Here it is, folks...
Soon after the 10th anniversary of the foundation bearing
his name, Bill Clinton met with a small group of aides and two lawyers from
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Two weeks of interviews with Clinton Foundation
executives and former employees had led the lawyers to some unsettling
conclusions:
For all of its successes, the Clinton Foundation had
become a sprawling concern, supervised by a rotating board of old Clinton
hands, vulnerable to distraction and threatened by conflicts of interest. It
ran multimillion-dollar deficits for several years, despite vast amounts of
money flowing in.
* ONE... MORE... TIME...
It ran multimillion-dollar deficits for several years,
despite vast amounts of money flowing in.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
And concern was rising inside and outside the
organization about Douglas J. Band, a onetime personal assistant to Mr. Clinton
who had started a lucrative corporate consulting firm — which Mr. Clinton
joined as a paid adviser — while overseeing the Clinton Global Initiative, the
foundation’s glitzy annual gathering of chief executives, heads of state, and
celebrities.
* SOUNDS LIKE DOUGLAS J. BAND IS TO BILL WHAT HUMA ABEDIN
IS TO HILLARY.
* NICE TO HAVE FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES, HUH? (WELL... AT
LEAST BAND WASN'T ALSO COLLECTING A GOVERNMENT SALARY + BENEFITS FOR A NO-SHOW/LITTLE-SHOW
JOB!)
The review set off more than a year of internal debate,
and spurred an evolution in the organization that included Mr. Clinton’s
daughter, Chelsea, taking on a dominant new role as the family grappled with
the question of whether the foundation — and its globe-spanning efforts to
combat AIDS, obesity and poverty — would survive its founder.
* ALL IN THE FAMILY, FOLKS... GREAT WAY TO GAME THE TAX
CODE!
In the coming weeks, the foundation, long Mr. Clinton’s
domain since its formation in 2001, will become the nerve center of Hillary
Rodham Clinton’s increasingly busy public life. This fall, Mrs. Clinton and her
staff will move into offices at the foundation’s new headquarters in Midtown
Manhattan, occupying two floors of the Time-Life Building.
* FOUNDATION... PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS...
(*SNORTING WHILE SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Amid speculation about her 2016 plans, Mrs. Clinton is
adding major new initiatives on women, children and jobs to what has been
renamed the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
* MUST BE NICE TO BE BORN TO THE "RIGHT" PARENTS...
(*SHRUG*)
Worried that the foundation’s operating revenues depend
too heavily on Mr. Clinton’s non-stop fund-raising...
* AHH... THE HORRORS! PRIVATE PLANES... FIVE STAR
HOTELS... THE FINEST RESTAURANTS... MINGLING WITH THE RICH AND FAMOUS AND
HAVING THEM WRITE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CHECKS WHICH PARTIALLY DEDUCT THEIR "FAIR
SHARE" OF FEDERAL AND STATE TAXATION!
* FOLKS... DON'T GET ME WRONG... BUT LET'S FACE IT... AS
THE OL' SONG GOES, "NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT!" (OR HAVE HUBBY OR
DADDY GIVE IT TO YOU!)
...the three Clintons are embarking on a drive to raise
an endowment of as much as $250 million, with events already scheduled in the
Hamptons and London.
And after years of relying on Bruce R. Lindsey, the
former White House counsel whose friendship with Mr. Clinton stretches back
decades, to run the organization while living part-time in Arkansas, the family
has hired a New York-based chief executive with a background in management
consulting.
“We’re trying to institutionalize the foundation so that
it will be here long after the lives of any of us,” Mr. Lindsey said. “That’s
our challenge and that is what we are trying to address.” But the changing of
the guard has aggravated long-simmering tensions within the former first
family’s inner circle as the foundation tries to juggle the political and
philanthropic ambitions of a former president, a potential future president,
and their increasingly visible daughter.
And efforts to insulate the foundation from potential
conflicts have highlighted just how difficult it can be to disentangle the
Clintons’ charity work from Mr. Clinton’s moneymaking ventures and Mrs.
Clinton’s political future, according to interviews with more than two dozen
former and current foundation employees, donors and advisers to the family.
(Nearly all of them declined to speak for attribution, citing
their unwillingness to alienate the Clinton family.)
* REMEMBER, FOLKS... THIS IS A NYT STORY...
Last Thursday, Mr. Clinton arrived two hours late to an
exuberant welcome at a health clinic about 60 miles north of Johannesburg.
Children in zebra-striped loincloths sang as Mr. Clinton and Ms. Clinton made
their entrance, and the former president enthusiastically explained how his
foundation had helped the South African government negotiate large reductions
in the price of drugs that halt the progress of HIV. Aaron Motsoaledi, South
Africa’s minister of health, heaped praise on the effort. “Because of your help
we are able to treat three and a half times more people than we used to,” he
told the crowd. The project is typical of the model pioneered by the Clinton
Foundation, built around dozens of partnerships with private companies,
governments, or other nonprofit groups. Instead of handing out grants, the
foundation recruits donors and advises them on how best to deploy their money
or resources, from helping Procter & Gamble donate advanced
water-purification packets to developing countries to working with credit card
companies to expand the volume of low-cost loans offered to poor inner city
residents.
The foundation, which has 350 employees in 180 countries,
remains largely powered by Mr. Clinton’s global celebrity and his ability to
connect corporate executives, A-listers and government officials.
On this month’s Africa trip, Mr. Clinton was accompanied
by the actors Dakota Fanning and Jesse Eisenberg and the son of the New York
City mayoral candidate John A. Catsimatidis, a longtime donor.
For most of the foundation’s existence, its leadership
has been dominated by loyal veterans of the Clintons’ political lives. Ira C.
Magaziner, who was a Rhodes scholar with Mr. Clinton and ran Mrs. Clinton’s
failed attempt at a health care overhaul in the 1990s, is widely credited as
the driving force behind the foundation’s largest project, the Clinton Health
Access Initiative, which, among other efforts, negotiates bulk purchasing
agreements and price discounts on lifesaving medicines.
* I WONDER WHAT HE'S PAID...
(*SHRUG*)
Mr. Band, who arrived at the White House in 1995 and
worked his way up to become Mr. Clinton’s closest personal aide, standing
behind the president on golf courses and the global stage, helped build the
foundation’s fund-raising structure. He conceived of and for many years helped
run the Clinton Global Initiative, the annual conference that draws hundreds of
business leaders and heads of state to New York City where attendees are pushed
to make specific philanthropic commitments.
Today, big-name companies vie to buy sponsorships at
prices of $250,000 and up, money that has helped subsidize the foundation’s
annual operating costs. Last year, the foundation and two subsidiaries had
revenues of more than $214 million.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... THE TAX CODE... WHAT'S
"GAINED" BY THE CLINTONS IS "LOST" BY THE FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT... BY THE TAXPAYER...
(*SHRUG*)
Yet the foundation’s expansion has also been accompanied
by financial problems. In 2007 and 2008, the foundation also found itself
competing against Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign for donors amid a
recession. Millions of dollars in contributions intended to seed an endowment
were diverted to other programs, creating tension between Mr. Magaziner and Mr.
Band. The foundation piled up a $40 million deficit during those two years,
according to tax returns. Last year, it ran more than $8 million in the red.
* ONE... MORE... TIME...
The foundation piled up a $40 million deficit during 2007
and 2008, according to tax returns.
* HOW...?!?!
Last year, it ran more than $8 million in the red.
* HOW...?!?!
Amid those shortfalls, the foundation has sometimes
catered to donors and celebrities who gave money in ways that raised eyebrows
in the low-key non-profit world. In 2009, during a Clinton Global Initiative
gathering at the University of Texas at Austin, the foundation purchased a
first-class ticket for the actress Natalie Portman, a special guest, who
brought her beloved Yorkie, according to two former foundation employees.
* WHAT... NO PRIVATE PLANE?!
* AS FOR PORTMAN... CHARITY MEANS GETTING YOUR ASS TO THE
EVENT - NOT HAVING YOUR ASS KISSED. (FUNNY... I DONATE BLOOD. I'VE YET TO HAVE
A LIMO SENT TO PICK ME UP - EVEN WHEN I WAS DONATING PLATELETS!)
In interviews, foundation officials partly blamed the
2008 recession and difficulties in getting donors to provide operating support
rather than restricted grants for specific programs for the deficits. But
others criticized Mr. Magaziner, who is widely seen within the foundation as
impulsive and lacking organizational skills. On one occasion, Mr. Magaziner
dispatched a team of employees to fly around the world for months gathering
ideas for a climate change proposal that never got off the ground.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
Another time, Magaziner ignored a report — which was
commissioned at significant expense from the consulting firm McKinsey &
Company — on how the foundation could get involved in forestry initiatives.
* AGAIN... HOW MUCH DOES MAGAZINER MAKE FOR THIS GIG...?
Mr. Band repeatedly urged Mr. Clinton to fire Mr.
Magaziner, according to people briefed on the matter. Mr. Clinton refused,
confiding in aides that despite Mr. Magaziner’s managerial weaknesses, he was a
visionary with good intentions.
* ONE... MORE... TIME:
The foundation piled up a $40 million deficit during 2007
and 2008, according to tax returns. Last year, it ran more than $8 million in
the red.
The former president, according to one person who knows
them both, “thinks Ira is brilliant — and brilliant people get away with a lot
in Clinton world.”
* SURE! IT'S NOT BILL'S MONEY!
(*GUFFAW*)
Indeed, by then, Mr. Magaziner had persuaded Mr. Clinton
and the foundation to spin the health initiative off into a separate
organization, with Mr. Magaziner as its chief executive and the Clinton
Foundation appointing a majority of its board members.
* A SECOND SALARY FOR MR. MAGAZINER...???
The financial problems continued. In 2010 and 2011, the
first two years when the health initiative operated as a stand-alone
organization, it ran annual shortfalls of more than $4 million.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
A new chief financial officer, hired in 2010, left eight
months later.
A foundation official said the health initiative had only
three chief financial officers in 10 years and that its financial problem was a
common one in the non-profit world: For all the grant money coming in — more
than $160 million in 2011 — Mr. Magaziner had also had difficulty raising money
for operating costs. But by the end of 2011, the health initiative had expanded
its board, adding two seats. Chelsea Clinton took one.
* HMM... I WONDER WHAT THE PAY AND PERK PACKAGE IS FOR A
MEMBER OF THE CLINTON FOUNDATION BOARD...???
* BY THE WAY, FOLKS... GETTING BACK TO HOW NON-PROFITS
WORK... I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT WHILE CHARITIES HAVE TO SHOW THEIR
ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS AND THAT THE LOWER THEY ARE THE BETTER, BOTTOM LINE...
OPERATING COSTS ARE A COST OF DOING BUSINESS. (THAT'S WHY ONE LOOKS FOR
CHARITIES WHICH SPEND LESS THAN 15% ON OPERATING COSTS TO DONATE TO... THE LESS
THE BETTER!) SO... WHAT'S THE REAL DEAL WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARITY RUNNING IN
THE RED SO OFTEN?
None have drawn more scrutiny in Clinton circles than
Teneo, a firm co-founded in 2009 by Mr. Band, described by some as a kind of
surrogate son to Mr. Clinton. Aspiring to merge corporate consulting, public
relations and merchant banking in a single business, Mr. Band poached
executives from Wall Street, recruited other Clinton aides to join as employees
or advisers and set up shop in a Midtown office formerly belonging to one of
the country’s top hedge funds.
* ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE! (ONE OLIGARCHY THAT IS!)
By 2011, the firm had added a third partner, Declan
Kelly, a former State Department envoy for Mrs. Clinton.
* GOOD OL' DECLAN!
(*CHUCKLING*)
And Mr. Clinton had signed up as a paid adviser to the
firm.
* YET ANOTHER PAYCHECK FOR GOOD OL' CHARITABLE BILL!
Teneo worked on retainer, charging monthly fees as high
as $250,000, according to current and former clients.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
The firm recruited clients who were also Clinton
Foundation donors, while Mr. Band and Mr. Kelly encouraged others to become new
foundation donors. Its marketing materials highlighted Mr. Band’s relationship
with Mr. Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative, where Mr. Band sat on the
board of directors through 2011 and remains an adviser. Some Clinton aides and
foundation employees began to wonder where the foundation ended and Teneo
began.
* ISN'T THIS KINDA HOW THE MAFIA WORKS...???
Those worries intensified after the collapse of MF
Global, the international brokerage firm led by Jon S. Corzine, a former
governor of New Jersey, in the fall of 2011.
* AH, YES... JOHN CORZINE... FORMER U.S. SENATOR (D-NJ),
FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR (D)... SCUMBAG EXTRAORDINAIRE!
The firm had been among Teneo’s earliest clients, and its
collapse over bad European investments — while paying $125,000 a month for the
firm’s public relations and financial advice — drew Teneo and the Clintons
unwanted publicity.
Mr. Clinton ended his advisory role with Teneo in March
2012 after an article appeared in The New York Post suggesting that Mrs.
Clinton was angry over the MF Global controversy.
* ANGRY...? ANGRY AT BEING SEEN AS INVOLVED OR ANGRY
ABOUT FELLOW DEMOCRAT HIGH-FLIER JON CORZINE BEING OUTED AS A FRIGGIN'
CROOK...?!?! (I WONDER... WAS BILL ANGRY AT CORZINE FOR HIS ACTIONS AS OPPOSED
TO JUST FOR GETTING CAUGHT?)
A spokesman for Mr. Clinton denied the report. But in a
statement released afterward, Mr. Clinton announced that he would no longer be
paid by Teneo.
* WHAT A GUY! WHAT A GUY!
(*SNORTING WHILE SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
He also praised Mr. Band effusively, crediting him with
keeping the foundation afloat and expressing hopes that Mr. Band would continue
to advise the Global Initiative.
* SHOULDN'T BILL CLINTON HAVE THE SKILLS TO "KEEP
THE FOUNDATION AFLOAT?" HOW'BOUT HILLARY...??? CHELSEA...??? (WHAT ARE HER
DEGREES IN ANYWAY...???)
“I couldn’t have accomplished half of what I have in my
post-presidency without Doug Band,” Mr. Clinton said in the statement.
* ACCOMPLISHED...? WHAT...? AMASSING A PERSONAL FORTUNE?
GETTING AWAY WITH THE MARC RICH PARDON? BEING HEAD OF A FOUNDATION THAT PILED
UP A $40 MILLION DEFICIT DURING 2007 AND 2008 WHILE RUNNING AN $8 MILLION-PLUS
DEFICIT LAST YEAR...?!?!
Mr. Band left his paid position with the foundation in
late 2010, but has remained involved with C.G.I., as have a number of Teneo
clients, like Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical and UBS Americas.
(Standard Chartered, a British financial services company
that paid a $340 million fine to New York regulators last year to settle
charges that it had laundered money from Iran, is a Teneo client and a sponsor
of the 2012 global initiative.)
In March 2012, David Crane, the chief executive of NRG,
an energy company, led a widely publicized trip with Mr. Clinton to Haiti,
where they toured green energy and solar power projects that NRG finances
through a $1 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative.
* THAT NRG FINANCES THROUGH A $1 MILLION COMMITMENT TO
THE CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE... (WHICH NRG THEN PROFITS FROM...???)
Officials said the foundation has established clear
guidelines for the Clinton Global Initiative to help prevent any favoritism or
special treatment of particular donors or sponsors.
* AGAIN... WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE GUY WHO PARDONED MARC
RICH! WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE GUY WHO PUT HIS WIFE - AND DAUGHTER - ON THE
PAYROLL! (HOW'BOUT CHELSEA'S HUSBAND... DOES HE MAKE MONEY OFF THIS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION AS WELL..???)
Teneo was not the only worry: other events thrust the
foundation into internal turmoil. In 2011, a wave of mid-level program staff
members departed, reflecting the frustration of much of the foundation’s policy
personnel with the old political hands running the organization. Around the
time of the Simpson Thacher review, Mr. Lindsey suffered a stroke, underscoring
concerns about the foundation’s line of succession. John D. Podesta, a chief of
staff in Mr. Clinton’s White House, stepped in for several months as temporary
chief executive.
While much attention has focused on Mrs. Clinton’s
emerging role within the foundation, advisers to the family say her daughter’s
growing involvement could prove more critical in the years ahead.
* YEP... I'LL BET!
After years of pursuing other career paths, including
working at McKinsey & Company and a hedge fund, Ms. Clinton, 33, has begun
to assert herself as a force within the foundation.
* KIND OF LIKE A ROYAL FAMILY... HUH? PRINCESS CHELSEA!
Her perspective is shaped far more than her parents’ by
her time in the world of business...
* OH, PLEASE! TRADING ON ONE'S FAMILY ISN'T
"BUSINESS." BESIDES WINING, DINING, ENTERTAINING, AND INFERRING THAT
SHE HAS HER PARENTS BEHIND HER AND THEREFORE POTENTIALLY BEHIND HER
"CLIENTS," WHAT "BUSINESS" HAS CHELSEA DONE?
Chelsea Clinton formally joined the foundation’s board in
2011, marking her growing role there — and the start of intensifying tensions
between her and Mr. Band. Several people close to the Clintons said that she
became increasingly concerned with the negative impact Mr. Band’s outside
business might have on her father’s work and that she cited concerns raised
during the internal review about potential conflicts of interest involving
Teneo.
It was Ms. Clinton who suggested that the newly installed
chief executive, Eric Braverman, be considered for the job during a nearly
two-year search. A friend and a former colleague from McKinsey, Mr. Braverman,
38, had helped the Clintons with philanthropic projects in Haiti after the
earthquake there. And his hiring coincided with Ms. Clinton’s appointment as
the vice chairwoman of the foundation board, where she will bear significant
responsibility for steering her family’s philanthropy, both in the causes it
tackles and in the potential political and financial conflicts it must avoid.
* WOW... JOINS THE BOARD IN 2011... NOW VICE-CHAIR!
* IN ANY CASE... HER ADVICE SEEMS REASONABLE. (GOOD FOR
HER!)
Over the years, the foundation has dived into virtually
any cause that sparked Mr. Clinton’s interest: childhood obesity in the United
States, sustainable farming in South America, mentoring entrepreneurs, saving
elephants from poaching, and more. That list will shift soon as Mrs. Clinton
and Chelsea build their staffs to focus on issues including economically
empowering women...
* BE THE WIFE OF A PRESIDENT...???
* BE THE DAUGHTER OF A PRESIDENT...???
(*CHUCKLING*)
...and combating infant mortality.
* WHILE ALSO FUNDING ABORTION ON DEMAND...??? (JUST
CURIOUS!)
In the coming months, as Mrs. Clinton mulls a 2016
presidential bid, the foundation could also serve as a base for her to home in
on issues and to build up a stable of trusted staff members who could form the
core of a political campaign.
* NON-PROFIT FOUNDATION RESOURCES GOING TOWARDS
FOR-PROFIT (GETTING ELECTED!) POLITICS.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
* WONDERFUL!
(*SNORT*)
Mrs. Clinton’s staff at the foundation’s headquarters
includes Maura Pally, a veteran aide who advised her 2008 presidential campaign
and worked at the State Department, and Madhuri Kommareddi, a former policy
aide to President Obama.
Dennis Cheng, Mrs. Clinton’s deputy chief of protocol at
the State Department and a finance director of her presidential campaign, will
oversee the endowment drive, which some of the Clintons’ donors already
describe as a dry run for 2016.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
And Mrs. Clinton’s personal staff of roughly seven people
— including Huma Abedin, wife of the New York mayoral candidate Anthony D.
Weiner — will soon relocate from a cramped Washington office to the
foundation’s headquarters. They will work on organizing Mrs. Clinton’s packed
schedule of paid speeches to trade groups and awards ceremonies and assist in
the research and writing of Mrs. Clinton’s memoir about her time at the State
Department, to be published by Simon & Schuster next summer.
* BTW, FOLKS... FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T BELIEVE THAT ANTI-CLINTON FORCES ARE DEEPLY EMBEDDED WITHIN THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT AND THE LARGER DEMOCRATIC PARTY "SPECIAL INTEREST CIRCUS," UNDERSTAND THAT THIS NYT ARTICLE IS THE FIRST SHOT OF A DEMOCRATIC PARTY CIVIL WAR WHICH WILL PLAY OUT OVER THE NEXT THREE YEARS.
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