she is the better presidential candidate.

This strategy is a long shot, with many party top brass demanding that the "supers" back Obama because he has won the popular vote.

A much greater risk is that another round of negative campaigning will further damage not just Hillary's election hopes but the whole Clinton philanthropic enterprise.

For all its billions in donor cash, the Clinton Foundation is a delicate flower. Sponsors and celebrities may shy away in the future if the suggestions of influence peddling cannot be silenced.

For these reasons, growing numbers of party insiders think husband Bill is poised to bring the curtain down, if only to protect their image.

"Forget anyone else, the only one she (Hillary] listens to is Bill," said one party source. "Bill's desperate to protect the Clinton Brand. He's got the sharper political antenna, he'll know when its time to fold up the tent."

What's in a name?

The Clinton Foundation: Opened in 1997, the foundation is a global organisation mandated to fight against poverty, Aids and climate change. Its aims are to match wealthy donors with needy projects, and claims successes such as getting drug companies to sell cut-price Aids medicines to Third World countries. Critics say much of the foundation's claimed successes are piggybacking on the efforts of others, such as the Aids drugs which drug companies had already planned to offer at cut price before the foundation took the credit. It has also been challenged over its refusal to name many of its backers.

The Clinton Global Initiative: An annual festival dedicated to rewarding good works, the Initiative, launched in 2005, attracts more than 1,000 participants, the majority from the world of commerce, who pledge to carry out specific projects to help the needy.

The William J Clinton Presidential Library: At £90m it is the most expensive and best resourced presidential library ever built, and serves as the nerve centre of the Clinton Foundation in Little Rock, where Bill Clinton served as governor of Arkansas. Critics question why the list of donors is kept secret, and whether the donors are repaying favours from Bill Clinton.