International, Politics

“Bill Clinton, Inc”: Top Clinton Aide Details For-Profit Deals With Clinton with Laureate International and Other Donors

bill_clinton_by_gage_skidmoreWikileaksThe Wikileaks disclosures continue to hound the Clintons and the recent release implicates the relationship between Bill Clinton and for-profit educational company, Laureate International. I previously wrote about the huge payments given to Bill Clinton by Laureate, a controversial global educational company that gave Clinton millions while his wife was Secretary of State. Now, emails reveal that one of Clinton’s closest aides, Doug Band, describes Bill Clinton’s use of the Clinton Foundation as a mean to secure personal windfalls as “Bill Clinton, Inc.”

I have long been a critic of many online courses. The rise of online courses has allowed for an increase in dubious pitches and practices that prey upon people who cannot afford or attend a traditional academic institution. Laureate is a massive, mega-corporation that is often criticized for its impact on education. As companies maximize profits, students often become a mere cost of doing business. The rate of default has been higher at such for-profit universities and less than half of students at for-profit schools actually finish such programs accordingly to Brookings. Laureate is often cited as the leader in reducing education to a commodity in a mass for-profit enterprise. The company has made huge profits and is worth over $4 billion. Indeed, shortly before Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for president and denounced for-profit educational companies, Bill Clinton severed his ties with Laureate.

Laureate Education paid Bill Clinton an obscene $16.5 million between 2010 and 2014 to serve as an honorary chancellor for Laureate International Universities. Various news outlets said that neither Clinton nor Laureate were forthcoming on how much he was paid for the controversial association. Bill Clinton worked as the “honorary chancellor” and gave speeches in various countries and was heavily touted by the for-profit company to attract students. The size of this payment (which has been widely reported) raises obvious concerns as to what the company was seeking to achieve and whether Laureate received any benefit from the association with the State Department given its massive international operations.

Now Band is shown stating exactly what critics have been saying: there is a highly problematic pattern in how the Clintons mixed personal and foundation businesses. Under fire over his own simultaneous positions working as a Clinton aide while maintaining a for-profit business, Band suggested that (if he was to be viewed as double dealing) Bill Clinton would be far worse. He referred to the former President as “Bill Clinton Inc” due to his use of Foundation donors to not just pay for travel but generate personal profits.

The 2011 memo revealed how Band and another aide helped Bill Clinton snare at least $50 million in speaking fees and other ventures. We discussed earlier how Band discussed the Clinton Global Initiative and a new business started by top Clinton aide Doug Band called Teneo Holdings. Both Band and Clinton’s held dual positions with Teneo and CGI. Bond wrote a November 17th email to John Podesta, Chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and long-time Clinton confidant. He objected to Pedestal that “I signed a conflict of interest policy as a board member of cgi . . . Oddly, [Bill Clinton] does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc. . . I could add 500 different examples of things like this.” Band was on the Clinton Foundation payroll through 2011, but, in June 2011, he and co-founder Declan Kelly, a former economic envoy for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, started Teneo in June 2011. They then made Bill Clinton a paid adviser. Chelsea Clinton was then appointed to the CGI board. Teneo then accepted money from groups like MF Global, a controversial brokerage firm that reportedly lost $600 million of investors’ money and had business deals that could be benefited by an association with the Secretary of State.

The 12-page memo from Doug Band talked about how he and other secured money for the ex-president and Clinton’s namesake foundation: “Throughout the past almost 11 years since President Clinton left office, I have sought to leverage my activities, including my partner role at Teneo, to support and to raise funds for the Foundation. This memorandum strives to set forth how I have endeavored to support the Clinton Foundation and President Clinton personally.” The email has a slightly menacing tone as Band includes section headings like “For-Profit Activity of President Clinton (i.e., Bill Clinton, Inc.).” Band describes the fluid line between Clinton’s public interest work with the Foundation and his seeking personal payments from donors. Band discusses how he and Clinton aide Justin Cooper “found, developed and brought” to Clinton advisory arrangements that “yielded tens of millions” and specifically cited “$20 million in speeches for the President have derived … from Justin and my efforts.” The controversial Teneo company worked to arrange these fees for Clinton from corporations. Band then adds that he made a lot of money for the Clintons but “Neither Justin nor I are separately compensated for these activities.”

One of those companies was Laureate International.

Band himself is the latest aide given problematic positions with the State Department or the Foundation while pursing private gain. Such dual roles have already been raised with regard to Huma Adedin and others. When Sidney Blumenthal (who is widely viewed as a somewhat shady Clinton operative) was blocked by the Obama Administration from being given a State Department job, he was instead given a job at the Foundation. Band suggests that he was a type of “earner” for Clinton and describes a highly uncertain line between Foundation work and work for the Clintons.

85 thoughts on ““Bill Clinton, Inc”: Top Clinton Aide Details For-Profit Deals With Clinton with Laureate International and Other Donors”

  1. OMG! OMG! FBI director Comey has apparently announced that they are reopening their probe into Sec’y Clinton’a emails based on newly recovered emails.

    Professor you must be very excited! This should keep you and the Hillary Haters on this board occupied until Election Day when she clobbers Trump and takes back the senate.
    I assume Republicans will hold the house by a narrow margin and begin 8 years of non-stop investigations while passing zero legislation.

    1. Sad news: apparently the FBI is NOT reopening any investigation, they are just assessing new emails.
      So sorry for getting your hopes up!

  3. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/pussy-riot-members-whistleblower-foundation-julian-assange “Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, two members of the Pussy Riot collective, have agreed to sit on the advisory board of an international whistleblower organisation of which Julian Assange is a trustee, after meeting the WikiLeaks founder at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.” Maybe Putin will imprison her again. She must be lying, right?

    1. This whole display was ridiculous at the time, parading them around as though they were some kind of international heroes. They were a convenient tool at the time, just like Kerry’s YouTube videos he wanted to use as evidence for a response to human rights violations and war crimes. He needs to be fired as well. Convenience is not your friend when you try to change the narrative. This is just a distraction once again, “don’t like the message, shoot the messenger.” I would welcome Pussy Riot to take their tour through the southern US and see what awaits them there. Besides, hasn’t anyone told Pussy Riot that the aberration that was the punk period is irrelevant now? They need to stick to playing bars, keggers, and the like.

    2. From the Guardian article:

      “They had raised the question of RT with Assange, said Alyokhina, “and obviously we disagree with Julian Assange on the RT issue, but it is enough that we definitely agree with each other on the most basic and important things.”

    3. Kate,

      There are separate issues here which you are conflating. There is Putin’s arrest of members of Pussy Riot for protesting him. Of course that is wrong. It is wrong just as it is wrong to imprison the Dakota access pipeline water protectors and the journalists who are covering their attempts to protect the water.

      Now there is a separate question. Do you have evidence that Assange is working for Putin as he releases these particular set of information on Clinton? If so, please link to it.

      A third question is, when and if you have proven the direct link of Putin to Assange concerning these published documents on Clinton, will you tell me why I should ignore the contents of the documents which have been published?

      Thank you,

      Jill

      1. Thanks for the clarifications Jill. My problem is that Pussy Riot is Russia’s business, not ours. It’s not exactly mowing over Czechoslovakia and Hungary with tanks. Putin is a popular leader, and if he throws people in the pokey, that’s their business. Good thing we don’t do that here…???

        I believe it pretty clear that the Assange-Russia thing is just a thin ruse, on the two counts you note above. It needs to be called such and taken off the table as not to cloud the real and serious issue here. But, when you are desperate, you’ll throw anything out there. Maybe as the noose tightens, they’ll start to try to finger the aliens that were mentioned in the emails.

  4. Since when has a punk rock band become an authority on international relations? If you look at them, you’ll probably find out they were a useful PR tool during the Ukraine NED-sponsored color code revolution to oust the democratically elected president there. Do you have a YouTube video to back this up?

  5. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-27/assange-predicts-trump-will-lose-accuses-clinton-campaign-trying-hack-wikileaks “Meanwhile, in the latest spin in this ongoing drama, moments ago a member of the anti-Putin Russian punk band Pussy Riot became the latest to accuse Assange of directly collaborating with Moscow. “But Julian Assange, he openly works with [Russia],” Nadezhda Tolokonnikova aka Nadya Tolokno, told The Daily Beast in an interview Thursday. “It’s not a secret. He’s connected with the Russian government, and I feel that he’s proud of it.

    “I generally support the work that WikiLeaks is doing, but I’m not that thrilled about his decisions that are unethical, in my view, concerning his connections to the Russian government.” “

    1. Where is her proof he openly works with the Russians? Just because he goes on RT?

      Clinton wants to done Assange (aka extrajudicial killing). Clinton got us into Syria, which is practically a proxy war with Russia. It benefits Russia and Assange to keep her out of office. Nadya supports much of what Assange does. If she doesn’t want him to get droned, she should consider the ramifications of Clinton being elected. I doubt Assange supports Russia, which is no friend of transparency. At the moment, Putin wants him to speak freely because he is speaking out against Clinton and her corruption. The tide will turn.

      Consider, why is Assange not in our embassy?

    2. I’d like some proof of this claim as well.

      More importantly, if Satan personally downloaded those e-mails and submitted them to wikileaks, I would still read the information contained with in them.

      These e-mails show people around the world how USGinc. world deep state works. Everyone should want to know what is going on. We won’t restore our govt. to the people though willful ignorance.

      To USGinc. I and many others say, we do not consent.

    1. If you hate Democrats whatever their name..
      You defame them both and same the name…
      Like Bill, Bill friggin cheaten Bill or
      Lyndon, Lyndon, LB Johnson…

      The blame game!

  8. @Jill

    Do you watch Tim Black and/or HA Goodman? I love their joint Monday show – always informative and Tim provides levity…

  11. Bloody awful. I really hope Hillary does not win. My horse would make a better President, plus, as a gelding, he would not get into any sexual scandals.

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