Clinton Foundation accepted millions from sheikh who WMR reported to the FBI for terrorist ties
A leaked email from the vice chairman and CEO of the Clinton Foundation-affiliated Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), Ira Magaziner, to John Podesta and Clinton Foundation executive Amitabh Desai indicates that CHAI attempted to shake down a $6 million donation from Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Sheikh Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi.
The email, from November 2011, while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, states that CHAI demanded $6 million in return for Bill Clinton to attend the 2011International Conference on AIDS and STIs in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. The billionaire sheik was also to provide his personal jet for the former president to attend the conference.
At first, al-Amoudi indicated he would only donate money to Clinton based on the former president's annual visits to Ethiopia. The email states:
"Sheik Mohammed approached CHAI in 2006 shortly after we opened an office in Addis Ababa. He proposed that he would give $2 million to CHAI every year that you [Bill Clinton] visited Ethiopia. We eventually negotiated an Agreement with his Washington attorney, George Salem, in which he agreed to fund CHAI at a rate of $2 million per year for 10 years. They rejected any proposals to put a payment schedule in the agreement, but dropped any reference tying the donation to you [Bill Clinton] visiting Ethiopia."
Al-Amoudi then tried to renegotiate the deal by demanding a personal visit by Clinton to the 2011 conference. The "deal" is similar to one with Morocco in 2013, in which Hillary Clinton was to visit Morocco in return for $12 million to the Clinton Foundation from the king of Morocco. Mrs. Clinton did not travel to Morocco but sent her husband and daughter Chelsea in her place. In the case of al-Amoudi, the then-U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, Donald Booth, pressured al-Amoudi to pay up to the Clinton Foundation.
Clinton receives his payola from Sheikh Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi.
On December 19, 2008, WMR reported that al-Amoudi attempted to shakedown $100,000 from this editor in 2004 in return for dropping a lawsuit threat. In our 2008 report on questionable donations to the Clinton Foundation, WMR stated, "Another donor is Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi, a Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire who once threatened a libel lawsuit against this editor unless more than $100,000 was deposited in his foreign bank account. The attempted shakedown by this dubious individual was reported to the FBI." This editor stressed to the FBI that al-Amoudi was linked to the Saudi infrastructure that was involved in financinf the 9/11 attack. Since the release of the 28-classified pages from the joint congressional inquiry on U.S. intelligence failures related to 9/11, our initial report is bolstered. And the links between the Clinton Foundation and al-Amoudi put into question the Clintons' own knowledge of the 9/11 attack before it occurred and the theft of Al Qaeda-related documents from the National Archives by Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton's national security adviser.
WMR replied to al-Amoudi's Jewish-owned law firm in London, Nathanson Nabarro, that as far as the editor was concerned, al-Amoudi could go pound sand up his ass. However, the original publisher of the article that got al-Amoudi's dishdash in a twist, Counterpunch, folded like a cheap two dollar suitcase:
"CLARIFICATION
ALEXANDER COCKBURN, JEFFREY ST CLAIR, BECKY GRANT AND THE INSTITUTE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF JOURNALISTIC CLARITY, COUNTERPUNCH
We published an article entitled “A Saudiless Arabia” by Wayne Madsen dated October 22, 2002 (the “Article”), on the website of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalistic Clarity, CounterPunch, www.counterpunch.org (the “Website”).
Although it was not our intention, counsel for Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi has advised us the Article suggests, or could be read as suggesting, that Mr Al Amoudi has funded, supported, or is in some way associated with, the terrorist activities of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
We do not have any evidence connecting Mr Al Amoudi with terrorism.
As a result of an exchange of communications with Mr Al Amoudi’s lawyers, we have removed the Article from the Website.
We are pleased to clarify the position.
August 17, 2005"
Al-Amoudi was not the only dodgy donor connections of the Clinton Foundation. The following is also from our 2008 article, a time when the malfeasance of the Clinton Foundation was hardly a blip on the radar screen.":
"One of the most astounding Clinton donors is the Alavi Foundation. Alavi is the co-owner of a 36-story building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. On December 17, federal officials charged that Alavi's co-owner, Assa Corporation, is a front for Iran's Bank Melli that funneled revenue from the building to Bank Melli via a front company in the Channel Islands. Hillary Clinton has been a hawk on Iran and once suggested that she would launch a devastating military attack on the country. Apparently, the Clintons are not so hawkish when it comes to taking Iranian money in a "pay-to-play" enterprise . . .Al-Amoudi was not the only dodgy donor connections of the Clinton Foundation. The following is also from our 2008 article, a time when the malfeasance of the Clinton Foundation was hardly a blip on the radar screen.":
Bill Clinton certainly was a busy man as a globe-trotting panhandler. He managed to get donations from a number of foreign governments, including Saudi Arbia, Norway, Oman, Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar, Australia, Jamaica, Ireland, Taiwan, Italy, and the Canary Islands' Tenerife island government. Other foreign donors include the Netherlands National Postal Lottery, Swiss Reinsurance Company, the Swedish Postal Lottery, China Overseas Real Estate Development, Venezuela's Venevision TV network, Credit Suisse, National Opera of Paris, South Africa's African Rainbow Minerals, Bahrain Petroleum, Beirut Container Terminal Consortium, De Beers Marine Namibia, National Bank of Kuwait, Taiwan Mobile Foundation, Baltic International Bank, Booz Allen Hamilton, BNP Paribas, Jordan Investment Trust, Kenya Commercial Bank, New Zealand Stock Exchange, Newmont Mining Corp. (major gold mining compamy), Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Palestine Telecommunication Company, Portugal Telecom, Reykjavik Energy, Society Tourism Diversions of Macau, Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank Co Ltd., TD Bank Financial Group, De Beers Family of Companies, Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. of Israel, First Philippine Holdings Corporation, International Bank of Commerce of Laredo, Texas, Oppenheimer Funds, Inc., Hutchison Whampoa Limited,PT. Polychem Indonesia, Neptune Orient Lines Ltd. (Singapore), Morgan Stanley Asia Limited, and UBS Wealth Management.
Another major donors is Clinton Foundation trustee Frank Giustra, a Canadian billionaire who made a windfall profit in 2006 after landing a huge uranium contract from Kazakhstan's authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbayev with Bill Clinton's help.
Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment guru who supports Israeli interests over those of his adopted country, was also a multi-million dollar donor to Clinton's non-profit contrivance.
Other major donors are Saudi construction billionaire Nasser al-Rashid; Dubai Emir Mohammad Rashid bin Maktoum, the majority owner of Dubai Ports World; Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese Christian billionaire with sizable investments in oil-rich Nigeria; the Zayed ruling family of Abu Dhabi; Jordanian-Canadian Victor Dahdaleh, chief of Dadco Group, who was once accused in a lawsuit of bribing Bahrain officials on behalf of Alcoa and using front companies in the British Virgin Islands, Singapore, and Switzerland; Lebanese Houston-based Issam Fares, a former Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister; Indian mining mogul Lakshmi Mittal, aka "Taj Mittal," who has been accused of running slave labor mines in places like Kazakhstan; Ukrainian Jewish mining oligarch Viktor Pinchuk; former Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz, who was investigated for the transfer of sensitive missile technology to China; URS Corporation's Richard Blum, the Iraq war profiteer husband of incoming Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation Foundation; Little Rock billionaire and longtime Clinton financial supporter Jackson Stephens; personal data mining giant Acxiom Inc,; scandal-plagued American International Group (AIG); Denise Rich, the ex-wife of American-Swiss-Israeli billionaire fugitive Marc Rich; Mexican telecommunications baron Carlos Slim Helu; former AES CEO and secretive Arlington-based Fellowship Foundation supporter Dennis Bakke; Barrick Gold, whose international advisers have included Bill Clinton's golfing buddy George H. W. Bush; Israel supporter Edgard Bronfman; Lynn F. de Rothschild; sub prime mortgage perpetrator Merrill Lynch; Brazilian Jewish banking billionaire Joseph Safra of Safra Group; right-wing political funder Richard Mellon Scaife; the American Jewish Committee; the University of Judaism; Iranian expatriate Farhad Azima, a longtime provider of air services to U.S. intelligence agencies; Wall Street collapse perpetrator Goldman Sachs; Banque Privee Edmond De Rothschild; Evelyn de Rothschild; Lazare Kaplan International Inc.; Rahm Emanuel, Lafarge Corporation (where Hillary Clinton once served as a director during a time when the firm was implicated in the shipment of restricted materials to Saddam Hussein); The Chatterjee Group (which is linked to Marvin Bush, brother of George W. Bush); Wesley K. Clark and Associates; Albanian-American Center for Information and Cooperation, and World Vision.
Another donor was Citigroup and its Citi Foundation. Citigroup is one of the recipients of the U.S. government's nearly $1 trillion bailout of Wall Street. No conflict-of-interest there Mr. and Mrs. Clinton?
Another donor is Jordanian-American businessman A. Huda Farouki, Nour USA and Erinys Iraq majordomo who, like al-Amoudi, once threatened a libel lawsuit against this editor.
George Soros' Open Society Institute and the Soros Foundation, which fund "themed" neocon revolutions and destabilizing political chicanery around the world, also kicked into the Clinton Foundation.
The Friends of Saudi Arabia, Saudi billionaire businessman Walid Juffali, the U.S. Islamic World Conference, and Saudi construction mogul Hamza al Kholi are among Clinton's donors.
With a donation from the First Bank of Nigeria and Nigeria's Intercontinental Bank Plc, as well as Nigeria's Obat Oil And Petroleum Limited, the Clintons may be the first successful recipients of Nigerian "419" money. Congratulations Bill and Hillary!"
There is a corollary to the old Middle Eastern adage, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." It is also true that the friend of my enemy [or enemies] is also my enemy. The Clintons have been on WMR's enemy list for 11 years and counting. Hillary Clinton can be assured that, if she is elected, she will have WMR exposing her and her family's and administration's chicanery, fraud, and scandals 24 x 7.
The following is what our late colleague Alan Simpson wrote about the al-Amoudi lawsuit threat in 2004:
There is a corollary to the old Middle Eastern adage, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." It is also true that the friend of my enemy [or enemies] is also my enemy. The Clintons have been on WMR's enemy list for 11 years and counting. Hillary Clinton can be assured that, if she is elected, she will have WMR exposing her and her family's and administration's chicanery, fraud, and scandals 24 x 7.
The following is what our late colleague Alan Simpson wrote about the al-Amoudi lawsuit threat in 2004:
Libel, Oil and Terrorists?
The story over the letter, or hoax letter to journalist Wayne Madsen is getting real legs in Washington, with old enemies joining forces to once and for all silence the ultra rich Saudi Businessmen, or as has been suggested have them interned in Guantanamo!
Now I feel the witch hunt against all Islamic Charities is wrong, and the notion that giving help to families in need should be stopped if one of their kin has links to Hamas, or Al Qaeda, or even giving them Martha Stewart cookbooks.
I feel that on the flip side that if the foreign courts assist organizations and individuals carry out acts of terrorism the lawyers, and judges share an equal responsibility as the man who strapped the bomb to his chest and killed innocent civilians in the marketplace.
I am all for dragging foreign judges to Guantanamo Bay as "Enemies of the State" even "Enemies of Humanity" when their decisions fly against justice, and aid terrorists.
The same with Saudi businessmen. If they are innocent they should not be wrongly accused. If they are guilty they should be hunted down with the same passion as if they were Bin Laden. I know that President Bandar Bush believes the Saudis have special exemption, even to laying on special planes to fly them out of harms way.
But the Bush protection plan may not be renewed in November, and certainly not in four years time.
But the fact that they contribute to Islamic Charities should not be held against them, if it is for the benefit of the poor, and unfortunate families around the world. The larger the web of donations the less the detailed scrutiny of the use of the funds is possible.
The same applies to corporations that have plants and branches around the world. You never can tell who is a legitimate business partner and who has links to political organizations. Remember one man's Terrorist is another's Freedom Fighter!
The Republicans hate being reminded but President Reagan was an avid supporter of Central American Terrorists seeking to overthrow a legitimately elected government by the use of guns and bombs. So were the Israelis and by today's definition most of the early leaders should have been arrested and executed. Come to think of it George Washington was a Terrorist, wooden teeth and all.
