Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Clinton Foundation Act

Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Clinton Foundation Act

Postby admin » Fri Oct 28, 2016 8:38 pm

Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Foundation Activities
by Douglas Jay Band
11/16/2011

MEMORANDUM
November 16, 2011
Attorney-Client Privilege

To: Victoria Bjorklund, Simpson Thatcher Jennifer Reynoso, Simpson Thatcher

Copy: President Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation Founder Chelsea Clinton, Board Member, Clinton Foundation Terry McAuliffe, Board Member, Clinton Foundation Bruce Lindsey, Board Member, Clinton Foundation John Podesta, Special Advisor to the Clinton Foundation Board

Re: Background on Teneo and Foundation Activities

Cheryl, John and Terry suggested that I provide you with this memorandum to share background on Teneo, a corporate entity established in June 2011, which subsumed DK Consulting, as well as about Clinton Foundation matters (the Foundation).

In June 2009, DK Consulting was founded by Declan Kelley. [1] Mr. Kelly served as COO of FTI Consulting until June 2009, when he stepped down and established DK Consulting. At that time, he also became the United States Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland. Pursuant to the terms of his exit agreement with FTI and consistent with the ethics agreement of his uncompensated special government employee appointment at the State Department, Mr. Kelly retained and continued to provide services to three paying clients (Coke, Dow, and UBS) and one pro bono client (Allstate). In late 2009, Declan retained me as a consultant to DK Consulting to help support the needs of these clients.

In May 2011, Mr. Kelly resigned his Envoy position at the State Department. In June 2011, Mr. Kelly and I founded Teneo Strategies; simultaneously, Mr. Kelly closed DK Consulting and shifted its clients to Teneo. Additionally, his non compete with FTI expired and he was free to begin working with his former clients which he had built over his 15 year career totaling several hundred around the world. By the time he sold his company he had built Financial Dynamics into the largest financial communications company in the world with 1000 employees and offices in 28 countries. Mr. Kelly had by then also represented or advised a large number of Fortune 500 companies in one form or another.

Given concerns that have been expressed about the role of Teneo in the Foundation’s and the President’s activities, as well as regarding support I provide for President’s for-profit business activities, I wanted to take this opportunity to share information and help clarify my activities on behalf of the President –both on behalf of non-profit Foundation activities and the management of the his for-profit business opportunities.

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.

Foundation Fundraising

Since its inception, the Foundation has raised funds to cover its infrastructure and operating costs. In 2001, after Terry McAuliffe raised the initial $100 million to build the Library, an additional $100 million needed to be raised to complete the $165 million building and fund the library endowment required by the United State Government. Funds also then needed to be raised to fund the Foundation’s operating costs, which today annually runs near $20 million. That figure doesn’t include some of the initiatives within the foundation or many of the other initiatives President Clinton chooses to incorporate into the foundation activities such as Katrina, the Tsunami and Haiti.

The Foundation has engaged an array of fundraising consultants over the past decade to help raise these funds; however, these engagements have not resulted in significant new dollars for the Foundation. For example, the Foundation paid John O’Donnell and Associates $700,000 in fees but it had limited success in raising new dollars for the Foundation; in other instances, the Foundation has paid consultants a percentage of the funds they have raised. The Foundation also has hired employees with development experience ( e.g., the Foundation hired Dennis Cheng this year) to fundraise for the Foundation. Rightly or wrongly, I believe – given the Foundation’s need to raise funds, the willingness of the partner owners of Teneo to help fundraise, and my historical role in carrying the majority of the fundraising burden – that Teneo should help raise funds for the Foundation, which it has. To the best of my knowledge, other individuals within the foundation who have or have had outside consulting engagements or affiliations with law firms or business, those have not been leveraged into support for the Foundation.

$100M Infrastructure and Endowment Fundraising

In 2001, the Foundation did not have the internal capacity to raise the $100M to complete the library building and endowment costs. Accordingly, Justin Cooper and I developed and implemented a strategy [2] to help raise the bulk of these funds from individuals, corporate entities, and foreign government contributing on behalf of their nations. This effort, which raised well over $150 million, much of it from people who did not know President Clinton when he was in office, took 7 years to complete.

Annual Operating Cost Fundraising

As stated above, the Foundation today has an annual operating budget in excess of $20 million. Historically, the Foundation has not had the resident capacity to raise these funds annually; though we in the past engaged development consultant to help. To raise the more than $120 million the Foundation has used to operate since 2001 – including funding for the now affiliated entities, Justin and I have helped to raise the majority of the funds. Since 2006, approximately $6-11 million of the Foundation’s operating costs have been covered by net proceeds from CGI ($46 million total to date). CGI and our fundraising efforts have generated sufficient funds to establish a quasi endowment, which today stands at $18 or so million. [3] Since 2003, we have developed strategies to raise the approximately $6-10 million a year gap between the net proceeds from CGI and our annual operating budget. This gap is largely funded through direct solicitations by Justin and me, some through speeches the President gives on behalf of the Foundation, through events, finding partners throughout the world to donate if we attend there dinner or event, auctions and so on.

Teneo

Teneo was established in June 2011. It has three partner/owners – Declan Kelly, Paul Keary and Doug Band. We have offices in 3 places, and employ more than 65 individuals. Teneo provides the following services to its 18 clients: merchant and investment banking services, corporate restructuring, public relations and communication services, and strategic advising services. As of 30 October 2011, we have 20 clients, a list of which is enclosed.

Cognizant of the Foundation’s significant fundraising needs as well my role as the primary fundraiser for the Foundation for the past 11 years, as a partner in Teneo, Mr. Kelley and I have asked and encouraged our clients to contribute to the Foundation. [4] Through our efforts, we have brought new donors to the Foundation and garnered increased giving from existing donors. [5] Additionally, the foundation donors require significant maintenance to keep them engaged and supportive of the foundation. We have sought to make that the case when we could particularly as we are thinking more long term at things such as estate gifts and planned giving for the foundation.

Leveraging Teneo for the Foundation

Tenor Clients Who are New Large Donors to the Foundation:

Below are Teneo clients who either are new to the Foundation or who previously had a more limited giving relationship with the Foundation ( e.g., CGI membership). As Teneo partners, we have solicited our clients to contribute or to increase their contributions to the Foundation.

The Coca-Cola Company --- Total Giving: $4,330,000 [6]
2004: $250,000 year total – for the Operating Fund
2006: $30,000 year total – for CGI 2007: $30,000 year total – for CGI membership
 2008: $20,000 year total – for CGI membership
2009: $1,000,000 year total – for Operating Fund
2010: $3,000,000 year total – for Operating Fund

Mr. Kelly has advised the CEO of Coca Cola for years; he also enjoys a close relationship with one of the company’s largest shareholders Don Keogh. Mr. Kelly introduced the CEO of Coca Cola, Muhtar Kent, to President Clinton in January 2009 at a meeting he arranged at President Clinton’s home in DC. Over the course of 2009, Mr. Kelly cultivated Mr. Kent’s interest in the Foundation – first in CGI and the Foundation. Mr. Kelly asked Mr. Kent to give $5 million to the Foundation, which he pledged in early 2010. Mr. Kelly has collected $3 million of that pledge to date and he and I both will secure the remaining $2 million in the near future. [7]

The Dow Chemical Company – Total Giving: $780,000
2007: $15,000 year total – for CGI membership
2008: $20,000 year total – for CGI membership
2009: $40,000 year total – for CGI membership
2010: $190,000 year total – $40,000 to CGI membership; $150,000 to General Operating Fund
2011: $515,000 year total –for CGI;
$40,000 for membership
$225,000 to sponsor CGI America
$250,000 to sponsor CGI Annual Meeting

Mr. Kelly has advised Andrew Liveris for years. In August of 2009, Mr. Kelly invited Mr. Liveris to play golf with President Clinton and me. [8] Mr. Kelly subsequently asked Dow to become a CGI sponsor at the $500,000 level, which they did, as well as making a $150,000 donation to the Foundation for President Clinton to attend a Dow dinner in Davos. To date Mr. Kelly has secured Dow’s support for CGI 2012 for $250,000 as well as an oral commitment to host a CGI America event in Midland Michigan if President Clinton so chooses.

UBS– Total Giving: $540,000 (since 2005)
2005: $25,000 year total – for Katrina
2006: $15,000 year total – for CGI membership
2007: $90,000 year total – for CGI membership
2008: $20,000 year total – for CGI membership
2010: $20,000 year total – for CGI membership
2011: $370,000 year total – $20,000 for CGI membership;
$350,000 for Clinton Economic Opportunity

Bob Mccann is the head of UBS Wealth Management and a long time client and close friend of Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kelly introduced Mr. Mccann to President Clinton at an American Ireland Fund event in 2009. Mr. Kelly subsequently asked Mr. Mccann to support the Foundation, which he did via the Clinton Economic Opportunity Initiative. Mr. Kelly also encouraged Mr. Mccann to invite President Clinton to give several paid speeches, which he has done.

The American Ireland Fund (AIF) – Total Giving: $350,000
2010: $250,000 year total – for the Operating Fund
2011: $100,000 year total – for the Operating Fund

Mr. Kelly is a trustee of AIF; he has urged and ensured that the AIF is a significant donor to the Foundation. Mr. Kelly has successfully secured $350,000 to date. Mr. Kelly also will continue giving in the coming years as well through the AIF.

The All-State Corporation – Total Giving: $265,000 ($500,000 pledge).
2008: $15,000 year total – for Center Sponsorships
2011: $250,000 year total – for CGI (Annual Meeting sponsorship)

Mr. Kelly brought Joan Walker, his long time friend, to meet President Clinton at his home in Chappaqua in 2010. Mr. Kelly then asked her to be a Foundation donor; she agreed to sponsor CGI for 2 years at $250,000 a year starting in 2011.

Barclays Capital --- Total Giving: $1,100,000 (since 2008)
2008: $40,000 year total – for CGI membership
2009: $40,000 year total – for CGI membership
2010: $520,000 year total – for CGI membership and sponsorship
2011: $500,000 year total – for CGI sponsorship

Teneo does limited work with Barclays. In 2010, Teneo partners encouraged Barclays give $500,000 a year to CGI, which they have done for two years to date.

Indo Gold – Total Giving: $100,000 with a $150,000 commitment
2010: $50,000 year total – for CGI (Annual Meeting sponsorship)
2011: $50,000 year total – for CGI (Annual Meeting sponsorship)

Indo gold is a small Teneo client that we asked to become a CGI sponsor.

BHP Billiton Limited – Total Giving: $20,000 for CGI 2011.

BHP, one of the world’s largest companies, had never sent anyone to attend CGI nor has any relationship with the Foundation. A client of Teneo’s since early 2011, Teneo partners encouraged them to send a senior person to CGI in 2011 to begin building a stronger relationship between BHP and the Foundation/President Clinton.

Teneo [9] Total Giving – $100,000
2011 – $100,000

Teneo donated $100,000 to the Foundation in 2011 and made two CGI commitments.

Tenor Clients Who are Pre-existing Donors to the Foundation:

The following are current Teneo clients whose relationship with President Clinton and the Clinton Foundation pre-dated their client relationship with Teneo.

GEMS Education – Total Giving: $780,000 (since 2008)
2008: $5,000 year total – for CGI
2010: $500,000 year total – for CGI Sponsorship
2011: $275,000 year total – $250,000 for CGI

Gems approached President Clinton in 2009 to seek his personal services as an advisor to the company. Justin and I convinced them to initiate a relationship to Foundation, which they did; that relationship has grown into a business relationship for President Clinton and a donor relationship for CGI.

The Rockefeller Foundation – Total Giving: $4,276,841 (since 2006)
2006: $350,000 year total – for CGI (Annual Meeting sponsorship)
2007: $350,000 year total – for CGI (Annual Meeting sponsorship)
2008: $2,050,000 year total – $350,000 for CGI (Meeting sponsorship), $1,700,000 for CCI
2009: $1,176,016 year total – $350,000 for CGI (Meeting sponsorship),
$300,000 for CCI, $526,016 for HIV/AIDS (Rwanda)
2010: $350,825 year total – $350,000 for CGI (Annual Meeting sponsorship), $850 for Haiti

Mr. Kelly was introduced to Judy Rodin, the head of the Rockefeller foundation, by Andrew Liveris. Judy and Andrew are close friends and Judy asked Andrew who could help and advise her and the Rockefeller foundation. Andrew suggested she meet with Mr. Kelly which she did and quickly hired him to advise her and the foundation. Mr. Kelly has become a close advisor to Judy Rodin and the Rockefeller foundation which has been supportive of the Foundation for years. Mr. Kelly is counseling Ms. Rodin on where to direct Rockefeller funds for 2012; Mr. Kelly is seeking to obtain more support for the Foundation.

Laureate International Universities – Total Giving: $1,401,332
2009: $1,150,000 – for CGI ($400,000 for CGI Asia sponsorship, $750,000 for CGI Annual Meeting sponsorship)
2010: $201,332 year total – $200,000 for CGI (Annual Meeting sponsorship), $1,332 of which for CBHF
2011: $50,000 year total – for CGI University

Laureate is a Foundation relationship that evolved into a personal advisory services business relationship for President Clinton. I have managed this relations and, since 2011, Teneo partners have helped manage this relationship, which is very time-consuming. Laureate pays President Clinton $3.5 million annually to provide advice and serve as their Honorary Chairman.

Teneo Client’s who have no relationship to the Foundation

The remainder of the clients have no relationship with the Foundation and were either clients of Declans in his previous position or were clients of employees of Teneo that they have brought with them to the firm.

ATT
Black Diamond
Bank of America [10]
Firebird Liberty Mutual
Stone Harbor
Frank Stronach
TiVo
UBS AG
Mylan

For-Profit Activity of President Clinton (i.e., Bill Clinton, Inc.)

Independent of our fundraising and decision-making activities on behalf of the Foundation, we have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities – including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements. In that context, we have in effect served as agents, lawyers, managers and implementers to secure speaking, business and advisory service deals. In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family – for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like. Neither Justin nor I are separately compensated for these activities ( e.g., we do not receive a fee for, or percentage [11] of, the more than $50 million in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date or the $66 million in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements).

With respect to business deals for his advisory services, Justin and I found, developed and brought to President Clinton multiple arrangements for him to accept or reject. Of his current 4 arrangements, we secured all of them; and, we have helped manage and maintain all of his for-profit business relationships. Since 2001, President Clinton’s business arrangements have yielded more than $30 million for him personally, with $66 million to be paid out over the next nine years should he choose to continue with the current engagements.

President Clinton Paid Speeches: In support of the President’s paid speech activity, Teneo partners have created and secured the following paid speeches for President Clinton.

UBS – $900,000 - $450,000 in 2011; $450,000 to be paid in 2012 Mr. Kelly asked UBS to offer President Clinton paid speeches based upon a concept he developed with Bob Mccann for the firm’s clients. In addition to the $540,000 UBS contributed to the Foundation, Teneo partners have secured a commitment from UBS for President Clinton to deliver three additional paid speeches for them in 2012, should he choose to do so.

Ericson – $750,000 plus $400,000 for a private plane After meeting one of Director of Ericsson on a business trip, I learned that they were sponsoring an inaugural event in China. I pursued them to invite President Clinton to China to speak at this event. I negotiated a fee for President Clinton of $1 million dollars to speak for two one-hour sessions in Hong Kong, which he did this past weekend. In addition to the $1 million speaking fee, I negotiated additional coverage of the cost of a private plane.

BHP – $175,000 in 2012 BHP is hosting a board of directors meeting in June of 2012. We encouraged them to do it in NY and pay Presdent Clinton through Walker. The offer is currently at the state department being vetted.

Lightining -- President Clinton recently turned down a 2 year, $8 million offer to become Honorary Chairman of Mati Kochavi’s new media business venture. Mati is a former client of Teneo who we were referred to through Marty Edelman. I went back to Mati and proposed a new structure without any business connectivity other than 4 speeches for $1 million and $250k to the foundation should President Clinton choose to accept it. That would also include any broadcasting of foundation events or anything President Clinton would like exposure for on his website. This offer will be presented to President Clinton in Walker speech invitations which he can choose to decline or accept with no role or relationship with the company.

Barclays -- Teneo cultivated its client relationship to help secure two paid speeches in 2010 and 2011 totaling more than $700,000.

Other Matters:

Justin Cooper and I have, for the past ten years, served as the primary contact and point of management for President Clinton’s activities – which span from political activity ( e.g., campaigning on behalf of candidates for elected office), to business activity ( e.g., providing advisory services to business entities with which he has a consulting arrangement), to Foundation activity ( e.g., supporting his engagement on behalf of the initiatives and affiliated entities of the Foundation), to his speech activity (e.g., soliciting speeches and staffing and supporting him on speech travel) to his book activity ( e.g., editing his books and arranging and supporting him on book tours) to supporting family/personal needs ( e.g., securing in-kind private airplane travel, in-kind vacation stays, and supporting family business and personal needs). In the unique roles in which we have had the opportunity to serve, we have been able to help balance the multiplicity of activities that demand his time and engagement to best fulfill his personal, political, business, official former President, and Foundation/non-profit goals.

We appreciate the unorthodox nature of our roles, and the goal of seeking ways to ensure we are implementing best practices to protect the 501(c)3status of the Foundation. [12] As we go forward, we welcome the opportunity to identify better strategies for serving the President, the Foundation and its affiliated entities.  
_______________

Notes:

1. Mr. Kelly was one of Secretary Clinton’s top fundraisers in 2008, raising in excess of $2 million for her Presidential campaign; he also raised funds for her 2000 and 2006 Senate campaigns as well as for President Obama in 2008.

2. This strategy included engaging the President’s time to undertake specific speeches, events, targeted donor meetings, and other activities, after which Justin and I would follow-up to seek support for the Foundation.

3. Each year we raised sufficient funds to both operate the Foundation and generate excess capacity, which has been set-aside in the quasi endowment. We have also been faced with events that have transpired that required unplanned funding ( e.g. , the Tsunami, the Gujarat earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake). We have been fortunate to raise funds to cover these unanticipated costs and to help defray additional Foundation costs by securing in-kind gifts of private airplanes for Foundation trips, office space for CGI (saving $5 million over 5 years), $2 million through an arrangement that I made with Sonia Gardner to relieve the Foundation ‘s obligation to the AHA initiative, $raising 21 million for the 65 th birthday, $2 million when the President recovered from his heart surgery and many other arrangements of this kind to fundraise. We have achieved these outcomes primarily through developing, cultivating and maintaining a global network of donors. The Foundation has had to draw down on the quasi-endowment, which originally stood at over $35 million as of 2007, to fund the $28M in unauthorized overruns in CHAI operating costs several times, and to fund the creation and operation of CCI for $7.6 million. Today, the quasi endowment stands at well over $20 million.

4. To date, Teneo partners have raised in excess of $8 million for the Foundation, more than $5.25 million of which is in the bank. Teneo partners also have generated over $3 million in paid speeches for President Clinton, $1.25 million of which has been paid to him thus far.

5. Teneo partners raise funds for the Foundation and contribute time, staff, resources and relationships of the firm to help generate these donations to[7] the Foundation.

6. Coca Cola has an additional $2 million commitment outstanding.

7. Mr. Kelly also was instrumental in my appointment by Mr. Kent to serve on the Coca Cola International Public Policy Advisory Board. Through this relationship, I have been able to get Coca Cola to sponsor many other Foundation initiatives and events such as the Hope Classic next year, supplying water to Haiti, investing in the Haiti hope juice as well as help individuals around the world, and support candidates running for office that President Clinton was supporting.

8. Mr. Liveris provided the Dow plane to fly President Clinton and his staff to and from California for our trip to, and from, North Korea. As a private trip, the Foundation had to pay the costs of airfare; Mr. Liveris’ in kind contribution saved the Foundation in excess of $100,000.

9. An issue that was raised to my attention was Teneo’s use of space on the 5 th floor of the Sheraton during CGI, a common occurrence, as I understand it for people to do at CGI. Teneo hosted 15 meetings in that room during the 4 days of CGI, primarily with the clients identified in this memo. I assumed CGI sent a bill for that room; when I recently learned we had not been billed, I directed that Teneo resources be used to pay any and all costs associated with the room they used during CGI. I believed, rightly or wrongly, that Teneo’s further development of its clients to be bigger donors to the Foundation and CGI was an important priority.

10. The Clinton’s have used Bank of America since 1992 in Little Rock for campaigns and various banking services including managing the foundation’s accounts. That local branch of the bank has supported the foundation largely because they have profited quite heavily given the 20-year relationship and the heavy amount of interest the Foundation was paying on the tens of millions of dollars it had to borrow in order to complete the library by November of 2004. That support came mostly in 2001 and 2003. Teneo represents Bank of America through the Ceo from the national organization and is a completely separate relationship established through a relationship of a Teneo employee.

11. For example, the Harry Walker agency, the President’s speaking agent, receives a10% fee on every paid speech without regard to whether they originated the speech. The agency conservatively estimates that in the last decade, $20 million in speeches for the President have derived sole from Justin and my efforts.

12. For example, I understand our policy on uncompensated (comped) passes to attend CGI is being reviewed. Historically, CGI has accommodated as many paying members as we can identify; the majority of members that attend are comped. In the absence of an established policy, there are a variety of methods used to determine who receives comped passes. We have comped individuals that fall primarily into the following categories: spouse of CGI employees, government employees, potential donors being cultivated – including target Teneo clients, President Clinton’s family and friends, family and friends of Foundation employees, guest requests of foreign dignitaries, and celebrities. As the Foundation identified a formal policy for comped passes, we encourage the creation of a policy that will be commonly applied – as opposed to applied by exception. We are happy to help identify the range of instances where comped passes benefit the goals of the Foundation so the final policy operates in service of the Foundation’s goals.
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Re: Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Foundation Activit

Postby admin » Sat Oct 29, 2016 1:09 am

(Morning Joe) Destroys Corrupt Clinton Foundation (Laughable) "Total Corruption"
by Real News
10/27/16

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Transcript:

[Mika Brzezinski] Alright, a lot of big stories to get to.

[Joe Scarborough ] Whoa! This Clinton, Inc. thing has just exploded!

[Mika Brzezinski] Wikileaks. Okay. Let’s go through this.

[Joe Scarborough] Hold on!

[Mika Brzezinski] This is huge!

[Joe Scarborough] Look at this! New York Times: “Donations to the Foundation Vexed Top Clinton Aides.”

[Mika Brzezinski] Wall Street Journal.

[Joe Scarborough] And you know, the interesting thing about this is it verifies what I think you said yesterday, that Philippe and everybody were just absolutely horrified what they had gotten themselves in to. That they walked into this campaign with this. And I guess Philippe at one point said, “There’s no fixing this. There’s no quick fix. There is no good answer." Bill Clinton, Inc.! The Washington Post article is absolutely fascinating.

[Mika Brzezinski] Alright, let’s go through it.

[Joe Scarborough] $66 Million dollars to them personally. They’re like bragging.

[Nicolle Wallace] Do you think they’re hiring? $66 Million Dollars!

[Joe Scarborough] They’re bragging in the memo that they can shake down the same corporations that they’re taking Foundation money for, that they can shake them down for $66 Million dollars for “Bill Clinton, Inc.,” for Bill and Hillary Clinton personally. Does that confirm what you and a lot of Clinton skeptics that supported Bernie Sanders were worried about all along?

[Eddie Glaude, Jr.] Well it certainly – yes! Right? I mean, one of the things that the New York Times said was there’s no clear evidence of quid pro quo, right? But one of the things we do know is that it certainly confirms a deep suspicion that there’s an ethical deficit that defines how they operate in the political domain, and how they operate generally. That there’s an ethical and moral deficit.

[Joe Scarborough] And they’re actually bragging about being able to shake down Foundation clients for Bill Clinton money! Doug Band is bragging about it. And it’s not like Doug Band dreamed this up on his own. He was doing his bosses’ bidding.

[William Russell "Willie" Geist] You know, what’s really interesting, this was initiated by Chelsea. Chelsea Clinton went to the family’s attorneys, and said she was worried that Doug Band was hustling business and funneling it to her father.

[Nicolle Wallace] That happened when her name went on the Foundation, I think when she had a bigger role.

[Joe Scarborough] Is there anybody who believes that Doug Band, Mika, would be doing anything that Bill and Hillary Clinton didn’t want Doug Band to do?

[Mika Brzezinski] No. I know. This all starts with Bill Clinton. And I also think it’s one of those situations, when you really look at this, and we’ll go through it point by point, you have to be careful about throwing stones. Because I love the way everyone calls the Trumps, you know, “sleazy, trashy,” whatever, because of a picture, and you know money that they take from one company and give to another as a donation as opposed to their own money. All legal, but still they consider it “trashy” and “sleazy”. And you [Eddie] call this “ethically challenged.” It’s so funny that nobody talks like that about the Democrats.

[Joe Scarborough] This is sleazy, and everyone knows it’s sleazy. You’re trading in public service while someone is Secretary of State –-

[Mika Brzezinski] Larger amounts of money, and the world is used, as opposed to –-

[Joe Scarborough] Yeah, you’re shaking down the world for $66 million dollars, instead of a Rolex watch, or a life-size portrait. I mean, somebody is going to win a Pulitzer Prize for finding a life-size portrait of Donald Trump that he paid money for with the Foundation. We’re talking about $66 million dollars here, maybe 100 million –-

[Mika Brzezinski] I call that more than “ethically challenged.”

[Eddie Glaude, Jr.] I said, “ethical and moral deficit.”

[Joe Scarborough] That’s what he said!

[Mika Brzezinski] Ohhh!

[Nicolle Wallace] And I feel like we shouldn’t -– you’re just elegant. I feel like you’re elegant.

[Mika Brzezinski] For Trump?

[Joe Scarborough] He’s elegant.

[NEW YORK TIMES: CONCERNS OVER DONATIONS VEXED CLINTON’S TOP AIDES]

[Mika Brzezinski] The Clintons, and the Foundation bearing their name, are facing fresh scrutiny over extremely thin lines between the Organization and the Family’s multimillion dollar fortune. The revelation stems from the latest release of emails by Wikileaks, allegedly hacked from the personal account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta. In a purported 2011 memo from longtime aide to former President Bill Clinton, Doug Band lays out extensive fundraising efforts by him and his company Teneo on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, and the Clintons personally.

[THE WASHINGTON POST: TOP AIDE’S LEAKED MEMO DETAILS ‘BILL CLINTON INC.’]

The Washington Post reports that Band “detailed the circle of enrichment in which he raised money for the Clinton Foundation from top tier corporations such as Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola that were clients of his firm, while pressing many of those same donors to provide personal income to the former President. The memo, which came during Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State, goes on to discuss how that work for the Foundation could be used to extract large speaking fees and other paid work for the former President, even referring to the operation as “Bill Clinton, Incorporated.” The Post adds that the contracts for the Clintons would pay out $66 million dollars over nine years if the deals remained in place.”

Eddie’s shaking his head, so I’m wondering whether there are new words coming from him like, “damn!” A part of the memo allegedly reads: “Independent of our fundraising and decision-making activities on behalf of the Foundation, we have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities -– including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements.” “In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family -– for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.”

[Joe Scarborough] Nicolle, what you do think? How bad is this?

[Nicolle Wallace] Well, it’s not good.

[Joe Scarborough] Is that what they would say if the Bushes did this?

[Nicolle Wallace] Um, listen, the Bushes would never do this.

[Joe Scarborough] I know they wouldn’t.

[Nicolle Wallace] I think it’s so interesting what Willie said, that this came about because Chelsea Clinton started asking questions. And one of the other revelations I think that came out before this story did, is that she’s been called a “spoiled brat.” She doesn’t sound very bratty to me. She sounds pretty insightful.

[Mika Brzezinski] Uh hmm.

[Joe Scarborough] So Willie, this says basically everything that Ron Fournier has been saying for a year now. “Follow the money.” A source inside the Clinton camp -– oh, there it is: “Follow the money, my Clinton source said in 2015. Follow the money.” I mean, it’s trading in public service for hundreds of millions of dollars personally.

[William Russell “Willie” Geist] And again, just like the emails -–

[Joe Scarborough] And by the way, forget the State Department. Maybe they’re using the State Department. But using relief work in Haiti: “Hey, can you help the suffering in Haiti? It’s really important. Thanks. Listen, could you also give Bill Clinton $500,000 to give a speech in your corporate luxury box?"

[Mika Brzezinski] Yuck!

[William Russell “Willie” Geist] The emails also show that just like you talked about yesterday, that the people around her are well aware of the problem. I mean, Huma Abedin talked about how the King of Morocco gave $12 million dollars, right, to the Clinton Foundation, so Hillary goes to Morocco. And Huma writes in one of these emails about Hillary: “She created this mess and she knows it.” Everybody, the people closest to Hillary Clinton know, and Hillary Clinton must know on some level, that all of these things will not look good when you go into a presidential campaign. At best they are unethical. And now, again, the question has always been “Has it led to policy change?” “Was something done differently by Secretary Clinton as Secretary of State as a result of donations made to her and the Foundation and Bill Clinton?” That line hasn’t been drawn directly, yet again, I think if you find that line in the next 10 days, you’ve got a massive story in the election. This is big on its own, but if you find –-

[Mika Brzezinski] In a kind of morally-deficit kind of way, sleazy way, it’s gross! It’s gross! My father would find, like he just does not get how this has constantly happened in the Clinton empire, and even from connections to Wall Street, the Foundation, these thin lines, that it’s just perplexing to him that this seems to be acceptable.

[Joe Scarborough] Um, Mark Halperin, I actually find myself this morning stunned by how crude, how crude, and how crudely drawn out this was about the blurring of lines, of using a Foundation that you say you’re setting up to help the world, and at the same time you’re bragging about how you’re going to blur the lines between the money raised for the Foundation on the one hand, and on the other raise $66 million dollars for Bill Clinton, Inc. They’re bragging about it.

[Mark Halperin] There’s no question that if you’ve ever been to CGI, you see business going on. And that Bill Clinton, Doug Band, and others, enrich themselves by leveraging those relationships, and by offering access to people in the context of CGI. As Willie said, the big missing piece here, which doesn’t diminish scrutiny on the other things you’ve been talking about, is, “Did any of those people get stuff from the government when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State?” We already know they got the ability to rub elbows with people in the Clinton orbit. And I guarantee you, while some of those companies were motivated by doing good, some of them were motivated by at least also doing well.

[Joe Scarborough] Okay, so we have two different quid pro quos, two different blurring of the lines. We’ve got this one, the State Department, the world is talking about. We’ll see. One of these days we’ll find out if there was ever a quid pro quo. But what we certainly have here though is, on the Foundation side, the use of a Foundation to make hundreds of millions of dollars for the Clintons. Now, I wonder, is the attorney general of New York going to shut the Clinton Foundation down like he shut the Trump foundation down? I mean, from what I’ve seen, I think the Trump Foundation probably needed to be shut down. But those are just nickels and dimes compared to the money here. They’re using this Foundation, and they’re bragging about using this Foundation, to make the Clintons hundreds of millions of dollars. Shouldn’t the attorney general of the State of New York launch an investigation, and at least shut down the Foundation, like they did with the Trump Foundation until they learn -– because there’s so much more money involved here?

[Mark Halperin] Well, the Clinton Foundation does do a lot of stuff that’s good around the world. You can’t ignore that piece of it. I think the thing that’s going to get more scrutiny again is “Why were these people giving money?" The Clintons would say, “The heads of these corporations were our friends! And we were in business with them. And that’s why they learned about the fact—"

[Joe Scarborough] But Doug Band himself says, “We’re going to exploit the Foundation to make Bill Clinton Inc. $66 million dollars. We don’t have to look into anybody’s -– Nicolle, I don’t have to wonder why the CEO of Dow Chemical wanted to give Bill Clinton $500,000 anymore. Doug Band tells me he was shook down by Bill Clinton.

[Nicolle Wallace] I think the other half of the sentence was that in-coming. So he talks about the $66 million in hand, and there were another, I think in excess of $100 million, owed to them. So, I mean, it’s sort of the more you read, the more –-

[Mika Brzezinski] Value is increased by the fact that she’s Secretary of State.

[Nicolle Wallace] And I remember when Vice President Joe Biden was toying with getting into the race. Maureen Dowd wrote a piece, and there were other pieces about maybe one of his motivations, and one of the sort of hungers in the Democratic party, was someone who had a better set of moral and ethical codes. I mean, there has been angst about the Clintons since their time in the White House.

[Joe Scarborough] And you know, Eddie, you can look at Bill Clinton’s speeches. I’ve certainly read multiple press reports. He made $250,000 for speeches. And then Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State, and suddenly he became twice as effective a speaker, because he started getting paid $550,000 per speech.

[Eddie Glaude, Jr.] I mean, it doesn’t smell good! It doesn’t smell good at all. And part of what I think the Democratic primary revealed, was a deep-seated suspicion about her character. Not only her policies, but her character, her intimate relationship with Wall Street, with Big Money. And I think what this report around the Foundation reveals is it gives us evidence that this wasn’t just made up. Right? I mean, you think about that one, the $10 million from Victor the Ukrainian steel magnate, Victor Pinchuk, and how he demanded access to President Clinton, and if he didn’t get it, the relationship would –- well, what we see here isn’t the direct line of quid pro quo, but you see all of these connections, and these relationships, that complicate how we think her judgment will be exercised.

[Mark Halperin] And Joe, there’s another factor here, which is we know when Bill Clinton gives a speech, like a lot of ex-presidents, he makes big money for giving a speech. That may be overpriced, but that’s what the market is. It’s these other payments, these consulting payments. What did he actually do to be paid money as a consultant?

[Joe Scarborough] But what about this Laureate University?

[Mark Halperin] That is a very big one, because it goes to the nonprofit college industry.

[Joe Scarborough] How much did he get paid for that? $14 million? 15 million? It was some staggering number, over $15 per year.

[Mark Halperin] Yep. But what did they get for their money? What is he actually doing for them?

[Joe Scarborough] I think he gave a couple of speeches.

[Mark Halperin] He did. He did. And he attended some meetings. And he leant his prestige to their business.

[Joe Scarborough] But Willie and I have been trying that for several, because we were runners-up in the Nobel Prize like every year.

[William Russell “Willie” Geist] We carry that prestige around with us no matter what.

[Joe Scarborough] I would, if somebody paid me $14 million dollars to let me be their provost, I would. And I would not go around saying that I’m helping little kids in Haiti on one hand, and say –-

[Mika Brzezinski] They do great things at CGI.

[Joe Scarborough] Yeah, they help themselves! And also, this thing James Carville said, “Somebody is going to hell for talking about this,” you know, you can just help little kids in Haiti –-

[Nicolle Wallace] Without the $14 million?

[Joe Scarborough] You can just set up hospitals. There are a lot of people who do that. You know, Bill Gates actually gives his money away. It’s not a profit-generating, it’s not, using context, “Okay, here, pay Peter to pay Paul. Now pay Peter. Now pay Paul." Again, that’s not me talking really, that’s Doug Band in a memo talking about how they’re shaking down -– and by the way, when I say that’s Doug Band –-

[Mika Brzezinski] It’s the Clintons all over again!

[Joe Scarborough] It’s Bill and Hillary Clinton. It’s not Doug Band. Doug Band is one of the most loyal people I’ve ever met. He’s extraordinarily loyal to Bill Clinton. So loyal it was maddening at times. So loyal he didn’t care what anybody thought about him. He didn’t care who hated him. His job was to protect Bill Clinton. And I will say, he did it better than anybody I’ve ever met in my life, protecting a political person. He was inseparable from Bill Clinton. So when we say Doug Band, we’re really saying, Willie, I’m saying at least, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

[William Russell “Willie” Geist] It’s unlikely that Doug Band is freelancing on any of this stuff. I think a larger point to think about too is it was only August when the Clinton Foundation finally said, “Okay, fine. We’ll stop taking foreign donations." The same thing with the email server. As you read through these, Hillary Clinton had to be convinced that they weren’t good ideas, that there could be a problem with these. It wasn’t her instinct to say, “You know what, as Secretary of State, maybe we should stop taking foreign donations –"

[Mika Brzezinski] "You shut this down!"

[William Russell “Willie” Geist] "–- and maybe I shouldn’t have a private server." It took a lot of people in her orbit to finally tell her it was a bad idea, and pressure from outside the campaign as well.

[Mika Brzezinski] But it’s insane! It’s insane!

[Mark Halperin] If she hadn’t been Secretary of State, if she had just been a private citizen along with her husband, this stuff would have been muckraking, it would have been leveraging the Foundation away that a lot of people would have found unseemly, but it wouldn’t be nearly the concern of someone who is trying to get elected as President. When she took the Secretary of State job, the Obama administration said, “There’s a lot of concerns here about this relationship. Let’s put some rules in place.” And I think that a lot of the stuff we already know about would not have been approved of or looked kindly upon by the White House or the State Department, in theory with the general counsel there, because it did not live up to the spirit, at a minimum, of trying to keep Hillary Clinton's Foundation activities from creating a potential conflict with her formal governmental role.

[Mika Brzezinski] It’s so frustrating, because then, doesn’t it of course call into question again the private server all over again?

[Joe Scarborough] Well, of course it does.

[Mika Brzezinski] How could it not?

[Joe Scarborough] Well, of course it does. Which again, is Ron Fournier, who is coming out of retirement and going to be on here at 7 o’clock today. We’re going to talk to Ron. And that’s gonna be our ray of sunshine in the morning from Michigan. Good morning Michigan!

[Mika Brzezinski] Still ahead on Morning Joe! Oh, God!

[Joe Scarborough] No, I’m not done yet!

[Mika Brzezinski] Please be finished!

[Joe Scarborough] So Nicolle, you know who for me are the good guys in this whole episode?

[Mika Brzezinski] Chelsea!

[Joe Scarborough] And it’s one of these things where you never know –-

[Mika Brzezinski] Chelsea!

[Joe Scarborough] Chelsea -– you never know how politics is gonna shake out. You never know. Right? So John Podesta has his emails hacked into, and it’s horrifying. Oh, God, please, don’t, it would be the worst nightmare ever if that happened to me. At the end of the process, I’m sure there’s stuff in there that Podesta didn’t want out there. I see Podesta as a straight shooter. As a good man. A no-drama political guy. The same thing with Robby Mook. And you can go down the list of them.

[Nicolle Wallace] We were talking about Philippe yesterday, a press person who understood exactly what the headline might be when this got out. I’m sure when you get through everything, he was the one saying, “This will not look good.” So, to restate Willie’s point, there were a lot of people very, very close to her and him, who knew exactly what this would look like when it came out. And I’m sure this was exactly the worst-case scenario that they described to their bosses Bill and Hillary Clinton.

[Joe Scarborough] And there are a lot of political figures, Mark Halperin, who are surrounded by people who put the blinders on, and never take them off. I’ve got to say, what these emails have revealed are those people who are around her inner political campaign have their eyes wide open, and they more often than not are pushing for transparency, and they understand the costs of not being transparent. And if Hillary Clinton is elected President of the United States, and if these people are surrounding her going into the White House, instead of those that get the Clintons in trouble, that might be seen as a hopeful sign.

[Mark Halperin] There are two kinds of people I know who work for Presidents and ex-Presidents: (1) those who trade on that access and influence in relationship to get rich, and (2) those who find another way to make a living.

[Mika Brzezinski] Wow. Okay. Still ahead on Morning Joe. Timing is everything, with just a dozen days to decide, the latest polls offer very different …
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Re: Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Foundation Activit

Postby admin » Mon Oct 31, 2016 6:37 am

Wikileaks Releases New Bombshell Information
by Sean Hannity
10/27/2016

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Re: Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Clinton Foundation

Postby admin » Mon Nov 07, 2016 9:34 pm

As Colombian Oil Money Flowed To Clintons, State Department Took No Action To Prevent Labor Violations
by David Sirota @DavidSirota and Andrew Perez @AndrewPerezDC and Matthew Cunninham-Cook @MattCunninghamC
04/08/15

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For union organizers in Colombia, the dangers of their trade were intensifying. When workers at the country’s largest independent oil company staged a strike in 2011, the Colombian military rounded them up at gunpoint and threatened violence if they failed to disband, according to human rights organizations. Similar intimidation tactics against the workers, say labor leaders, amounted to an everyday feature of life.

For the United States, these were precisely the sorts of discomfiting accounts that were supposed to be prevented in Colombia under a labor agreement that accompanied a recently signed free trade pact liberalizing the exchange of goods between the countries. From Washington to Bogota, leaders had promoted the pact as a win for all -- a deal that would at once boost trade while strengthening the rights of embattled Colombian labor organizers. That formulation had previously drawn skepticism from many prominent Democrats, among them Hillary Clinton.

Yet as union leaders and human rights activists conveyed these harrowing reports of violence to then-Secretary of State Clinton in late 2011, urging her to pressure the Colombian government to protect labor organizers, she responded first with silence, these organizers say. The State Department publicly praised Colombia’s progress on human rights, thereby permitting hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to flow to the same Colombian military that labor activists say helped intimidate workers.

At the same time that Clinton's State Department was lauding Colombia’s human rights record, her family was forging a financial relationship with Pacific Rubiales, the sprawling Canadian petroleum company at the center of Colombia’s labor strife. The Clintons were also developing commercial ties with the oil giant’s founder, Canadian financier Frank Giustra, who now occupies a seat on the board of the Clinton Foundation, the family’s global philanthropic empire.

The details of these financial dealings remain murky, but this much is clear: After millions of dollars were pledged by the oil company to the Clinton Foundation -- supplemented by millions more from Giustra himself -- Secretary Clinton abruptly changed her position on the controversial U.S.-Colombia trade pact. Having opposed the deal as a bad one for labor rights back when she was a presidential candidate in 2008, she now promoted it, calling it “strongly in the interests of both Colombia and the United States.” The change of heart by Clinton and other Democratic leaders enabled congressional passage of a Colombia trade deal that experts say delivered big benefits to foreign investors like Giustra.

The Clinton Foundation, Giustra and the State Department did not respond to International Business Times' requests for comment. Pacific Rubiales has denied that it has engaged in any violence toward union organizers.

As Hillary Clinton readies a national apparatus for her likely presidential campaign -- one that will surely depend upon the support of American labor unions -- her family’s relationship with Giustra and Pacific Rubiales, her reversal on the Colombia trade pact and her subsequent move to bless Colombia’s human rights record complicate her efforts to present herself as a champion of worker rights.
These issues were amplified this week when the AFL-CIO cited persistent violence against Colombian union organizers in its push to block a new 12-nation trade deal that Clinton has championed.

Blurred Lines?

The details of her family’s entanglements in Colombia echo talk that the Clintons have blurred the lines between their private business and philanthropic interests and those of the nation. And Hillary Clinton’s connections to Pacific Rubiales and Giustra intensify recent questions about whether big donations influenced her decisions as secretary of state.

“Giustra’s donations create the problem that it could be difficult for the public to have confidence that Clinton’s certifications of Colombia’s labor rights record were made on the merit and without bias or partiality,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a national expert on ethics in government. “Public officials need to know that even feelings of gratitude are an inappropriate influence.”

The Clintons’ financial relationship with Giustra “could undermine the public’s confidence in [Hillary’s] decisions,” Clark said, particularly in a case that involves certifying the human- and labor-rights record of a country where Clinton’s own State Department has admitted that “violence, threats, harassment, and other practices against trade unionists continued.”

“It would be one thing if it was the secretary certifying that Finland is complying with human rights standards,” Clark said. “But Colombia?”

That war-torn South American country has long been at the center of the relationship between the Clintons, Giustra and Pacific Rubiales.

Giustra and Bill Clinton reportedly first met in 2005, at a fundraiser for tsunami victims held at Giustra’s home in Canada. They quickly became jet-setting friends. That year, as Giustra was on his way to becoming one of the Clinton Foundation’s largest individual donors, an aide to Bill Clinton arranged an introduction between Giustra and the then-president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, the Wall Street Journal reported. After the meeting, Uribe moved to begin privatizing his country’s state-owned oil company, Ecopetrol. Pacific Rubiales soon expanded its operations in Colombia in partnership with Ecopetrol, which was still being overseen by Uribe.

Giustra was at the time developing deep ties to Pacific Rubiales, seeding the firm with capital, according to CEO.ca. Other ties to the company remain: CEO.ca reports that Giustra is today a co-investor with Pacific Rubiales’ executive director in a separate firm called Blue Pacific that has done business with the oil company. Giustra also serves on the board of Endeavour Mining, after a stint as that company’s chairman. According to Endeavour documents, the conglomerate has advised and held equity stakes in Pacific Rubiales, and two of Giustra’s fellow Endeavour board members (including its CEO, who has donated at least $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation) simultaneously serve on Pacific Rubiales’ board. Giustra is listed as the founder of Pacific Rubiales on Endeavour’s website, and Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper has called Pacific Rubiales a “Giustra-connected shell company.”

Giustra’s connections to Pacific Rubiales proved fruitful for the Clintons when in 2007 the oil giant became one of the first donors to a venture between Giustra and Bill Clinton. In a Pacific Rubiales news release quoting Giustra, the company announced that it was joining with its financial backers to give $4.4 million to the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP).

Incorporated in Canada as a “charitable business,” CGEP says it seeks to “generate both social impact and financial returns” for investors. A majority of CGEP’s partners have connections to oil and mining industries in Colombia. Two partners have major business interests in Colombia’s palm oil industry, which human rights groups say is in part responsible for the world’s second-largest internal refugee population, after Syria.

According to its website, the CGEP’s mission is to address “market gaps in developing country supply or distribution chains.” One of its larger projects has been to train young workers for jobs in “tourism, health care and port logistics” in Cartagena, Colombia, where the Giustra-connected company Blue Pacific owns a port that was under construction as of 2013, World Bank documents show.

Potential Complication

As Giustra continued expanding his businesses in Colombia, one potential complication for Colombian investors was the prospect of Democrats nixing a proposed U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. During the 2008 presidential campaign, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton declared their unequivocal opposition to the deal, with the latter saying there should be “no trade deal with Colombia while violence against trade unionists continues in that country.” She pledged that year to “do everything I can to urge the Congress to reject the Colombia Free Trade Agreement."

Yet within a year of becoming secretary of state, Clinton visited Colombia, saying she was there to “underscore President Obama's and my commitment to the Free Trade Agreement.” (Obama had also changed his position on the pact.) In a 2010 interview with RCN Television, Clinton declared that she and Obama were set “to begin a very intensive effort to try to obtain the [congressional] votes to get the Free Trade Agreement finally ratified."

Federal lawmakers ratified the pact in October 2011. Only weeks later, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent a letter to the Obama administration citing allegations of violence at Pacific Rubiales.

In December of the same year, Clinton publicly thanked Giustra for his work when she gave the keynote address at the Giustra-backed International Crisis Group’s annual "In Pursuit of Peace" award dinner. In early 2012, CGEP was the main beneficiary of Pacific Rubiales’ golf tournament in Bogota, which raised $1 million for the Clinton-Giustra venture. Then in April 2012, the Obama administration certified Colombia as respecting labor rights, cementing the trade pact into law. That certification came at the 2012 Summit of the Americas, where Clinton met the Colombian minister of mining -- Pacific Rubiales’ primary regulator in Colombia.

Image
Hillary Clinton with Frank Giustra (far left), Louise Arbour and U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering (right). Photo: Flickr

The agreement, Melinda St. Louis of Public Citizen says, was a big boost to investors like Giustra. While it did not specifically promote oil exports, it gave investors new privileges under Colombian law -- the kind that St. Louis says particularly favor major energy companies like Giustra’s, regardless of the fact that he is Canadian.

"The U.S.-Colombia FTA had an investment chapter that granted extreme investor rights, and they certainly go well beyond U.S. law in regard to property rights," St. Louis told IBTimes. She said the deal empowers corporations -- and in particular natural resource corporations -- to try to use international tribunals to override local opposition to their agenda.

Though Clinton has never explicitly explained her change of position on the U.S.-Colombia trade pact, she acknowledged “concerns” about Colombian “human rights abuses, violence against labor organizers, targeted assassinations, and the atrocities of right-wing paramilitary groups” in her 2014 book, “Hard Choices.” But, she asserted, “By the time I visited Bogota in June 2010, violence was down dramatically.” She said that she met up with her husband while he “was traveling through Colombia on Clinton Foundation business” and the couple “went out for dinner with friends and staff at a local steakhouse, and toasted Colombia's progress.”

Human Rights Watch reported that in the same year Clinton visited Bogota, “threats against unionists -- mostly attributed to paramilitaries' successor groups -- have increased since 2007” and that “impunity in such cases is widespread.” The Colombian human rights group PASO International reported that in 2011, Pacific Rubiales “workers were forced off picket lines at gunpoint by members of the Armed Forces during [a] strike and only allowed to return to work when they had renounced the union.” In 2012, a Colombian journalist covering protests against Pacific Rubiales died after being detained by the police. A year later, a report from two Democratic members of the Congressional Monitoring Group on Labor Rights in Colombia found “murders and threats against union members and harmful subcontracting persist in Colombia largely unabated.”

In an effort to blunt unions’ criticism of the Colombia agreement during Clinton’s push for congressional ratification, her State Department specifically touted an accompanying Labor Action Plan that mandated that the Colombian government enforce its own labor laws and crack down on anti-union activities by employers and right-wing paramilitary forces. That deal was in addition to separate congressional legislation making U.S. foreign and military aid to Colombia contingent on the secretary of state certifying that the country was respecting labor and human rights.

Union activists in Colombia say that even though they were disappointed by the passage of the trade agreement, they hoped Clinton’s State Department would hold Colombia to the promises it made in the Labor Action Plan and consequently end alleged anti-union hostility at Pacific Rubiales.

Trumka’s letter to the Obama administration (about reports of union-sympathizing Pacific Rubiales workers facing violence) specifically asked the administration to take action under the Labor Action Plan. That call was echoed by congressional lawmakers in a 2012 letter to the Colombian minister of labor -- copied to Clinton -- detailing how a strike at Pacific Rubiales was broken with the help of the Colombian military and how Pacific Rubiales engaged in mass firings of workers sympathetic to the labor organizing.

The United Steelworkers union and the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) also repeatedly contacted the State Department in 2011 and 2012, asking Clinton to use her clout under the action plan -- and her power to withhold certification for Colombian military aid -- as a way to bring pressure on Pacific Rubiales. In a letter to Clinton, Steelworkers President Leo Gerard asked the secretary to “take all possible measures to ensure that the Colombian government ensures the safety and well-being of the threatened USO unionists” at Giustra’s company. USO is the abbreviation for the petroleum workers union, formally known as La Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo.

No Criticism, No Action

But an IBTimes review of public State Department documents shows that as the Giustra-Clinton foundation relationship deepened, Hillary Clinton and the State Department never criticized or took action against the Colombian government for alleged violations of labor rights at Pacific Rubiales. Instead, Clinton’s State Department issued certifications in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 declaring that Colombia has been complying with human rights standards that are required under federal law for continued U.S. military aid to the country.

“The Colombian government continued to make progress on improving respect for human rights, both within the Armed Forces and in Colombia at large,” the State Department declared in 2012, despite the allegations of collusion between the Colombian military and Pacific Rubiales to intimidate workers. By that time, Pacific Rubiales and its international financial partners had committed $4.4 million to the Clinton Foundation’s initiative with Giustra, and Giustra had pledged to donate more than $100 million to the joint venture.

The State Department’s 2012 declaration, published just a few months after Bill Clinton golfed with Pacific Rubiales’ president at the company’s golf tournament, also asserted that the Colombian “government generally continued to respect and recognize the important role of human rights defenders.”

Some of those human rights watchdog groups reject that assertion.

"Since 2011, WOLA has continuously informed the U.S. Congress, State Department, Department of Labor and USTR [U.S. Trade Representative] of grave labor violations committed against the USO labor union in the camps of Pacific Rubiales,” said Gimena Sanchez, a program officer at WOLA. “Despite the existence of the U.S.-Colombia Labor Action Plan, our concerns have not been addressed. Pacific Rubiales continues to violate the labor rights of its workers and it impedes independent union affiliation. Colombian and U.S. authorities are doing little to stop it.”

Pacific Rubiales has denied the charges in the past and did so again this week in response to an IBTimes query about the matter.

"Pacific Rubiales is a company that fully respects the rights of its workers and demands from the companies that provide services to it to also do so, both in Colombia as well as in all of the countries in which it operates," Peter Volk, general counsel of Pacific Rubiales, said. "In 2013 the Colombian Ministry of Labor absolved Pacific of all charges, after verifying that Pacific Rubiales had not engaged in any conduct that violated the USO’s right to associate. It is very important to note that not one of Pacific’s employees has been or is affiliated with the USO (in Colombia, workers can affiliate to any union they wish, on an individual basis); and for this reason the USO is not a legitimate representative of the company’s workers."

Volk declined to tell IBTimes the total amount Pacific Rubiales contributed to the Clinton Foundation or to the CGEP.

Nevertheless, labor organizers say the lack of intervention by Clinton’s State Department has allowed violations of labor rights at Pacific Rubiales to continue. They also argue that Clinton’s certification of Colombia’s human rights record led to the delivery of more resources to a Colombian military that has been critical to Pacific Rubiales business prospects. In the areas where Pacific Rubiales extracts oil, around 80 percent of governmental security work is devoted to protecting oil pipelines and oil industry assets, according to Neil Martin, the Colombia-based executive director of PASO International.

“We have not seen any evidence of real intention on the part of Colombian or American authorities to address attacks against workers or enforce new regulations,” Martin told IBTimes. “Nothing they have done has had an impact on the ground."
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Re: Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Clinton Foundation

Postby admin » Mon Nov 07, 2016 9:59 pm

Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton's State Department
by David Sirota @DavidSirota and Andrew Perez @AndrewPerezDC
05/26/15

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YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States' oil-rich ally in the Middle East.

Israeli officials were agitated, reportedly complaining to the Obama administration that this substantial enhancement to Saudi air power risked disrupting the region's fragile balance of power. The deal appeared to collide with the State Department’s documented concerns about the repressive policies of the Saudi royal family.

But now, in late 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was formally clearing the sale, asserting that it was in the national interest. At press conferences in Washington to announce the department’s approval, an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been “a top priority” for Clinton personally. Shapiro, a longtime aide to Clinton since her Senate days, added that the “U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army have excellent relationships in Saudi Arabia.”

These were not the only relationships bridging leaders of the two nations. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing -- the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 -- contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.

The Saudi deal was one of dozens of arms sales approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department that placed weapons in the hands of governments that had also donated money to the Clinton family philanthropic empire, an International Business Times investigation has found.

Under Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure -- derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) -- represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House. The 143 percent increase in U.S. arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors compares to an 80 percent increase in such sales to all countries over the same time period.

American defense contractors also donated to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and in some cases made personal payments to Bill Clinton for speaking engagements. Such firms and their subsidiaries were listed as contractors in $163 billion worth of Pentagon-negotiated deals that were authorized by the Clinton State Department between 2009 and 2012.

The State Department formally approved these arms sales even as many of the deals enhanced the military power of countries ruled by authoritarian regimes whose human rights abuses had been criticized by the department. Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar all donated to the Clinton Foundation and also gained State Department clearance to buy caches of American-made weapons even as the department singled them out for a range of alleged ills, from corruption to restrictions on civil liberties to violent crackdowns against political opponents.

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton also accused some of these countries of failing to marshal a serious and sustained campaign to confront terrorism. In a December 2009 State Department cable published by Wikileaks, Clinton complained of “an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.” She declared that “Qatar's overall level of CT cooperation with the U.S. is considered the worst in the region.” She said the Kuwaiti government was “less inclined to take action against Kuwait-based financiers and facilitators plotting attacks.” She noted that “UAE-based donors have provided financial support to a variety of terrorist groups.” All of these countries donated to the Clinton Foundation and received increased weapons export authorizations from the Clinton-run State Department.

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Clinton Foundation did not respond to questions from the IBTimes.

In all, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by Clinton’s State Department have delivered between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family, according to foundation and State Department records. The Clinton Foundation publishes only a rough range of individual contributors’ donations, making a more precise accounting impossible.

Winning Friends, Influencing Clintons

Under federal law, foreign governments seeking State Department clearance to buy American-made arms are barred from making campaign contributions -- a prohibition aimed at preventing foreign interests from using cash to influence national security policy. But nothing prevents them from contributing to a philanthropic foundation controlled by policymakers.

Just before Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation signed an agreement generally obligating it to disclose to the State Department increases in contributions from its existing foreign government donors and any new foreign government donors. Those increases were to be reviewed by an official at the State Department and “as appropriate” the White House counsel’s office. According to available disclosures, officials at the State Department and White House raised no issues about potential conflicts related to arms sales.

During Hillary Clinton’s 2009 Senate confirmation hearings, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., urged the Clinton Foundation to “forswear” accepting contributions from governments abroad. “Foreign governments and entities may perceive the Clinton Foundation as a means to gain favor with the secretary of state,” he said. The Clintons did not take Lugar’s advice. In light of the weapons deals flowing to Clinton Foundation donors, advocates for limits on the influence of money on government action now argue that Lugar was prescient in his concerns.

“The word was out to these groups that one of the best ways to gain access and influence with the Clintons was to give to this foundation,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, an advocacy group that seeks to tighten campaign finance disclosure rules. “This shows why having public officials, or even spouses of public officials, connected with these nonprofits is problematic.”

Hillary Clinton’s willingness to allow those with business before the State Department to finance her foundation heightens concerns about how she would manage such relationships as president, said Lawrence Lessig, the director of Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics.

“These continuing revelations raise a fundamental question of judgment,” Lessig told IBTimes. “Can it really be that the Clintons didn't recognize the questions these transactions would raise? And if they did, what does that say about their sense of the appropriate relationship between private gain and public good?”

National security experts assert that the overlap between the list of Clinton Foundation donors and those with business before the the State Department presents a troubling conflict of interest.

While governments and defense contractors may not have made donations to the Clinton Foundation exclusively to influence arms deals, they were clearly “looking to build up deposits in the 'favor bank' and to be well thought of,” said Gregory Suchan, a 34-year State Department veteran who helped lead the agency’s oversight of arms transfers under the Bush administration.

As Hillary Clinton presses a campaign for the presidency, she has confronted sustained scrutiny into her family’s personal and philanthropic dealings, along with questions about whether their private business interests have colored her exercise of public authority. As IBTimes previously reported, Clinton switched from opposing an American free trade agreement with Colombia to supporting it after a Canadian energy and mining magnate with interests in that South American country contributed to the Clinton Foundation. IBTimes’ review of the Clintons’ annual financial disclosures also revealed that 13 companies lobbying the State Department paid Bill Clinton $2.5 million in speaking fees while Hillary Clinton headed the agency.

Questions about the nexus of arms sales and Clinton Foundation donors stem from the State Department’s role in reviewing the export of American-made weapons. The agency is charged with both licensing direct commercial sales by U.S. defense contractors to foreign governments and also approving Pentagon-brokered sales to those governments. Those powers are enshrined in a federal law that specifically designates the secretary of state as “responsible for the continuous supervision and general direction of sales” of arms, military hardware and services to foreign countries. In that role, Hillary Clinton was empowered to approve or reject deals for a broad range of reasons, from national security considerations to human rights concerns.

The State Department does not disclose which individual companies are involved in direct commercial sales, but its disclosure documents reveal that countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation saw a combined $75 billion increase in authorized commercial military sales under the three full fiscal years Clinton served, as compared to the first three full fiscal years of Bush’s second term.

The Clinton Foundation has not released an exact timetable of its donations, making it impossible to know whether money from foreign governments and defense contractors came into the organization before or after Hillary Clinton approved weapons deals that involved their interests. But news reports document that at least seven foreign governments that received State Department clearance for American arms did donate to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary: Algeria, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Thailand, Norway and Australia.

Sales Flowed Despite Human Rights Concerns

Under a presidential policy directive signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995, the State Department is supposed to specifically take human rights records into account when deciding whether to approve licenses enabling foreign governments to purchase military equipment and services from American companies. Despite this, Hillary Clinton’s State Department increased approvals of such sales to nations that her agency sharply criticized for systematic human rights abuses.

In its 2010 Human Rights Report, Clinton’s State Department inveighed against Algeria’s government for imposing “restrictions on freedom of assembly and association” tolerating “arbitrary killing,” “widespread corruption,” and a “lack of judicial independence.” The report said the Algerian government “used security grounds to constrain freedom of expression and movement.”

That year, the Algerian government donated $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation and its lobbyists met with the State Department officials who oversee enforcement of human rights policies. Clinton’s State Department the next year approved a one-year 70 percent increase in military export authorizations to the country. The increase included authorizations of almost 50,000 items classified as “toxicological agents, including chemical agents, biological agents and associated equipment” after the State Department did not authorize the export of any of such items to Algeria in the prior year.

During Clinton’s tenure, the State Department authorized at least $2.4 billion of direct military hardware and services sales to Algeria -- nearly triple such authorizations over the last full fiscal years during the Bush administration. The Clinton Foundation did not disclose Algeria’s donation until this year -- a violation of the ethics agreement it entered into with the Obama administration.

The monarchy in Qatar had similarly been chastised by the State Department for a raft of human rights abuses. But that country donated to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was running the State Department. During the three full budgetary years of her tenure, Qatar saw a 14-fold increase in State Department authorizations for direct commercial sales of military equipment and services, as compared to the same time period in Bush’s second term. The department also approved the Pentagon’s separate $750 million sale of multi-mission helicopters to Qatar. That deal would additionally employ as contractors three companies that have all supported the Clinton Foundation over the years: United Technologies, Lockheed Martin and General Electric.

Clinton foundation donor countries that the State Department criticized for human rights violations and that received weapons export authorizations did not respond to IBTimes’ questions.

That group of arms manufacturers -- along with Clinton Foundation donors Boeing, Honeywell, Hawker Beechcraft and their affiliates -- were together listed as contractors in 114 such deals while Clinton was secretary of state. NBC put Chelsea Clinton on its payroll as a network correspondent in November 2011, when it was still 49 percent owned by General Electric. A spokesperson for General Electric did not respond to questions from IBTimes.

Defense Contractors Donated To The Clinton Foundation
The Clinton Foundation accepted donations from six companies benefiting from U.S. State Department arms export approvals.

Defense Contractor / Donation Min. ($)

Boeing / 5,000,000
General Electric / 1,000,000
Goldman Sachs (Hawker Beechcraft) / 500,000
Honeywell / 50,000
Lockheed Martin / 250,000
United Technologies / 50,000

Source: Clinton Foundation donor data and Defense Security Cooperation Agency foreign military sales records Get the data


The other companies all asserted that their donations had nothing to do with the arms export deals.

“Our contributions have aligned with our longstanding philanthropic commitments,” said Honeywell spokesperson Rob Ferris.

"Even The Appearance Of A Conflict"

During her Senate confirmation proceedings in 2009, Hillary Clinton declared that she and her husband were “committed to ensuring that his work does not present a conflict of interest with the duties of Secretary of State.” She pledged “to protect against even the appearance of a conflict of interest between his work and the duties of the Secretary of State” and said that “in many, if not most cases, it is likely that the Foundation or President Clinton will not pursue an opportunity that presents a conflict.”

Even so, Bill Clinton took in speaking fees reaching $625,000 at events sponsored by entities that were dealing with Hillary Clinton’s State Department on weapons issues.

In 2011, for example, the former president was paid $175,000 by the Kuwait America Foundation to be the guest of honor and keynote speaker at its annual awards gala, which was held at the home of the Kuwaiti ambassador. Ben Affleck spoke at the event, which featured a musical performance by Grammy-award winner Michael Bolton. The gala was emceed by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe show. Boeing was listed as a sponsor of the event, as were the embassies of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar -- the latter two of which had donated to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

The speaking fee from the Kuwait America Foundation to Bill Clinton was paid in the same time frame as a series of deals Hillary Clinton’s State Department was approving between the Kuwaiti government and Boeing. Months before the gala, the Department of Defense announced that Boeing would be the prime contractor on a $693 million deal, cleared by Hillary Clinton’s State Department, to provide the Kuwaiti government with military transport aircraft. A year later, a group sponsored in part by Boeing would pay Bill Clinton another $250,000 speaking fee.

“Boeing has sponsored this major travel event, the Global Business Travel Association, for several years, regardless of its invited speakers,” Gordon Johndroe, a Boeing spokesperson, told IBTimes. Johndroe said Boeing’s support for the Clinton Foundation was “a transparent act of compassion and an investment aimed at aiding the long-term interests and hopes of the Haitian people” following a devastating earthquake.

Boeing was one of three companies that helped deliver money personally to Bill Clinton while benefiting from weapons authorizations issued by Hillary Clinton’s State Department. The others were Lockheed and the financial giant Goldman Sachs.

Lockheed is a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, which paid Bill Clinton $250,000 to speak at an event in 2010. Three days before the speech, Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved two weapons export deals in which Lockheed was listed as the prime contractor. Over the course of 2010, Lockheed was a contractor on 17 Pentagon-brokered deals that won approval from the State Department. Lockheed told IBTimes that its support for the Clinton Foundation started in 2010, while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

“Lockheed Martin has periodically supported one individual membership in the Clinton Global Initiative since 2010,” said company spokesperson Katherine Trinidad. “Membership benefits included attendance at CGI annual meetings, where we participated in working groups focused on STEM, workforce development and advanced manufacturing.”

In April 2011, Goldman Sachs paid Bill Clinton $200,000 to speak to “approximately 250 high level clients and investors” in New York, according to State Department records obtained by Judicial Watch. Two months later, the State Department approved a $675 million foreign military sale involving Hawker Beechcraft -- a company that was then part-owned by Goldman Sachs. As part of the deal, Hawker Beechcraft would provide support to the government of Iraq to maintain a fleet of aircraft used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Goldman Sachs has also contributed at least $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to donation records.

“There is absolutely no connection among all the points that you have raised regarding our firm,” said Andrew Williams, a spokesperson for Goldman Sachs.

Federal records show that ethics staffers at the State Department approved the payments to Bill Clinton from Goldman Sachs, and the Lockheed- and Boeing-sponsored groups without objection, even though the firms had major stakes in the agency’s weapons export decisions.

Stephen Walt, a Harvard University professor of international affairs, told IBTimes that the intertwining financial relationships between the Clintons, defense contractors and foreign governments seeking weapons approvals is “a vivid example of a very big problem -- the degree to which conflicts of interest have become endemic.”

“It has troubled me all along that the Clinton Foundation was not being more scrupulous about who it would take money from and who it wouldn’t,” he said. “American foreign policy is better served if people responsible for it are not even remotely suspected of having these conflicts of interest. When George Marshall was secretary of state, nobody was worried about whether or not he would be distracted by donations to a foundation or to himself. This wasn’t an issue. And that was probably better.”

Clinton Foundation Donors Get Big Weapons Deals
17 out of 20 countries that have donated to the Clinton Foundation saw increases in arms exports authorized by Hillary Clinton's State Department.

Country / Donation Min. ($) / FY2006-FY2008 ($) / FY2010-FY2012 ($) / Difference (%)

Algeria / 50,000 / 649,943,709 / 2,431,535,005 / 274
Australia / 10,000,000 / 8,030,754,085 / 23,953,849,391 / 198
Bahrain / 50,000 / 219,718,802 / 630,586,020 / 187
Brunei / 250,000 / 101,239,902 / 19,256,846 / -81
Canada / 250,000 / 20,975,621,915 / 24,844,128,294 / 18
Germany / 100,000 / 9,147,637,319 / 9,839,619,231 / 8
Ireland / 5,000,000 / 144,929,678 / 107,064,341 / -26
Italy / 100,000 / 6,195,891,571 / 12,274,692,168 / 98
Jamaica / 50,000 / 18,572,209 / 11,360,582 / -39
Kuwait / 5,000,000 / 1,895,298,212 / 2,109,893,611 / 11
Morocco / 2,000,000 / 250,045,824 / 253,096,156 / 1
Netherlands / 5,000,000 / 3,069,131,994 / 4,655,490,802 / 52
Norway / 10,000,000 / 2,718,237,833 / 3,351,140,380 / 23
Oman / 1,000,000 / 170,597,237 / 547,003,781 / 221
Qatar / 1,000,000 / 271,325,915 / 4,291,824,236 / 1,482
Saudi Arabia / 10,000,000 / 4,105,561,815 / 8,094,719,012 / 97
Taiwan / 500,000 / 2,612,251,394 / 3,811,233,565 / 46
Thailand / 250,000 / 656,266,680 / 1,113,283,489 / 70
UAE / 1,000,000 / 2,261,801,903 / 24,998,754,760 / 1,005
United Kingdom / 1,000,000 / 26,225,307,395 / 38,015,933,065 / 45

Source: U.S. State Department and Clinton Foundation donor data Get the data Created with Datawrapper



UPDATE (7:38pm, 5/26/15): In an emailed statement, a spokeswoman for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office told IBTimes: "Taiwan’s 2003 donation was for the fund to build the Clinton Presidential Library. This was way before Mrs. Clinton was made the U.S. Secretary of State. We have neither knowledge nor comments concerning other issues."

This story has been updated to include an additional link to a 2010 State Department press conference about the U.S.-Saudi Arabia arms deal.
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Re: Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Clinton Foundation

Postby admin » Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:30 pm

Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine
by Jeffrey Sachs
02/05/2016

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There’s no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy “experience” has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.

Hillary and Bill Clinton’s close relations with Wall Street helped to stoke two financial bubbles (1999-2000 and 2005-8) and the Great Recession that followed Lehman’s collapse. In the 1990s they pushed financial deregulation for their campaign backers that in turn let loose the worst demons of financial manipulation, toxic assets, financial fraud, and eventually collapse. In the process they won elections and got mighty rich.

Yet Hillary’s connections with the military-industrial complex are also alarming. It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don’t want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.

Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support “regime change” in Iraq.

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.


Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003.

Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote, Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA:

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members... “


After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: “I urged him to bomb,” she told reporter Lucinda Frank.

Hillary’s record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.

Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: “We came, we saw, he died.”

Perhaps the crowning disaster of this long list of disasters has been Hillary’s relentless promotion of CIA-led regime change in Syria. Once again Hillary bought into the CIA propaganda that regime change to remove Bashir al-Assad would be quick, costless, and surely successful. In August 2011, Hillary led the US into disaster with her declaration Assad must “get out of the way,” backed by secret CIA operations.

Five years later, no place on the planet is more ravaged by unending war, and no place poses a great threat to US security. More than 10 million Syrians are displaced, and the refugees are drowning in the Mediterranean or undermining the political stability of Greece, Turkey, and the European Union. Into the chaos created by the secret CIA-Saudi operations to overthrow Assad, ISIS has filled the vacuum, and has used Syria as the base for worldwide terrorist attacks.

The list of her incompetence and warmongering goes on. Hillary’s support at every turn for NATO expansion, including even into Ukraine and Georgia against all common sense, was a trip wire that violated the post-Cold War settlement in Europe in 1991 and that led to Russia’s violent counter-reactions in both Georgia and Ukraine. As Senator in 2008, Hilary co-sponsored 2008-SR439, to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. As Secretary of State, she then presided over the restart of the Cold War with Russia.

It is hard to know the roots of this record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA? Is it a repeated attempt to show that as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign financiers? Who knows? Maybe it’s all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security.

Follow Jeffrey Sachs on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JeffDSachs
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Re: Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Clinton Foundation

Postby admin » Thu Nov 17, 2016 3:03 am

Part 1 of 2

FROM RUSSIA WITH MONEY: Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset, and Cronyism
by Government Accountability Institute
May, 2016

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• The Reset Begins
• Skolkovo
• Money to the Clintons
• Rusnano: Putin’s Child
• The Flow of Rusnano Money
• Teneo and Profiteering on the Reset
• National Security Implications
• Skolkovo
• Rusnano

Executive Summary

• A major technology transfer component of the Russian reset overseen by Hillary Clinton substantially enhanced the Russian military’s technological capabilities, according to both the FBI and the U.S. Army.

• Russian government officials and American corporations participated in the technology transfer project overseen by Hillary Clinton’s State Department that funnelled tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

• A Putin-­connected Russian government fund transferred $35 million to a small company with Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta on its executive board, which included senior Russian officials.

• John Podesta failed to reveal, as required by law on his federal financial disclosures, his membership on the board of this offshore company.

• Podesta also headed up a think tank which wrote favorably about the Russian reset while apparently receiving millions from Kremlin-­‐‑linked Russian oligarchs via an offshore LLC.

Introduction

During her tenure as Secretary of State, one of Hillary Clinton’s major policy initiatives was the “reset” in relations with Russia. The idea was to begin the U.S.-Russia relationship anew, unburdened by recent Russian government actions or Bush Administration policies that had caused tensions between Moscow and Washington. The reset was one of President Obama’s “earliest new foreign policy initiatives,” according to the White House, and was based on the belief that relations with Russia had become unnecessarily mired in conflict over a handful of issues during the Bush Administration. In short, the Obama Administration wanted what it called “win-win outcomes.”1

As America’s chief diplomat, Secretary Clinton was the point person on the reset, handling a range of issues from arms control to technological cooperation. Those matters she did not handle herself were managed by close aides under her direction. On July 6, 2009, President Barack Obama visited Moscow, and together with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, announced the creation of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. The Bilateral Commission would be the heart and soul of the Russia reset, with the goal to “improve communication and cooperation between the governments of Russia and the United States.”2

In addition, the Commission would work at “identifying areas of cooperation and pursuing joint projects and actions that strengthen strategic stability, international security, economic well-being, and the development of ties between the Russian and American people….”3 Specifically, as it related to technology transfer and investment, the Commission played a key role in everything from intellectual property sharing to export licensing to facilitating American investment in Russia and Russian investment in America.4

President Obama and Medvedev announced that the work of the Commission would be directed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. As President Obama put it, the effort would “be coordinated by Secretary Clinton and Minister Lavrov, and Secretary Clinton [would] travel to Russia [that] fall to carry [that] effort forward.”5

As Mark Landler of the New York Times put it, “Clinton was the most visible early exponent of the [reset] policy.”6 While some Clinton aides attempted to create the impression after she left office that the reset was solely an Obama initiative, the record shows otherwise. According to Philip Gordon, Clinton’s assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, “It would be wrong to say that Obama imposed it on her. We saw the logic and bought into it.”7 As Landler puts it, Clinton was not pushing the reset just out of duty to Obama.8

According to leaked U.S. government cables, U.S. State Department officials beginning in 2009 played a substantial role in assisting Russian government entities in accessing U.S. capital and in seeking investments in U.S. high technology companies. Specifically, they worked to support the efforts of the Russian State Investment Fund, Rusnano, to seek investment opportunities in the United States by arranging meetings with U.S. tech firms. They also crafted and delivered joint statements with Russian officials on cooperation on technological matters.9

In short, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and coordinator of the Bilateral Commission would be at the center of U.S. decision-making. Hillary Clinton was deeply engaged in fostering U.S. ties to Russia. In addition to four major visits to Russia itself, Secretary Clinton communicated numerous other times with foreign minister Lavrov and other officials.10 It should also be pointed out that Bill Clinton met with Vladimir Putin on at least two occasions in 2009 and 2010.11

According to Hillary Clinton’s emails released by the State Department, she sent or received at least 894 emails that include the term “Russia” during her tenure as Secretary of State.12

When there was agreement on a subject and the details needed to be worked out, Hillary Clinton’s closest aides worked with their Russian counterparts on everything from business ties, research cooperation, and arms control.13 In short, no cabinet official in the Obama Administration was more intimately and directly involved in the Russian reset than Hillary Clinton.

The Reset Begins

In early March 2009, Hillary Clinton was in Geneva, Switzerland, for a meeting with her Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. As they met in her hotel’s Salon Panorama, so named for its full view of the city, Clinton presented Lavrov a small yellow box with a bright red button.14 It was her first meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister and she wanted to symbolize the need to push the “reset button.” The button was labeled “peregruzka,” which doesn’t actually mean “reset,” but rather “overcharge”.15 But everyone was in a good mood. “We are entering into our renewed relationship with our eyes open,” Secretary Clinton said. “We think there are a number of areas where there could be cooperation…. there are also areas where we strongly disagree.”16

In the months that followed, both sides scored early diplomatic successes. The Russian government, for example, “agreed to allow U.S. weapons and personnel to pass through Russian airspace en route to Afghanistan.”17 This was of huge benefit to U.S. forces operating in Afghanistan. The Obama Administration subsequently scrapped George W. Bush’s plan to install missile defense systems across Eastern Europe, something Vladimir Putin roundly criticized.18

But there were areas of disagreement, too, including Middle East policy and how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. Progress was slow on these thorny issues.

One area of quick movement and success was on technological cooperation and financial investment. In theory, the idea was simple: encourage U.S. companies to invest in Russia to tap the country’s strengths in basic scientific talent while creating opportunities for Russian investment in U.S. tech companies.19

Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration saw the opportunity for widespread technological cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. During her October 2009 visit to Russia, she noted the country’s strength in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics): “[I]t’s just a treasure trove of potential for the Russian economy.”20 Vice President Joe Biden echoed that sentiment two years later during his visit to Russia: “Closer cooperation will allow American companies to benefit from greater access to Russia’s deep pool of talented engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists.”21 According to leaked State Department cables, Russian government officials were told that the Obama Administration saw “building the science and technology (S & T) relationship with Russia as an important pillar in strengthening overall bilateral relations….”22 Technological cooperation and investment deals seemed to be the sort of “win-win” deals President Obama said he sought. But as we will see, the Clintons and close aides appear to have personally benefitted from such deals. And these deals also raised serious questions from the FBI, the U.S. Army, and foreign governments that the Russian military was benefitting from them as well.

Skolkovo

A major part of this technological cooperation included Russian plans to create its own version of Silicon Valley.23 The research facility, on the outskirts Moscow, was dubbed “Skolkovo” and would be developed with the cooperation and investment of major U.S. tech firms.24 In 2010, Cisco pledged a cool $1 billion to Skolkovo, and Google and Intel also jumped on board.25 (All three happened to be major Clinton Foundation supporters as well—as we will see, a significant factor for dozens of companies who became involved with Skolkovo.) The idea was simple: match Russian brainpower with U.S. investment dollars and entrepreneurial know-how to spark technological breakthroughs in a wide variety of areas including energy, communications, sensors, and propulsion systems. Unlike the freewheeling, decentralized, and entrepreneurial culture in California, Skolkovo would have a distinctly different culture. It would be more centralized, and dominated by Russian government officials.26

Skolkovo was launched as “entirely a state project,” in the words of Walter Laqueur writing in Foreign Affairs.27 There would be housing for 30,000 people, as well as schools, shops, and parks designed by the government. The Russian government pledged to spend some $5 billion over three years to put Skolkovo together.28 The Russians desired major U.S. tech firms in Skolkovo. A Skolkovo Foundation was established to manage that effort.29 Ultimately dozens of U.S. tech firms including Cisco, Google, and Intel would make major financial contributions to the project.

Hillary Clinton praised the initiative in a joint statement with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. The statement praised American companies like Cisco and Microsoft for “participating in Russia’s Skolkovo Innovation Center Project, with over a billion dollars committed.” She continued, “The opening of a Russian Innovation Center (representing Rusnano, Russian Venture Company, and Skolkovo) in the Silicon Valley will act as another bridge connecting American and Russian high tech companies, investors, and scientific research institutions.”30

The State Department played an active role early on by setting up meetings for Russian officials with U.S. technology companies. According to Hillary Clinton, she inspired then-Russian President Dimitry Medvedev to visit Silicon Valley to encourage participation in Skolkovo. As she reported in her memoirs, “At a long meeting I had with Medvedev outside Moscow in October 2009, he raised his plan to build a high-tech corridor in Russia modelled after our own Silicon Valley. When I suggested that he visit the original in California, he turned to his staff and told them to follow up.”31

And indeed, on June 22-24, 2010, Russian President Medvedev visited the United States and travelled to Silicon Valley to meet with tech executives.32

Medvedev met with high tech executives and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and encouraged the firms to set up shop in Skolkovo. Medvedev put on quite a show. As he prepared to leave, he turned to Schwarzenegger and mimicked lines from his movie Terminator 2. “I’ll be back,” he told Schwarzenegger. “Hasta la vista—baby.”33 It was a fine performance.

In May 2010, the State Department facilitated a Moscow visit by 22 of the biggest names in the U.S. venture capital market.34 The visit was a concrete sign that relations on commercial ties were warming. “This is the first highly visible, concrete evidence that there are major changes taking place in attitudes toward one another on the commercial side,” opined economist David Kemme from the University of Memphis.35

To get American companies to participate in Skolkovo, the Russian government promised to give American firms special access to research and projects taking place in Russia. Companies participating in Skolkovo would receive special tax status and access to the Russian market.36 They would also receive special access to research in Russia. For example, one investment firm received “priority access to the database of the Skolkovo Foundation projects and companies, enabling it to select the most promising projects early in their development.” It further allowed companies to “refer their existing portfolio of companies to Skolkovo” for research.37 There was also the prospect of gaining access to Russian markets, which had been hampered by export licensing issues involving the export of sensitive technologies.38 The U.S. State Department had major responsibility for the issuing of export licenses and maintained the list of restricted technologies.39

The State Department actively and aggressively encouraged American firms to participate in Skolkovo. Indeed, many of the Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) signed by U.S. companies to invest and cooperate in Skolkovo were signed under the auspices of Hillary Clinton’s State Department.40

The U.S. Co-Chair of that working group was close Clinton friend and advisor Robert Hormats.41 Described by CNBC as Hillary Clinton’s “economic guru,” Hormats has a history as a Clinton donor and associate.42 On September 23, 2009, Robert Hormats joined the State Department as the Under Secretary for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs.43 When visiting Moscow on October 30, 2012, the embassy recorded that Hormats was “enthusiastic” about the work of the group and “noted that this partnership on innovation would strengthen U.S.- Russian relations.”44 Hormats made clear the State Department line in June 2011 when he said, “Innovation can be a tool of economic engagement between the United States and Russia, through collaboration in cutting-edge fields like biomedical research and smart-grid technology. It is also important for the two countries to collaborate on the development of Skolkovo, an innovation hub based outside Moscow, because its success can have broader positive effects in Russia.”45

The other senior State Department official involved in the Skolkovo process was the Lorraine Hariton, the State Department’s Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs.46 (Hariton served on Hillary Clinton’s National Finance Committee during the 2008 campaign.47) Hariton, along with Russia’s deputy minister of economic development Oleg Fomichev, served as the cocoordinators of the Innovation Working Group.48

Hariton was in communication with Hillary Clinton’s top advisors during her tenure at the State Department. At least two of Hariton’s emails were redacted by State Department officials prior to their release.

Money to the Clintons

Many of the key figures in the Skolkovo process — on both the Russian and U.S. sides — had major financial ties to the Clintons. During the Russian reset, these figures and entities provided the Clintons with tens of millions of dollars, including contributions to the Clinton Foundation, paid for speeches by Bill Clinton, or investments in small start-up companies with deep Clinton ties. In 2012 Skolkovo released its first annual report which identified the “key partner service”. Key Partners are entities who have made substantial commitments to develop the Skolkovo research facility.49 Conor Lenihan, vicepresident of the Skolkovo Foundation, who had previously partnered with the Clinton Foundation, released a PowerPoint presentation that included a list of 28 Russian, American, and European Key Partners.50 Of those 28, 17 of them, or 60 percent, have made financial commitments to the Clinton Foundation or sponsored speeches by Bill. The Clinton Foundation only discloses donations in ranges, so it is impossible to determine the precise amount of money the Skolkovo benefactors gave to the Clinton Foundation, but based on those disclosures, the money ranges from $6.5 to $23.5 million. However, keep in mind that the Clinton Foundation has admitted that it has failed to release the names of all of its contributors, so the amount could be substantially higher.

Many of those involved in Skolkovo who also donated to the Clinton Foundation have deep ties to the Clintons. For example, John Chambers, the head of Cisco, and member of the Skolkovo Foundation, received the Clinton Global Initiative Citizen’s Award from Bill Clinton.52 Chambers and Cisco have given between $1 to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.53 Craig Barrett, former head of Intel Corporation, served on the board of the Skolkovo Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.54 Intel has given between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation.55

Those on the Russian side of the Skolkovo research project have also donated to the Clinton Foundation. The man heading up the Skolkovo Foundation in Russia is a controversial figure named Viktor Vekselberg.56 Described as “one oligarch who isn’t afraid to get down and dirty” (Fortune magazine) and “the oligarch’s oligarch” (Esquire), Vekselberg made his billions in the oil and metals sectors.57 Vekselberg is a Putin confidant and a Clinton Foundation donor via his company, Renova Group.58

The Clintons were clearly cultivating their relationship with Vekselberg during Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State. On June 4, 2012, the foreign policy director at the Clinton Foundation, Amitabh Desai, reached out to Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, and Michael Fuchs at the State Department via email. The subject line was “Russia/Viktor Vekselberg?” Vekselberg and his company the Renova Group had contributed between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.59 It read, “Would [the State Department] have any concerns about [Clinton Global Initiative] inviting Viktor Vekselberg, President of Renova Group, to attend CGI Annual Meeting in NYC in September?”60 The email appears to have gone unanswered. Vekselberg did, indeed, come to the U.S. in October 2012.61

In October 2012, Vekselberg hosted a fundraising gala at Fort Ross in California.62 Both Putin and Hillary Clinton sent messages of congratulations.63 Back in June 2010 Vekselberg committed $1 million to Keep California’s Fort Ross up and running. Fort Ross, which was founded in California 200 years ago, was the first European settlement on the west coast. About 90 miles north of San Francisco, it was settled by Russians as a trading hub for hunting sea otters and supplying food to other settlements in Alaska.64

In 2013, Vekselberg was accused by associates of funneling Skolkovo money into his own bank accounts. He denies the charge.

Another Russian figure deeply involved with Skolkovo who had financial ties to the Clintons is Andrey Vavilov. The former Russian government official is the Chairman of SuperOx, which is part of the Nuclear Cluster at Skolkovo.65 The Nuclear Cluster at Skolkovo is committed to enhancing the nuclear capabilities of the Russian state. A major listed beneficiary of this research is Rosatom, the Russian State Nuclear Agency, which manages the country’s nuclear arsenal.66 Vavilov has donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.67 Rosatom, through its subsidiary ARMZ, purchased a Canadian uranium company called Uranium One in 2010 which held assets in the United States and therefore required State Department approval. Nine Uranium One shareholders donated more than $145 million to the Clinton Foundation. Some of those donations, including those by Uranium One Chairman Ian Telfer, had not been disclosed by the Clinton Foundation.68

Another prominent Russian figure who appears to have given to the Clinton foundation is Elena Baturina, the wife of the former Mayor of Moscow and the founder of JSC Inteco, the entity through which the Foundation received its money.69 That entity donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Her company, Inteco, has its own history with Skolkovo relating to a dispute over the land that borders the Skolkovo Innovation Park. Baturina later became a partner in Skolkovo events and JSC Inteco received contracts to build residential housing.

Rusnano: Putin’s Child

Another important player in the reset was a Russian government investment fund called Rusnano (the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies). Rusnano was “founded by Putin” in 2007.70 Rusnano claims that it “implements state policy for the development of the nanoindustry in Russia, acting as a co-investor in nanotechnology projects, which have substantial economic or social potential.”71 Indeed, Rusnano relies entirely on Russian state funding for its investment in nanotechnology.72

As Andrei Fursenko, the former Russian education and science minister and current science advisor to Vladimir Putin describes it, “[Rusnano] is ‘Putin’s child.’”73

The head of Rusnano is Anatoly Chubais, who had long and strong ties with the Clintons. During the 1990s, Chubais, as deputy prime minister of Russia, was pushing for reform and privatization of state industry.74 As one scholar noted, “in the name of privatization, loans for shares transferred control of many of Russia's prime assets for token sums to seven preselected bank chiefs” and other oligarchs. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Chubais and his clique of political and financial power brokers, known as the ‘Chubais clan,’ were the darlings of the U.S. Treasury Department and international financial institutions.”75 As a result, the Clinton Administration “gave the Chubais clan much control over hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.”76 Chubais reportedly plucked Putin out of relative obscurity and made him the head of Russia’s FSB (Federal Security Service).77

According to a leaked State Department cable, the U.S. State Department was eager to facilitate Chubais’ meetings with U.S. tech executives and helped set up meetings.78 Rusnano was looking to invest Russian government money in western technology companies. But the money from Rusnano did not come without strings. As Bloomberg reported, “Firms that accept Rusnano funds must transfer technologies to Russia, build laboratories there, train local scientist and, in some cases, give Russians patent rights for the products developed.”79

Even given these strings, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during Hillary Clinton’s tenure referred American tech companies to Rusnano to seek investment. “We routinely recommend to American companies that they should talk to Rusnano,” said John McCaslin, “the U.S. minister counselor for commercial affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.”80

The Flow of Rusnano Money

Few Washington officials are tighter to the Clintons than John Podesta. As The New Republic puts it, John Podesta is “extremely close,” to Hillary Clinton.81 Indeed, it was John Podesta (among others) who advanced the idea to Obama of appointing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, according to New York Times correspondent Mark Landler.82 During the Bill Clinton Administration, Podesta served as White House Chief of Staff. Beginning in 2003, Podesta served as the President of the Center for America Progress (CAP), which has been described as an “administration-in-waiting” for the Democratic Party.83 Podesta later became Counselor to President Barack Obama in the White House.84

More recently, in January, 2015, Podesta became the campaign chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the 2016 presidential bid.85

During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, he was in regular contact with her and played an important role in shaping U.S. policy. For one thing, he sat on the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, appointed by Hillary. (The board was established in December 2011.)86

The full extent of Podesta’s email communication cannot ultimately be known because Hillary Clinton deleted approximately half of her emails after she left the State Department. Of the emails that remain, there is ample evidence that Podesta played a major role in advising her. According to publicly released emails, as early as May 20, 2009, Podesta joined Clinton for a working dinner in the Monroe Room at the State Department.87 Other emails indicate that a “monthly thinking group” met at the State Department with Clinton including John Podesta and six others.88 Podesta and Secretary Clinton exchanged emails concerning personnel matters.89 Podesta was also actively involved in reviewing and helping to edit Hillary Clinton’s speeches.90 There were emails in which Podesta would reach out and speak with Clinton about his meetings with foreign leaders.91

Clearly these emails at times covered sensitive subjects; numerous email exchanges between Podesta and senior State Department officials were redacted because they dealt with sensitive material.92

In June and July 2011, during the time period that he was advising Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, John Podesta joined the board of three related entities: Joule Unlimited, a small Massachusetts-based energy company; its holding company, Joule Global Holdings, N.V., which was based in the Netherlands; and Joule Global Stichting, which appears to be the ultimate controlling entity.93

According to corporate records, Podesta served on the “executive board.” Joule was a new company, founded in 2007, and claimed to pioneer a technology they called “Liquid Fuel from the Sun,” a technology based on harnessing solar energy.94 Podesta consulted for a foundation run by one of the investors in Joule Energy, Hans-Jorg Wyss, a major Clinton Foundation donor.95 The Wyss Charitable Foundation has given between $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.96 Podesta was paid $87,000 by the Wyss Foundation in 2013, according to federal tax records.97 Podesta’s compensation by Joule cannot be fully determined. In his 2014 federal government disclosure filing, Podesta lists that he divested stock options from Joule. However, the disclosure does not cover the years 2011-2012.

Joule Global Stichting was established in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on March 14, 2011. John Podesta joined the company’s executive board on June 25, 2011. The Joule Stichting is a Foundation, but it’s not strictly a foundation in the charitable sense. A foundation of this type is a popular means for reducing one’s tax burden. The Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, at the heart of the Panama Papers investigation, touts the tax benefits of setting up a Dutch Stichting on its website.98  

The global furniture giant IKEA, for example, is controlled in a similar way by a Dutch-registered, tax-exempt Stichting. The Economist described the arrangement: “The overall set-up of IKEA minimises tax and disclosure, handsomely rewards the founding Kamprad family and makes IKEA immune to a takeover. And if that seems too good to be true, it is: these arrangements are extremely hard to undo. The benefits from all this ingenuity come at the price of a huge constraint on the successors to Ingvar Kamprad, the store's founder… to do with IKEA as they see fit.

The parent for all IKEA companies—the operator of 207 of the 235 worldwide IKEA stores—is Ingka Holding, a private Dutch-registered company. Ingka Holding, in turn, belongs entirely to Stichting Ingka Foundation. This is a Dutch-registered, tax-exempt, non-profit-making legal entity, which was given the shares of Mr Kamprad in 1982.… Yet, though control over IKEA is locked up, the money is not.”99

Although John Podesta is listed on the corporate records, he failed to disclose his membership on the board of Joule Stichting in his federal financial disclosure forms when he joined the Obama White House as a senior advisor.100 Joule executives made clear why Podesta was placed on the board: the decision was based on his “considerable expertise…in the realm of public policy as well as partnering with the public sector.”101 He was not joining the board because he had a background in energy. But with Podesta on the Joule board, according to the company, they “gained the strategic insights and support of a long-time government expert who can help Joule build the lasting relationships needed for long-term success.” Presumably those “lasting relationships” included government officials.

Podesta was not the only board member on Joule with strong Clinton ties. Also on the board was Graham Allison, a Harvard academic who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for President Bill Clinton.102

Two months after Podesta joined the board, Vladimir Putin’s Rusnano announced that it would invest up to one billion rubles into Joule Unlimited, which amounts to $35 million.103 That represents one fifth of the entire amount of investment dollars Joule collected from 2007 to 2013.104 As we’ve seen, it is hard to underestimate how close Rusnano is to the political-military elite in Russia. Indeed, in February 2012, Anatoly Chubais, the Chairman of Rusnano, joined the Joule board of directors.105

According to some reports, the Rusnano investment in Joule was in part money to build a research center in Russia.106

John Podesta recounted in 2014 the first time he met with Vladimir Putin. It was in 2000, when then-President Bill Clinton was visiting Moscow. Podesta joined Clinton for an evening with the new Prime Minister of Russia. As Podesta put it, “We saw Putin and then we had the evening free. We went to the Café Pushkin in Moscow, and as is habit in Moscow, we started drinking vodka shots…. I don’t know how I managed to get out of bed [the next morning]. I wouldn’t even describe myself as hungover; alcohol was still pouring out of my pores.”107

The billion ruble investment in Joule energy was a large part of Joule’s funds raised at the time. In 2012 they raised another $70 million, for a total of about $110 million.108 Joule is a controversial company. As the industry publication E and E put it, the company has made “grandiose claims” about its ability to generate energy from photosynthetic bugs. Indeed, the company seemed to be in on the joke, decorating its office with models of winged pigs, as in “when pigs fly.” The company’s competitors and scientific peers claimed that the “company remains vague in backing up its claims, even in its patent applications.”109 And indeed, as of this writing in 2016, the company has not announced that it has moved beyond the research and development phase.

However, Joule claimed that it would “go commercial in 2017.”110 As we will see, the FBI sent a letter to Boston-area companies and MIT in 2014 raising concerns about Russian-backed investment in U.S. high tech start-ups. Joule declined to comment on the letter.111

But the flow of funds from Russia during the “reset” to Podesta-connected entities apparently didn’t end with Joule Energy. Beginning in 2003, John Podesta took the helm at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive think tank in Washington D.C. During the Bush Administration, the organization was regarded somewhat as an “administration-in-waiting” because of its close contact with the Clintons.112 Podesta left CAP in December 2013 to become a senior official in the Obama White House.113

In July 2009, CAP released a 68-page study advocating for closer relations with the Russian government.114 The piece called for “deepening economic ties,” with Russia and argued that U.S. economic interest would be furthered “through increased trade ties and an improved investment climate.” The monograph, which was scholarly in appearance, argued that critics who favored a “tough” approach with Russia were “producing outcomes that are not in the national interest of the United States.”115

CAP became an early and persistent cheerleader for the reset. CAP Russia analyst Samuel Charap boasted, “There have been concrete achievements for U.S. national security from this policy, which didn’t give away anything in order to get them.”116 Those who opposed the reset on national security grounds were criticized as engaging in “reset-bashing,” which was based on analysis that “is deeply misleading,” he said. Critics were “blinded by their rage that they simply refuse to acknowledge its successes and have conveniently forgotten how disastrous the alternative—an antagonistic U.S.-Russia relationship—is for U.S. national interests and Russia’s own development.”117

In 2011, Charap left CAP and joined the State Department as an advisor to the U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.118 CAP support for the Russian reset occurred as the organization was apparently taking in funds from Russian-connected entities. From 2010 to 2013, CAP took in $5.25 million from the Sea Change Foundation.119 Who was funding Sea Change Foundation? According to tax records, Sea Change Foundation at the time was receiving a large infusion of funds from a mysterious Bermuda-based entity called “Klein, Ltd.” It is interesting to note that prior to receiving funds from Klein, Ltd., Sea Change apparently had never contributed to the CAP before, according to federal tax filings.

Who owns Klein? It is impossible to say exactly, given corporate secrecy laws in Bermuda. But the registered agent and lawyers who set up the offshore entity are tied to a handful of Russian business entities including Troika Dialog, Marcuard Spectrum, and Firebird New Russia Fund. Curiously, Troika Dialog, Ltd. leadership includes Ruben Vardanyan, an ethnic Armenian who is a mega oligarch in Putin’s Russia. Vardanyan also served on the board of Joule Energy with John Podesta. And Firebird New Russia Fund is owned by Firebird Management, which is a co-owner of a Russian Joint Stock Company called Pharmsynthez. Their partner in Pharmsynthez is Rusnano, which is, of course, the investment fund invested in Joule.

Sea Change Foundation received $23 million from Klein, Ltd., according to tax records. Klein is a Bermudan company.120 Its charter states that charitable work is its sole purpose.121 The officers listed on Klein’s founding documents are Nicholas J. Hoskins and Marlies A. Smith.122 Hoskins is a partner and Smith is a legal secretary at the upscale and scandal-laden Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin (WQ).123 WQ and its attorneys enjoy longstanding, and in some cases notorious, relationships with high-level Russian political and business “oligarchs.” Reports in 2014 and 2015, from the media and on Capitol Hill, raised the issue of WQ’s deep ties to Russian oil and gas. It has been argued that the money Klein provided to Sea Change Foundation ultimately funded environmental activism opposed to American fracking and natural gas exports. (Halting or reducing U.S. fracking and reducing gas exports would cut global production and thereby raise prices for the benefit of the Russian investor.) WQ and its attorneys protested the reporting as mere conspiracy theory and pointed out that no Bermudan laws were broken. However, they refused to clarify whether the money Klein provided to Sea Change Foundation originated with WQ’s high-level Russian clients or somewhere else. Then strong statements in 2014 and 2015 by both then-NATO Secretary-General Anders Rasmussen124 and former NATO Commanding General Wesley Clarke,125 without naming Klein, directly affirmed that Russian money funded opposition to domestic fracking in the West. Clark went so far as to point the finger at Vladimir Putin directly.126

JOHN PODESTA AND RUSSIA FUNDS: A Timeline

September 21, 2009

– Graham Allison joins the board of the then “Joule Biotechnologies” 127

June 3, 2010

– Joule Unlimited granted its first patent: WO2010062707(A1) 128

June 3, 2010

– Russian Oligarch Ruben Vardanyan (Troika Dialog and Sberbank) joins the board of Joule Unlimited. 129

January 18, 2011

– Public announcement made that John Podesta is joining the Joule Unlimited Board of Directors. 130

January 27, 2011

– Two more patents granted.

January 28, 2011

– Joule publishes Podesta announcement to its website. 131

March 11, 2011

– Klein, Ltd. Files corporate registration papers in Bermuda, with two senior Wakefied Quin employees, Nicholas J. Hoskins and Marlies Smith, as officers. Hoskins is associated with Troika Dialog and IPOC entities controlled by Russian oligarchs Ruben Vardanyan and Reiman. Smith is corporate secretary for Vimpelcom, run by Fridman and Pinchuk. The registration documents make clear the company’s sole purpose is to make charitable contributions.132

March 14, 2011


Joule Stichting is founded in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

March 18, 2011

– Klein, Ltd.’s registration is recorded in Bermuda.133

May 18, 2011

– Joule Global Holdings N.V. is established in the Netherlands as a property of Joule Global Foundation.134

June 15, 2011

– Podesta joins the board of Joule Stichting but does not disclose this board membership.

July 2011

– Podesta discloses joining the board of Joule Unlimited.

2011-­‐‑2012:

Klein, Ltd. makes $23 million in contributions to the U.S. based charity, the Sea Change Foundation. Sea Change, in its turn, makes $1.75 million in contributions to CAP during this same time. Sea Change had never contributed to the CAP before.

September 23, 2011

– It is announced that Rusnano will make an approximately $35 million investment into Joule Unlimited, which it says is a subsidiary of Joule Global Holdings N.V.135

December 13, 2011

– Rusnano’s board authorizes Anatoly Chubais to serve concurrently on the boards of both Joule Global Holdings, and Joule Global Foundation.136

February 2, 2012

– Joule Unlimited elects Anatoly Chubais to its Board of Directors. 137

December, 2013

– Podesta resigns from Joule boards.

February 21, 2014

-­‐‑ Podesta financial disclosures signed. Does not list Joule Stichting on his disclosure.

Was Klein a vehicle for targeting American energy production? Perhaps. But there is also evidence of a strong connection between WQ, which handles Klein, Ltd. and Joule Energy. Nicholas Hoskins was and is a corporate officer with one of Russia’s original investment banks, Troika Dialog.138 Until its January 2012 merger with Russian state-owned Sberbank,139 Troika’s chairman was the ethnic Armenian mega-oligarch, Ruben Vardanyan.140 Vardanyan sits on the board of Joule Energy itself.141 Vardanyan is a legend in Russian business, establishing an investment bank in the cutthroat Russian atmosphere of the 1990s, and in the early Putin era sitting on commissions that decided what rate state power companies would charge Russia’s notorious aluminum oligarchs.

However, WQ’s most intriguing and troubling Kremlin connection is to longtime Putin confidante Leonid Reiman. In the 1990s, Reiman ran the public telephone utility in Saint Petersburg, reportedly giving a job to Putin’s then-wife Lyudmila.142 From 1999 and for nearly a decade after, Reiman served as Putin’s Telecommunications minister and was widely believed to have siphoned state assets offshore to his own benefit—charges he denies to this day.143 But in 2008, courts in both Zurich and the British Virgin Islands identified him as the ultimate beneficiary of a far-flung money-laundering structure known as “IPOC.”144 Both courts identified two WQ attorneys as officers in IPOC subsidiaries: one Roderick Forrest, an officer for the Sea Change Foundation, and the other being Klein’s own Nicholas Hoskins. The case remains publicly on file with the World Bank’s Stolen Assets Recovery database, Forrest’s company and Hoskin’s name clearly listed as part of it.145

Reiman, as it turns out, has his own connection to Skolkovo and Rusnano. Reiman is the owner of the Russian microchip maker Angstrem. In July, 2012, Angstrem announced a cooperation agreement with IBM. The announcement was made in St. Petersburg in concert with Rusnano and other state-owned investment vehicles such the Russian Venture Company.146

Teneo and Profiteering on the Reset

The Russian Reset also served the interests of Teneo, the Clinton-connected business consultancy. Formed by two close Clinton aides, Declan Kelly and Doug Band, the firm touts its connections and access to the centers of power around the world. Declan Kelly served as an Economic Envoy for Hillary Clinton at the State Department beginning in 2009 and became chairman and CEO of Teneo.147 Cofounder Doug Band was a long-time personal aide to Bill Clinton.148

In 2011, with the reset in full swing, Teneo made a hard push into the Russian influence business. It opened an office in Moscow and brought on board Michael Madden to serve as Chairman of Teneo Capital and Restructuring. Madden had founded Renaissance Credit Group in 2003, a financial firm in Moscow.149

Madden had deep ties to the Russian leadership. Back in 1993 he set up American Express’ operations in Russia and met a young ambitious intelligence officer named Vladimir Putin. At the time Putin was the head of foreign business registrations.150

Teneo also brought on board Andrew Somers, another businessman with deep Russian ties. From 2000 to 2013, Somers had been the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, where he dealt regularly with the Russian regime. During his tenure, the Chamber provided “business input into the Russian American Presidential Bilateral Commission” that Hillary Clinton co-chaired. He played a “key role in the July 2009 Moscow Business Summit.” He was brought on at Teneo Holdings as a “senior advisor.”151

At this same time, in June 2011, Teneo signed Bill Clinton to a lucrative consulting deal, said to be worth $1 million. When this arrangement was disclosed the following year, prompting a media outcry, Bill Clinton announced he was “changing” his relationship with Teneo in March of 2012.152 What that change included is unclear.

According to Teneo’s website, they leverage “deep global relationships, experience and intellectual capabilities” that allow them to “sit at the center of information and networks, offering unparalleled execution to capture opportunities and solve complex problems.”153

Because Teneo is a private entity and was so intertwined with the Hillary Clinton State Department, it is difficult but important to know precisely what the nature of their work in Russia might be. Were they steering clients to deals in Skolkovo? Did they work with companies to secure capital from Rusnano?

National Security Implications

The serious questions raised by Hillary Clinton’s pushing of technology transfer and investments as part of the Russian reset don’t end with the issues of self-dealing and cronyism. There are serious national security questions that have been raised about both Skolkovo and Rusnano, by the FBI, the U.S. Army, and cybersecurity experts. Specifically, these experts have argued that the activities of Skolkovo and Russian investment funds like Rusnano are ultimately serving the interests of the Russian military.

Skolkovo

In 2014, the FBI sent letters to a number of firms involved with Skolkovo in what was called “an extraordinary warning issued to technology companies.”154 The FBI’s Boston Office warned U.S. tech companies that Skolkovo could draw them unwittingly into industrial espionage. The FBI warning singled out the Skolkovo Foundation, with which Hillary Clinton and the State Department had actively encouraged American companies to work. (Memorandums of Understanding signed by American companies to work with Skolkovo were done under the auspices of the State Department.)155 “The foundation may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial application,” warned Lucia Ziobro, the assistant special agent at the FBI’s Boston office. She noted that the Skolkovo Foundation had signed deals with the Russian military contractor OJSC Kamaz, which builds military vehicles for the Russian Armed Forces. “The FBI believes the true motives of the Russian partners, who are often funded by their government, is to gain access to classified, sensitive, and emerging technology from the companies,” said Ziobro.156

Skolkovo’s link to the Russian military-intelligence apparatus is not in dispute. In 2011, when Russian spy Anna Chapman was deported from the U.S. on espionage charges, she returned to Russia and quickly emerged at—of all places—Skolkovo. Chapman was steered to the research center, and the director of Skolkovo suggested she “apply for a $1 million research grant for some projects with the Young Guards,” a pro-Putin youth group.157

The U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Program at Fort Leavenworth issued a report in 2013 (written in 2012) about the security implications of Skolkovo. The report declared that the purpose of Skolkovo was to serve as a “vehicle for worldwide technology transfer to Russia in the areas of information technology, biomedicine, energy, satellite and space technology, and nuclear technology.” Of course, technology can have multiple uses—both civilian and military. And the report noted that “the Skolkovo Foundation has, in fact, been involved in defense-related activities since December 2011, when it approved the first weapons-related project—the development of a hypersonic cruise missile engine. The project is a response to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, part of the Prompt Global Strike program. Sophisticated physical security, consisting of cameras, thermal imaging, and alarms, also suggests that not all of the center’s efforts are civilian in nature.”158

Because of the way Skolkovo operates, “the government’s operation of Skolkovo and investment positions in companies will likely provide its military awareness of and access to technologies.”159

The report further noted that “Skolkovo is arguably an overt alternative to clandestine industrial espionage—with the additional distinction that it can achieve such a transfer on a much larger scale and more efficiently.”160

In short, the FBI and the U.S. Army have raised serious concerns about these activities serving to subsidize and enhance the military technological capabilities of the Russian government.

Many Skolkovo research projects incorporate “dual-use” technologies, meaning they have both civilian and military application. The Skolkovo Foundation admits as much in its own publications. For example, Skolkovo officials cite successes in a creating a device called an Atlant, a hybrid airship that is being developed in the Skolkovo Aeronautical Center. In its own publication Made in Skolkovo, the foundation notes, “Particularly noteworthy is Atlant’s ability to deliver military cargoes. The introduction of this unique vehicle if fully consistent with the concept of creating a mobile army and opens up new possibilities for mobile use of the means of radar surveillance, air and missile defense, and delivery of airborne troops.”161

Other Skolkovo entities are open about their military research purposes. Radio Vision is a Skolkovo partner based in Russia doing work on communications equipment for the armed services and Russian internal security. In a report on its own website, the company notes its active participation in “Interpolitex 2015,” a Homeland Security Exhibition in Moscow sponsored by the Russian state security services. The company notes that among its “key partners and customers” are “military-industrial complex enterprises.”162

Cybersecurity experts also expressed deep reservations as early as 2010 that U.S. companies working at Skolkovo “may…inadvertently be harming global cybersecurity.”163 And indeed, Skolkovo happens to be the site of the Russian Security Service (FSB)’s security centers 16 and 18, which are in charge of information warfare for the Russian government. According to Newsweek, it is here that the Russian government runs information warfare operations against the Ukrainian government. As Vitaliy Naida, head of the Internal Security (SBU) department for the Ukrainian government told Newsweek, “It starts with the FSB’s security centres 16 and 18, operating out of Skolkovo, Russia. These centres are in charge of information warfare. They send out propaganda, false information via social media. Re-captioned images from Syria, war crimes from Serbia—they’re used to radicalize and then recruit Ukrainians.”164

Rusnano

The FBI warning to U.S. tech firms also expressed concerns about the activities of Russian venture capital firms. While the letter did not specifically name Rusnano, many observers saw the warning as a reference to the firm. Rusnano officials denied the characterization. “No, I’m not a spy,” said Dmitry Akhanov, the chief executive of Rusnano in the U.S.165 But it is important to remember that Rusnano investments come with strings attached, which often require manufacturing of technologies in Russia and the transference of those technologies to Moscow. It would be impossible to control the use of dual-use technologies by the Russian military.

According to a study by the Swedish Defense Research Agency, the work of Rusnano will have a hugely beneficial effect on the Russian military: “It is possible that the biggest impact of nanotechnology in the short term will be as a driver of the modernization of the Russian Armed Forces.”166

Indeed, it was Vladimir Putin who made this very point, saying during a 2008 speech during a meeting of the State Council that breakthroughs in nanotechnology and information technology “could lead to revolutionary changes in weapons and defence.”167

The Russian government sees technologies developed in the civilian sector as “dual use,” meaning that they have military applications as well. “Innovative Russia 2020,” the Russian government’s innovation policy which was approved in December 2011, stated, “Priority will be given to exchange of knowledge and technology between the defense and civil sectors, development of dual-use technology, weapons development, modernization of military material, and improving methods to fight terrorism.”168

A State Department cable sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made note of the fact that there were “dual use and export control concerns” related to Rusnano and Skolkovo technology ventures with Moscow.169 As professor Margaret Kosal puts it, “RusNano was specifically designed to complement the projects funded by the Skolkovo Foundation in that RusNano is meant to focus on later-stage projects while Skolkovo is dedicated to fostering those in the early stages.”170

Rusnano-funded companies “might play an important role in future military development,” Professor Kosal warns. Because it is government directed, the Russian government might use “the breakthroughs of scientists working purely in the commercial sector to further its military goals.”171
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Re: Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Clinton Foundation

Postby admin » Thu Nov 17, 2016 3:03 am

Part 2 of 2

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Notes:

1 "U.S.-Russia Relations: "Reset" Fact Sheet." The White House. June 24, 2010. Accessed March 14, 2016. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... fact-sheet.

2 "Moscow, Russia - Embassy of the United States." U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://moscow.usembassy.gov/bpc.html.

3 "Moscow, Russia - Embassy of the United States." U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://moscow.usembassy.gov/bpc.html.

4 “U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission: Spring 2012 Joint Report.” Bureau of European and Eurasian State Affairs, US Department of State. March 26, 2012. Accessed May 2, 2016. http://www.state.gov/p/eur/ci/rs/usruss ... 186831.htm

5 "Press Conference by President Obama and President Medvedev of Russia." The White House. July 06, 2009. Accessed March 17, 2016. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... onference- president-obama-and-president-medvedev-russia.

6 Landler, Mark. Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Twilight Struggle over American Power. 264-65.

7 Landler, Mark. Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Twilight Struggle over American Power. 264-65.

8 Landler, Mark. Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Twilight Struggle over American Power. 264-65.

9 “Russia Moving Into High Gear on Nanotechnology; Actively Seeking Cooperation with U.S.,” U.S. State Department Cable. February 11, 2009. Wikileaks. Accessed April 27, 2016. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09MOSCOW333_a.html.

10 "Lavrov Call." E-mail to Hillary Clinton. April 3, 2010. "Updated Lavrov Call Sheet." E-mail to Hillary Clinton. August 5, 2012. "Mini for Today - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - Revised." E-mail to Hillary Clinton. March 5, 2012. "Mini Schedule 7/13/11 Wednesday." E-mail to Hillary Clinton. August 11, 2011.

11 Conason, Joe. "Bill and Vladimir." Observer. January 29, 2009. Accessed April 20, 2016. http://observer.com/2009/01/bill-and-vladimir/. Levy, Clifford J., and Ellen Barry. "Putin Criticizes U.S. for Arrests of Espionage Suspects." The New York Times. June 29, 2010. Accessed April 20, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/world ... .html?_r=0.

12 "Search Hillary Clinton's Emails." WSJ. March 1, 2016. Accessed March 28, 2016. http://graphics.wsj.com/hillary-clinton ... documents/.

13 "US Under Secretary of State Visits Moscow. Sputnik News: The Voice of Russia. Accessed March 24, 2016. http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/20 ... 3/3553296/.

14 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, Hard Choices (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014).

15 "Clinton, Lavrov Push Wrong Reset Button on Ties." Reuters. March 6, 2009. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN06402140. Clinton, Hillary Rodham, Hard Choices (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 231, 232.

16 Weir, Fred. "Clinton Looks to 'reset' US-Russia Relations." The Christian Science Monitor. March 6, 2009. Accessed March 17, 2016. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global- News/2009/0306/clinton-looks-to-reset-us-russia-relations.

17 Shuster, Simon. "U.S.-Russia Relations: In Need of a New Reset." Time. March 16, 2010. Accessed March 18, 2016. http://content.time.com/time/world/arti ... 51,00.html.

18 Traynor, Ian. "Putin Denounces US Plan for Missile Shield." The Guardian. May 23, 2007. Accessed March 18, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/m ... iantraynor. Shuster, Simon. "U.S.-Russia Relations: In Need of a New Reset." Time. March 16, 2010. Accessed March 18, 2016. http://content.time.com/time/world/arti ... 51,00.html.

19 "U.S.-Russia Relations: ‘Reset’ Fact Sheet." The White House. June 24, 2010. Accessed March 18, 2016. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... -factsheet.

20 "Secretary Clinton's Remarks Following Tour of Boeing Design Center." U.S. Department of State. October 13, 2009. Accessed March 23, 2016. http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013 ... 130518.htm.

21 "Vice President Biden's Remarks at Moscow State University." The White House. March 10, 2011. Accessed March 23, 2016. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... president- bidens-remarks-moscow-state-university.

22 "U.S. SCIENCE ADVISOR AND RUSSIAN SCIENCE MINISTER AGREE HOW TO STRENGTHEN BILATERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COOPERATION." Wikileaks. December 3, 2009. Accessed May 06, 2016. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09MOSCOW2932_a.html.

23 Glick, Bryan. "Skolkovo Innovation Centre - Russia's Silicon Valley?" Creating a Small Town on the Outskirts of Moscow for Russian Technology -. June 6, 2014. Accessed March 24, 2016. http://www.computerweekly.com/photostor ... e-Russias- Silicon-Valley/5/Creating-a-small-town-on-the-outskirts-of-Moscow-for-Russian-technology.

24 "Skolkovo Innovation Center." Skolkovo Innovation Center. Accessed March 24, 2016. http://in.rbth.com/skolkovo.

25 "Cisco Commits $1 Billion for Multi-year Investment in Skolkovo." ThinkRUSSIA. June 27, 2010. Accessed March 24, 2016. http://www.thinkrussia.com/business-eco ... o-commits- 1-billion-multi-year-investment-skolkovo. "CORRECTING and REPLACING Russia's Skolkovo IT Start-Ups Present to Silicon Valley." Business Wire. October 12, 2011. Accessed March 25, 2016. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2 ... CINGRussia% E2%80%99s-Skolkovo-Start-Ups-Present-Silicon.

26 Bord, Eugene, and Natalya Guseva. "Skolkovo: A Case Study in Government-supported Innovation - Knowledge@Wharton." The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. December 20, 2013. Accessed March 25, 2016. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/arti ... nnovation/.

27 Laqueur, Walter. "Moscow's Modernization Dilemma." Foreign Affairs. October 22, 2010. Accessed March 24, 2016. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles ... u/2010-11- 01/moscows-modernization-dilemma.

28 Pfanner, Eric “With An American’s Help, Russia Advances Plan to Create a Silicon Valley; Appointment of professor from MIT is Aimed at Lifting Project’s Credibility.” International Herald Tribune. January 3, 2012.

29 "What Is Skolkovo?" Skolkovo Foundation. Accessed March 25, 2016. https://sk.ru/foundation/about/.

30 "Joint Report by the Coordinators of the U.S.-Russia Presidential Commission." U.S. Department of State. May 26, 2011. Accessed April 27, 2016. http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/or/164304.htm.

31 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, Hard Choices (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 235.

32 Clark, Andrew. "Dmitry Medvedev Picks Silicon Valley's Brains." The Guardian. June 23, 2010. Accessed March 25, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... ymedvedev- silicon-valley-visit.

33 Miomilano. "Medvedev to Schwarzenegger: I'll Be Back." YouTube. June 23, 2010. Accessed March 25, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... MHK33BrxOk.

34 Von Twickel, Nikolaus. "Medvedev Pitches Russia as Financial Haven | News." The Moscow Times. May 26, 2010. Accessed March 25, 2016. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article.php?id=406834.

35 Wood, Daniel B. "Russia's Medvedev on Silicon Valley Reconnaissance Mission." The Christian Science Monitor. June 21, 2010. Accessed March 25, 2016. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0621/ ... naissance- mission.

36 "Can Russia Create a New Silicon Valley?" The Economist, July 14, 2012. Accessed April 29, 2016. Nexis.

37 Voronkov, Viktor. "One of the Leading US Biotechnology Venture Funds Enters into Investor Accreditation Agreement with the Skolkovo Foundation." Skolkovo Foundation. August 6, 2012. Accessed March 25, 2016. http://sk.ru/news/b/pressreleases/archi ... heleading- us-biotechnology-venture-funds-enters-into-investor-accreditation-agreement-with-theskolkovo- foundation.aspx.

38 Somers, Andrew. "Recommendations to Presidents Medvedev and Obama." The American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, June 7, 2009, 30-31. Accessed April 26, 2016. http://www.russiapartners.com/assets/pd ... devObamaSu mmitAmericanChamberofCommerce.pdf.

39 "Export and Contract Compliance - Global Export Trade." Cisco. Accessed April 19, 2016. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/lega ... compliance. html. "The International Traffic in Arms Regulations." US State Department. Accessed April 19, 2016. http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar.html.

40 "Press Statement from Under Secretary of State Robert Hormats." Embassy of the United States - Moscow, Russia. November 11, 2011. Accessed April 21, 2016. http://moscow.usembassy.gov/pr_111111.html. "Fact Sheet-U.S.-Russia Business Summit." Department of Commerce. June 25, 2010. Accessed July 18, 2016. http://2010-2014.commerce.gov/news/fact ... abusiness- summit.html.

41 Hormats, Robert, and James F. Collins. "The State of U.S.-Russia Economic Cooperation." Carnegie India. June 20, 2011. Accessed April 21, 2016. http://carnegieindia.org/2011/06/20/sta ... ooperation.

42 Belvedere, Matthew J. "In My Mind, Hillary’s Running, Says Her Econ Guru." CNBC. August 22, 2013. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100980699.

43 "Robert D. Hormats Sworn in as Under Secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs." U.S. Department of State. September 23, 2009. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/sept/129535.htm.

44 "Innovation Working Group of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission Holds Its Second Meeting in Moscow." Embassy of the United States - Moscow, Russia. November 1, 2012. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://moscow.usembassy.gov/pr-nov0112.html.

45 Hormats, Robert, and James F. Collins. "The State of U.S.-Russia Economic Cooperation." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. June 20, 2011. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://carnegieendowment.org/2011/06/20 ... ration/sph.

46 "Who We Are." The New York Academy of Sciences. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://www.nyas.org/AboutUs/WhoWeAre/Hariton.aspx.

47 "Lorraine Hariton." LinkedIn. Accessed March 26, 2016. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorrainehariton.

48 "Innovation Working Group of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission Holds Its Second Meeting in Moscow." Embassy of the United States - Moscow, Russia. November 1, 2012. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://moscow.usembassy.gov/pr-nov0112.html.

49 Nowak, David. "Key Skolkovo Partners Microsoft, Siemens, Reiterate Commitment to Project." Skolkovo Foundation. November 13, 2014. Accessed May 10, 2016. https://sk.ru/news/b/articles/archive/2 ... reiterate- commitment-to-project.aspx.

50 "State in €70m Aids Partnership in Africa." The Irish Times. October 25, 2006. Accessed July 15, 2016. http://www.irishtimes.com/news/state-in ... a-1.798426. "Press Release: President Clinton to Visit Pediatric AIDS Clinic in Mozambique, Beginning Trip to Africa to Focus on AIDS Care." Clinton Foundation. June 17, 2005. Accessed July 15, 2016. https://www.clintonfoundation.org/main/ ... ssrelease- president-clinton-to-visit-pediatric-aids-clinic-in-mozambique-beg.html. "Billionaire Russian to Hire Lenihan." Irish Examiner. October 20, 2013. Accessed May 05, 2016. http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/bi ... 46931.html. "State in €70m Aids Partnership in Africa." The Irish Times. October 25, 2006. Accessed May 05, 2016. http://www.irishtimes.com/news/state-in ... a-1.798426. Lenihan, Conor. "Skolkovo Key Partners - Presentation." Skolkovo Foundation. April 11, 2012. Accessed May 05, 2016. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... hUKEwi4gcf hzsPMAhVHxWMKHVMqBQ4QFggdMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsk.ru%2Fnews%2Fm%2 Fskmedia%2F855%2Fdownload.aspx&usg=AFQjCNHHhci2BSsdjnlPIqFNy94TRZz3UQ&sig2 =Nwx5i_0YweqG4sGXJ3INgA. Note that the first Skolkovo annual report, released in 2012, stated that “The key partner service of the Skolkovo Foundation is aimed at attracting the largest international and Russian corporations to place their research and/or venture profile at the Skolkovo Innovation Center.” It was later that year that Lenihan released the powerpoint presentation referenced above that included a list of “key partners” with the Skolkovo foundation. "Skolkovo Foundation 2011 Annual Report." Skolkovo Foundation. June 19, 2012. Accessed May 5, 2016. community.sk.ru/press/m/skmedia/1339/download.aspx.

51 Note that company logos in color were Clinton Foundation donors. Those in grey scale were not.

52Nikishenkov, Oleg. "The Skolkovo Foundation Council Approved Key Development Priorities." Skolkovo Foundation. December 16, 2013. Accessed March 30, 2016. https://sk.ru/news/b/articles/archive/2 ... velopment- priorities.aspx. "CGI Annual Meeting 2015 - Speakers." Clinton Global Initiative. Accessed March 26, 2016. https://www.clintonfoundation.org/clint ... lmeetings/ 2015/speakers.

53 “Clinton Foundation Donor’s List” Arkansas Online Accessed April 12, 2016. http://www.arkansasonline.com/extra/dat ... 3646330529 241492663291255040916347289321214124268203689505564557763134836255414125657066 3823633152160176612314240449434898.

54 Nikishenkov, Oleg. "The Skolkovo Foundation Council Approved Key Development Priorities." Skolkovo Foundation. December 16, 2013. Accessed March 30, 2016. https://sk.ru/news/b/articles/archive/2 ... velopment- priorities.aspx. "Craig R. Barrett." Intel Newsroom. Accessed March 30, 2016. https://newsroom.intel.com/biography/craig-r-barrett/.

55 Bump, Philip. “A Searchable Index of Clinton Foundation Donors” The Washington Post. Accessed April 12, 2016. Search for Intel. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-­‐ fix/wp/2015/02/26/a-­‐searchable-­‐index-­‐of-­‐clinton-­‐foundation-­‐donors/

56 "Victor Vekselberg." Skolkovo Foundation. Accessed March 28, 2016. https://sk.ru/foundation/team/p/person.aspx?un=vvf.

57 "Russia's Billionaire Boys Club." Fortune. Accessed March 28, 2016. http://archive.fortune.com/galleries/20 ... s.fortune/. Smith, Stephen. "Why You've Never Heard Of Russia's Richest Man." Esquire. August 02, 2013. Accessed March 28, 2016. http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/news/a ... manvictor- vekselberg/.

58 "Viktor F. Vekselberg." Renova Group. Accessed March 28, 2016. http://www.renova.ru/en/about/managemen ... erg_v_f_en. Bump, Philip. "A Searchable Index of Clinton Foundation Donors." Washington Post. February 26, 2015. Accessed March 28, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/thefix/ wp/2015/02/26/a-searchable-index-of-clinton-foundation-donors/.

59 Bump, Philip. "A Searchable Index of Clinton Foundation Donors." Washington Post. February 26, 2015. Accessed April 21, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/thefix/ wp/2015/02/26/a-searchable-index-of-clinton-foundation-donors/.

60 "Russia / Viktor Vekselberg?" E-mail to Cheryl D. Mills, Jacob J. Sullivan, and Michael H. Fuchs. June 4, 2012.

61 "Fort Ross Bicentennial Sparks Long Celebration." News & Views, 2012. Accessed April 19, 2016. http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/23071/fil ... yearnv.pdf.

62 "Fort Ross Bicentennial Sparks Long Celebration." News & Views, 2012. Accessed April 19, 2016. http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/23071/fil ... yearnv.pdf.

63 Dolan, Kerry A. "Russian Billionaire Vekselberg's Non-Oil Endeavor: Raising Funds For A California State Park." Forbes. October 19, 2012. Accessed April 04, 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan ... lendeavor- raising-funds-for-a-california-state-park/#51af4a553d79.

64 Norberg, Bob. "Russian Billionaire Offers Boost for Historic Fort Established by Russia as Outpost in 1812." The Press Democract. June 24, 2010. Accessed April 17, 2016. http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/22335 ... s-boostfor? ref=related&gallery=2359994&artslide=0.

65 "SuperOx Team Presented Its 2G HTS Wire 1 Km Long." SuperOx. October 22, 2014. Accessed April 4, 2016. http://www.superox.ru/en/news/october2014/718/. Saul, Stephanie, and Louise Story. "At the Time Warner Center, an Enclave of Powerful Russians." New York Times. February 11, 2015. Accessed April 4, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/12/nyreg ... vilov.html. "Skolkovo’s Nuclear Cluster “replenished with “breakthrough” Technologies." Skolkovo Foundation. December 5, 2011. Accessed April 4, 2016. http://sk.ru/foundation/nuclear/b/ncnew ... r-cluster- _1c20_replenished-with-_1c20_breakthrough_1d20_-technologies-.aspx.

66 "Nuclear Cluster Partners." Skolkovo Foundation. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://sk.ru/foundation/nuclear/p/rosatom.aspx.

67 Bump, Philip. "A Searchable Index of Clinton Foundation Donors." Washington Post. February 26, 2015. Accessed April 21, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/thefix/ wp/2015/02/26/a-searchable-index-of-clinton-foundation-donors/.

68 Becker, Jo, and Mike Mcintire. "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal." The New York Times. April 23, 2015. Accessed April 12, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/ca ... ressedfor- control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0.

69 "Arbitration Upheld the Claim Baturina Structure in the Case of TD "Setunskaya" Lands." Forbes. June 17, 2014. Accessed April 5, 2015. http://www.forbes.ru/news/260273-arbitrazhudovletvoril- isk-struktury-baturinoi-po-delu-o-zemlyakh-td-setunskaya.

70 Kravchenko, Stepan, and Olga Kharif. "Russia's Chubais Eyes U.S. Tech Firms With Putin Blessing." Bloomberg.com. August 24, 2012. Accessed April 05, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... withputin- blessing.

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72 Medetsky, Anatoly. "Chubais Unveils New-Look Rusnano." The Moscow Times. January 29, 2014. Accessed April 5, 2016. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/ ... anocounts- on-restructuring-and-chubais-to-lure-investors/493573.html.

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79 Kravchenko, Stepan, and Olga Kharif. "Russia's Chubais Eyes U.S. Tech Firms With Putin Blessing." Bloomberg.com. August 24, 2012. Accessed April 05, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... withputin- blessing.

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91 Abedin, Huma. “Podesta.” E-­‐‑mail. August 21, 2009.

92 Podesta, John. “[redacted].” E-­‐‑mail. July 25, 2009; Mills, Cheryl D. “[redacted].” E-­‐‑mail. July 26, 2009; Mills, Cheryl D. “Senior Advisor or Whatever you Like.” E-­‐‑mail. May 30, 2011.

93 Podesta, John. "Public Financial Disclosure Report." Accessed April 20, 2016. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentclo ... hitehouse- financial-disclosure-form.pdf. "Joule Unlimited, Inc." Portfolio Companies. Accessed April 06, 2016. http://en.rusnano.com/portfolio/compani ... eunlimited.

94 Glass, David. A Transformative Production Platform for Liquid Fuel from the Sun. January 30, 2013. SAE Presenation

95 Podesta, John. "Public Financial Disclosure Report." Accessed April 20, 2016. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentclo ... hitehouse- financial-disclosure-form.pdf.

96 "Contributor and Grantor Information." Clinton Foundation. Accessed April 06, 2016. https://www.clintonfoundation.org/contr ... 01+to+%245%2 C000%2C000&page=2.

97 Podesta, John. "Public Financial Disclosure Report." Accessed April 20, 2016. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentclo ... hitehouse- financial-disclosure-form.pdf.

98 "Incorporating in the Netherlands." Stichting - Features.pdf, September 2013. Accessed May 6, 2016. http://www.mossfon.com/wp-content/uploa ... es_low.pdf.

99 "Flat-pack Accounting." The Economist. May 13, 2006. Accessed May 06, 2016. http://www.economist.com/node/6919139.

100 "Company Profile - Joule Foundation Global Foundation." Bureau Van Dijk. Accessed April 29, 2016.

101 "Joule Elects Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta to Board of Directors." Joule Unlimited. January 28, 2011. Accessed July 15, 2016. http://www.jouleunlimited.com/jouleelects- former-white-house-chief-staff-john-podesta-board-directors.

102 "Joule Biotechnologies Elects Graham Allison to Board of Directors." Joule Unlimited. Accessed April 6, 2016. http://www.jouleunlimited.com/joule-bio ... amallison- board-directors.

103 Philippidis, Alex. "From Russia with Drugs and Vaccines, as Federation and Big Pharma Drive Partnerships." Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. December 2, 2011. Accessed April 10, 2016. http://www.genengnews.com/insight-and-i ... -drugsand- vaccines-as-federation-and-big-pharma-drive-partnerships/77899504/. "Rusnano Invests in Promising Renewable Fuel Production Technology." Rusnano. Accessed April 21, 2016. https://translate.google.com/translate? ... usnano.com%2 Fabout%2Fpress-centre%2Fnews%2F75693&prev=search.

104 "Generating Joules with Sunlight and Water." Nanalyze. October 1, 2013. Accessed April 10, 2016. http://www.nanalyze.com/2013/10/generat ... and-water/.

105 "Joule Elects Anatoly Chubais to Board of Directors." Joule Unlimited. February 2, 2012. Accessed April 10, 2016. http://www.jouleunlimited.com/joule-ele ... ddirectors.

106 Philippidis, Alex. "From Russia with Drugs and Vaccines, as Federation and Big Pharma Drive Partnerships." Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. December 2, 2011. Accessed April 10, 2016. http://www.genengnews.com/insight-and-i ... -drugsand- vaccines-as-federation-and-big-pharma-drive-partnerships/77899504/.

107 Daniloff, Caleb. "A Running Conversation with John Podesta." Runner's World. May 01, 2014. Accessed April 12, 2016. http://www.runnersworld.com/runners-sto ... versation- with-john-podesta.

108 "Joule Secures $70M in Private Equity Investments for Growth." Joule Unlimited. January 17, 2012. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.jouleunlimited.com/joule-sec ... ateequity- investments-growth.

109 Voosen, Paul. "As Algae Bloom Fades, Photosynthesis Hopes Still Shine." New York Times. March 29, 2011. Accessed April 10, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/03/29 ... esishopes- stil-54180.html?pagewanted=all.

110 Lane, Jim. "Joule Says “will Go Commercial in 2017”: Solar Fuels on the Way." Biofuels Digest. March 23, 2015. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2 ... l-in-2017- solar-fuels-on-the-way/.

111 Farrell, Michael B. "FBI Warns Mass. Tech Companies on Russian Investors." Telegram.com. April 8, 2014. Accessed May 06, 2016. http://www.telegram.com/article/20140408/NEWS/140409912.

112 Crowley, Michael. "The Shadow President." The New Republic, November 19, 2008, 26-27. Accessed April 5, 2016.

113 Rucker, Philip. "John Podesta to Formally Join Obama Inner Circle." Washington Post. December 9, 2013. Accessed April 12, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/johnpodesta- to-formally-join-obama-inner-circle/2013/12/09/7a4bc430-614f-11e3-bf45- 61f69f54fc5f_story.html.

114 Charap, Samuel, Laura Conley, Peter Juul, Andrew Light, and Julian Wong. "After the “Reset” A Strategy and New Agenda for U.S. Russia Policy." July 2009. Accessed April 10, 2016. https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-nte ... report.pdf.

115 Center for American Progress, After the Reset, p 22

116 Greenblatt, Alan. "For U.S. And Russia, Distrust Still Runs High." NPR. September 14, 2011. Accessed April 10, 2011. http://www.npr.org/2011/09/13/140441171 ... llrunning- high.

117 Charap, Samuel. "Reset This." Foreign Policy. August 12, 2011. Accessed April 10, 2016. http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/08/12/reset-this/.

118 "Samuel Charap." International Institute for Strategic Studies. Accessed April 10, 2016. https://www.iiss.org/en/persons/samuel-s-charap.

119 United States. Internal Revenue Service. Form 990-PF, Return of Private Foundation or Section 4947(a)(1) Nonexempt Charitable Trust Treated as a Private Foundation. Washington, D.C.: Dept. of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, 2010-2013. Accessed April 22, 2016. https://www.citizenaudit.org/organizati ... oundation/.

120 "Klein Ltd Certificate of Incorporation." March 11, 2011. Accessed April 11, 2016.

121 "Klein Ltd Memorandum of Association." March 11, 2011. Accessed April 11, 2016.

122 "Klein Ltd Memorandum of Association." March 11, 2011. Accessed April 11, 2016.

123 "Mr. Nicholas Hoskins Laywer Profile." HG.org. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.hg.org/lawyer/nicholas-hoskins/156993. "Marlies Smith." LinkedIn. Accessed April 11, 2016. https://www.linkedin.com/in/marliessmith- ab3a9621.

124 Harvey, Fiona. "Russia 'secretly Working with Environmentalists to Oppose Fracking'" The Guardian. June 19, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... entalists- to-oppose-fracking.

125 See http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ne ... s-byputin- says-general-wesley-clark. Clarke’s statement, speaking of Putin: "He has a big game plan and that is to break up the European Union, a weakened NATO, restore Russia's defensive area [Warsaw Pact] and control Ukraine and Belarus," he said. "He's doing this through covert ops, sabotage in Ukraine, military aggression, the separatist movements, economics, diplomacy, buying people in the EU, and putting FSB money toward environmental groups to protest against fracking to keep Europe dependent on Russian oil and gas."

126 Harvey, Fiona. "Russia 'secretly Working with Environmentalists to Oppose Fracking'" The Guardian. June 19, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... entalists- to-oppose-fracking.

127 "Joule Biotechnologies Elects Graham Allison to Board of Directors." Joule Unlimited. September 21, 2009. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.jouleunlimited.com/joulebiotechnologies- elects-graham-allison-board-directors.

128 Company Report for Joule Unlimited Inc. Bureau van Dijk.

129 "Joule Elects Ruben Vardanian to Board of Directors." Joule Unlimited. June 3, 2010. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.jouleunlimited.com/joule-ele ... ddirectors. "Ruben Karlenovich Vardanyan: Executive Profile & Biography." Bloomberg.com. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stock ... privcapId= 52956495&previousCapId=473342&previousTitle=MARSH+&+MCLENNAN+COS. "Ruben Vardanyan." LinkedIn. Accessed April 29, 2016. https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubenvardanyan- 22462bb9.

130 "Joule Elects Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta to Board of Directors." Reuters. January 18, 2011. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS1653 ... BW20110118.

131 "Joule Elects Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta to Board of Directors." Joule Unlimited. January 28, 2016. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.jouleunlimited.com/jouleelects- former-white-house-chief-staff-john-podesta-board-directors.

132 "Klein Ltd Memorandum of Association." March 11, 2011. Accessed April 11, 2016

133 "Klein Ltd Certificate of Incorporation." March 11, 2011. Accessed April 11, 2016.

134 Company Profile – Stichting Joule Global Foundation. Bureau van Dijk.  

135 "Portfolio Company - Joule Unlimited Inc." Rusnano. Accessed May 6, 2016. http://en.rusnano.com/portfolio/compani ... eunlimited.

136 "Rusnano Annual Report." 2012, 50. Accessed May 6, 2016. http://en.rusnano.com/upload/images/nor ... 11_ENG.pdf.

137 "Joule Elects Anatoly Chubais to Board of Directors." Joule Unlimited. February 2, 2012. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.jouleunlimited.com/joule-ele ... ddirectors.

138 "Liquidation Announcement." Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.royalgazette.com/assets/pdf/RG135724426.pdf. "Troika Dialog Adherence Letter." Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.isda.org/smallbang/sbpdf/Tro ... 101309.pdf.

139 "CORPORATE & INVESTMENT BANKING BUSINESS OF SBERBANK OF RUSSIA." Sberbank. January 23, 2012. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.sberbank.ru/en/about/sbgroup ... ies/sb_cib.

140"Ruben Karlenovich Vardanyan Founding Partner and Vice Chairman of International Advisory Board, Moscow School of Management." Bloomberg. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stock ... privcapId= 52956495. "Where Dreams Take You." Accessed April 11, 2016. http://rubenvardanyan.info/en/pages/whe ... s-take-you.

141 "Vardanyan Ruben." Skolkovo Foundation. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.skolkovo.ru/public/en/facult ... vardanyan/.

142 Walters, Greg. "Germans See Shady City Link." St Petersgburg Times. July 29, 2005. Accessed April 10, 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/201402251506 ... 0?page=2#t op.

143 Kent, Jonathon. "The Rise and Fall of IPOC." The Royal Gazette. May 9, 2008. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.royalgazette.com/article/200 ... /305099948. Delany, Max, and Taj Adelaja. "After 9 Years, Reiman Leaves Mixed Record | Business." The Moscow Times. May 13, 2008. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/ ... xedrecord/ 362678.html?id=362678.

144 The Queen v IPOC International Growth Fund, Lapal Limited, Albany Invest Limited, Mercury Import Limited (August 20, 2008). http://www.eccourts.org/wpcontent/ files_mf/20.08.08thequeenvipocinternationalgrowthfundltdetal.pdf “Leonid Reiman and Jeffrey Galmond/IPOC Case.” Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative. Accessed April 15, 2016. https://star.worldbank.org/corruption-cases/node/18669

145 "Lapal Limited." Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative. Accessed April 11, 2016. https://star.worldbank.org/corruption-cases/node/19023.

146 "Russian Microelectronics Takes to the Cloud with IBM." IBM News. July 13, 2012. Accessed April 21, 2016. http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/press ... /38348.wss. "ANGSTREM and IBM Corporation Sign Strategic Agreements for Technology Innovation." PRNewswire. October 31, 2012. Accessed April 10, 2016. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-­‐ releases/angstrem-­‐and-­‐ibm-­‐corporation-­‐sign-­‐strategic-­‐agreements-­‐for-­‐technology-­‐innovation-­‐ 176626901.html.

147 "Declan Kelly." Teneo Holdings. Accessed April 12, 2016. http://www.teneoholdings.com/bios/declan-kelly/.

148 "Douglas J. Band." Teneo Holdings. Accessed April 12, 2016. http://www.teneoholdings.com/bios/doug-band/.

149 "Michael Madden." Teneo Holdings. Accessed April 12, 2016. http://www.teneoholdings.com/bios/michael-madden/.

150 Corcoran, Jason. "Irish Lead a Second Eastern Front." Independent. October 18, 2007. Accessed April 12, 2016. http://www.independent.ie/business/iris ... ern-front- 26325728.html. Paul, Mark. "Madden Keeps Busy with Ronoc." Irish Times. August 16, 2013. Accessed April 12, 2016. http://www.irishtimes.com/business/medi ... withronoc- 1.1495272.

151 "Teneo: Andy Somers." Teneo Holdings. Accessed March 24, 2016. http://www.teneoholdings.com/bios/andy-somers/.

152 Clinton, Bill. "Statement by President Clinton, 3.1.12." Clinton Foundation. March 1, 2012. Accessed April 22, 2016. https://www.clintonfoundation.org/main/news-andmedia/ statements/statement-by-president-clinton-3-1-12.html.

153 Teneo: Integrated Counsel for a Borderless World. Accessed March 24, 2016. http://www.teneoholdings.com/.

154 Asplach, Kyle, and Michael B. Farrell. "FBI Warns Mass. Tech Companies on Russian Investors - Boston.com." Boston.com. April 08, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.boston.com/business/innovati ... esrussian- investors/GVqZCuAeQyJqKiaVceksHM/story.html.

155 Becker, Jo and Mike McIntire.“Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal.” Accessed April 15, 2016. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cashflowed- to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0.

156 Farrell, Michael B. "FBI Warns Mass. Tech Companies on Russian Investors." Telegram.com. April 8, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.telegram.com/article/20140408/NEWS/140409912.

157 Matthews, Owen. "Russia's Anna Chapman Cashes In." Newsweek. February 13, 2011. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.newsweek.com/russias-anna-ch ... shes-68751.

158 Elan, Seth. "Russia’s Skolkovo Innovation Center." EUCOM Strategic Foresight, 2013. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/Collab ... olkovo.pdf.

159 Elan, Seth. "Russia’s Skolkovo Innovation Center." EUCOM Strategic Foresight, 2013. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/Collab ... olkovo.pdf.

160 Elan, Seth. "Russia’s Skolkovo Innovation Center." EUCOM Strategic Foresight, 2013. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/Collab ... olkovo.pdf.

161 Teo, Stanislav. "Augur Aeronautical Center." Skolkovo Foundation. Accessed April 27, 2016. https://sk.ru/news/m/wiki/15505/download.aspx.

162 "RADIO VISION at the 19th International Homeland Security Exhibition "INTERPOLITEX - 2015" | Radio Vision." Radio-Vision. October 26, 2015. Accessed April 27, 2016. http://www.radio-vision.ru/en/about-us/news/2015-10-26.

163 Feifer, Gregory. "Russia's Silicon Valley Dreams May Threaten Cybersecurity." RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. November 14, 2010. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.rferl.org/content/Russias_Si ... ecurity/22 19756.html.

164 Tucker, Maxim. "Russia Launches Next Deadly Phase of Hybrid War on Ukraine." Newsweek. March 31, 2015. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/10/russ ... r-ukraine- 318218.html.

165 Farrell, Michael B. "FBI Warns Mass. Tech Companies on Russian Investors." Telegram.com. April 8, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2016. http://www.telegram.com/article/20140408/NEWS/140409912.

166 Westerlund, Frederik. "Russian Nanotechnology R&D: Thinking Big about Small Scale Science." Swedish Defense Research Agency. Accessed March 18, 2016. www.foi.se/reportfiles/foir_3197.pdf.

167 Westerlund, Frederik. "Russian Nanotechnology R&D: Thinking Big about Small Scale Science." Swedish Defense Research Agency. Accessed March 18, 2016. www.foi.se/reportfiles/foir_3197.pdf.

168 Quoted in Dmitry Adamsky, Defense Innovation in Russia: The Current State and Prospects for Revival, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, January 2014, p 4

169 “Russia Moving Into High Gear on Nanotechnology: Actively Seeking Cooperation with U.S.,” U.S. State Department Cable. February 11, 2009. Wikileaks. Accessed April 27, 2016. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09MOSCOW333_a.html.

170 Kosal, Margaret E. "Military Applications of Nanotechnology: Implications for Strategic Security I." Homeland Security Digita Library. Accessed March 18, 2016. https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=767053.

171 Kosal, Margaret E. "Military Applications of Nanotechnology: Implications for Strategic Security I." Homeland Security Digita Library. Accessed March 18, 2016. https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=767053.
 
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Re: Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Clinton Foundation

Postby admin » Thu Nov 17, 2016 4:54 am

Part 1 of 3

Owning Laura Silsby’s Shame: How the Haitian Child Trafficking Scheme Embodies the Western Disregard for the Integrity of Poor Families
by Shani M. King*
Harvard Human Rights Journal / Vol. 25

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


INTRODUCTION

In January 2010, an earthquake in Haiti left hundreds of thousands of people dead, injured, and displaced, and over a million homeless.1 Three weeks after the earthquake, Haitian authorities arrested a group of Idaho missionaries for attempting to cross the border into the Dominican Republic with 33 children, without papers or proper authorization.2 The missionaries claimed they had the good intentions to set up an orphanage,3 but investigations showed that none of the children were orphans and that the missionaries may have been attempting to smuggle the children out of Haiti to be adopted internationally.4 Despite evidence of association with child traffickers,5 the Haitian justice system—prodded in part by President Clinton’s diplomatic efforts on behalf of the missionaries6—determined that none of the missionaries were guilty of illegal activities, except the leader Laura Silsby, who faced a lesser charge of organizing illegal travel.7

Along with the Haitian justice system, some observers excused the missionaries’ actions,8 even though they rose to the level of child trafficking. They did so essentially because we place such little value on the integrity of poor families; the idea that the missionaries were acting to “save” these children justified the damage they would have caused to the children and their families.9 In this way, the Silsby case offers a window into international and domestic child placement schemes that disrupt poor families and disregard traditional forms of child placement.10 In the international context, the demand for intercountry adoption (“ICA”) is driven by Westerners who wish to have children and who desire to save poor children.11 While relying on good intentions, ICA as it currently operates perpetuates a system of child placement that destroys the integrity of poor families and feeds illicit child trafficking schemes like the one devised by Laura Silsby.12 In the domestic context, the American foster care system also disrupts poor families.13 Children are funneled into a system that can be as harmful as the homes from which they are removed;14 yet the system still appears to remove the children with too little regard for the integrity of their families.

The U.S. foster care system and ICA are both premised on rescuing children from unfortunate life circumstances, stemming mainly from poverty.15 In both systems, instead of providing resources to enable families to take care of their children, these resources are used to remove children from their families and communities.16 Inadequate family reunification planning and services in the foster care system undermine parents’ attempts to regain custody of their children, and in ICA, adoptive parents pay substantial sums to complete the ICA process, while birth families typically receive no assistance that would enable them to better provide for the children who will be adopted.17 Ultimately, both the domestic and international systems disrupt the lives of poor families, but not always because it is necessary for the child’s well-being.18

This Article does not suggest that it is necessary to end foster care or ICA. On the contrary, recognizing the need for systems that ensure children are raised in safe and loving homes, I seek to show that the current systems need to be improved so they do not continue to systemically and unnecessarily damage the integrity of poor families. Movement towards this type of improvement will not happen, however, without acknowledgment that the problem exists.

Commentators generally accept that poor families are more likely to be involved in, and thus disadvantaged by, both the intercountry adoption system and the U.S. foster care system.19 In my previous work, I have explored the scholarship in both contexts.20 The current Article makes three broad contributions. First, it focuses on a gap in the existing literature by offering a clear theoretical conception of the genesis of this disregard for poor families. In my previous work, I have defined this genesis in the context of intercountry adoption as MonoHumanism.21

MonoHumanism describes a process of “Othering” in the context of intercountry adoption.22 This term is a collective notion identifying “us” as Westerners and everyone else as “the other.”23 The narrative of identity I have previously described that accompanies MonoHumanism subscribes both universality and superiority to Western knowledge and discourse, which effectively results in the exclusion and displacement of the knowledge and discourse of historically oppressed peoples.24 In the context of ICA, MonoHumanism means that children are not seen in the context of their family, community and culture, but rather, narrowly as the potential children of Western adults.25 In this Article, therefore, I argue that MonoHumanism is an unstated theoretical justification for the disrespect that society shows for the integrity of poor families. In this context, it is not only the West vs. East juxtaposition that is important, but the poor vs. rich juxtaposition as well. In other words, it is the exclusion and displacement of knowledge and discourse about poor families—the failure to see children in the context of their family, community and culture—or a slightly broadened version of MonoHumanism, that explains our failure to respect the integrity of poor families in the United States and abroad.26

MonoHumanism may at first blush seem inclusive rather than ethnocentric or myopic.27 I have chosen this phrase purposefully due to the strength of the inversion of the inclusive ideal accompanying this language.28 The phrase MonoHumanism was chosen because of the juxtaposition of “Mono” with the word “Humanism” to underscore the ethnocentric and myopic failure to include discourses that have their origins in the lives, cultures, and vocabulary of historically oppressed peoples, in areas that are often conceived of as a “win-win” for all parties involved and as the most humanitarian of endeavors.29 Even more fundamentally, the term “Mono” seems to exclude other possibilities and is commonly used that way, for example, with the terms “monotheistic” and “monolilthic.”30

While there are terms from post-colonial theory such as “ethnocentrism” and “Self/Other” that have informed my choice of this term,31 I offer this new label to specifically identify our approach towards poor children. My sense is that having a specific target will make it much easier to hit that target. To use a slightly imperfect analogy, instead of dismantling discrimination, we dismantle “Jim Crow laws” or the “separate but equal” doctrine. 32 Or, instead of stopping law enforcement officers from discriminating against people of color, we have taken a stand against “racial profiling.”33 In part, because previous terms have not captured our collective consciousness in a way that has resulted in the dismantling of our approach to poor families, as I have argued before, I think it is time for a new and very specific term that captures that approach. The term I have chosen is MonoHumanism.34

The second broad contribution is to show how this theoretical justification becomes a narrative that determines how we report on, read, think about, and interact with poor families both in the United States and abroad. I do this using the Silsby case,35 through which I explore how the ideas of child saving and rescuing poor Haitian children became the narrative that ultimately excused the U.S. missionaries’ actions in a clear case of child trafficking.

The third broad contribution is to show how customary child placement schemes, typically used by poor families as a creative adaptation to poverty, are not only displaced by structures set in motion by MonoHumanism, but are, in certain circumstances, more protective of the integrity of poor families than systems which may reflect classism, racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, and basic fundamental unfairness that permeates both international and U.S. child care systems. I do this by exploring one customary system of child placement in Haiti, timoun, and analogous child placement systems by poor families in the United States.

Taking into consideration these three broad contributions, the ultimate goal of this Article is to call attention to the fact that we continue, on a basic conceptual and theoretical level, to fail to respect the integrity of poor families. As such, it is currently unrealistic to expect the United States to create structures that protect these families. Frankly, creating structures that protect poor families would be fundamentally incongruous with who we are as a society (whether we admit it to ourselves or not) as it would be fundamentally at odds with the concept of MonoHumanism. It will only be when we turn a critical eye on U.S. society and interrogate our conceptual and theoretical understandings of the poor that we will develop the will to protect all families’ integrity. This Article hopes to be a spark that does just that.

Using the Silsby case as a window into the MonoHumanistic child placement schemes that affect poor families, this Article proceeds in several parts. Part I tells the story of the Silsby case and shows how the idea of rescuing poor Haitian children became the narrative that ultimately excused the missionaries’ actions. As I will explain, this is a rescue narrative that has its genesis in MonoHumanism. Part II describes the development of ICA as a means of “saving” poor children and explains how the strength of this rescue narrative feeds illicit child trafficking schemes. Part II also explores the international community’s response to ICA and its focus on protecting the birth family’s unity. Part III describes one customary system of child placement in Haiti, timoun or restav`ek, and explains how this system, unlike ICA, does not permanently sever the child’s relationship with his or her parents and may sometimes be preferable to ICA. This part also considers the problems with timoun, including its potential for exploitation. Part IV exposes the current U.S. child welfare system as one that disrupts traditional forms of child placement in the United States, much like ICA disrupts the customary systems of child placement in other countries. In Parts V and VI, the Article concludes that ICA markets and U.S. foster care systems reflect a theoretical and conceptual approach, one I refer to as MonoHumanism, that too often disserves the interests of children who may be better served by systems that respect their familial and cultural ties. The Article further concludes that the answer is not necessarily to outlaw ICA or dismantle the domestic foster care system. But by acknowledging and eventually overcoming our failure to respect the integrity of poor families, and the fact that both systems suffer from unfounded biases that feed illicit schemes or unnecessarily disrupt poor families, both systems can function as they should—by minimizing the disruption of family unity and traditional caregiving patterns, while fostering the well-being of every child who is impacted by the system.

I. THE SILSBY CHILD ABDUCTION SCANDAL

On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck 15 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.36 The earthquake was the strongest to hit the Caribbean in 200 years.37 Before the earthquake, Haiti was already considered the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.38 After the earthquake, the Haitian government estimated that 217,366 people died and 300,572 were injured.39 The earthquake damaged or destroyed 285,677 homes, leaving 1,237,032 people homeless, and 511,405 displaced.40 The United Nations estimated that about 2 million people required food aid in the aftermath of the earthquake.41 In response to the disaster, the U.N. issued an unprecedented call for 1.5 billion dollars in emergency and reconstruction aid to be sent to Haiti.42

In the first week of February, former President Bill Clinton accepted an expanded role as special envoy for Haiti, on behalf of the United Nations, to lead the coordination of international earthquake recovery and reconstruction efforts.43 One of Clinton’s first tasks in Haiti, however, was to put out the fire of a child abduction scandal involving American citizens.44

On January 29, 2010, less than three weeks after the earthquake, Haitian authorities arrested ten U.S. Baptist missionaries for attempting to take 33 children by bus across the border into the Dominican Republic without proper documentation.45 A week later, the missionaries were charged with child kidnapping and criminal association.46 While the missionaries claimed good intentions and ignorance of Haitian laws, Haitian prosecutors argued that there had been intentional wrongdoing.47 In the course of a month, President Clinton brokered the release of all the missionaries, except for the group leader, Laura Silsby.48

While Laura Silsby awaited trial, the press brought to light several facts that raised serious suspicions about her intent to traffic or smuggle the children as part of a grey adoption scheme.49 In 2009, Silsby visited Haiti with the stated intent to establish an orphanage.50 At the time, Silsby faced numerous court cases in the U.S. for bad debt and unpaid wages.51 In November 2009, she registered her New Life Children’s Refuge charity at an address in Boise, Idaho, and a month later the house was repossessed for lack of payment.52

In the midst of her personal debt crisis, the January earthquake struck Haiti, and Silsby organized a mission to “gather 100 orphans from the streets” of Haiti and take them to a shelter in the Dominican Republic.53 The children would be housed in a leased hotel because Silsby’s purported charity did not yet manage an orphanage or own any property in the Dominican Republic.54 U.S. authorities later stated that New Life Children’s Refuge was not listed as a U.S. nonprofit or as a U.S. international adoption agency.55

In March, after her arrest, evidence was introduced in Silsby’s case showing that on January 26, 2010, she had previously attempted to take a different group of 40 children across the border.56 Haitian and Dominican authorities turned her away for lack of authorizing documents.57 Three days later she attempted to cross over with the second group—the 33 children— again without proper documentation.58

After the earthquake, the Haitian government tried to crack down on unauthorized adoptions to avoid child trafficking.59 In addition, the Dominican consul in Haiti had personally warned Silsby that she lacked the necessary paperwork to take children out of the country and risked arrest.60

On March 17, 2010, after careful verification of identities by the Social Welfare Ministry of Haiti, 32 out of the 33 children were returned to their families (the last one being returned shortly thereafter),61 thus confirming that none of the children were orphans.

Previously, Silsby had told an Associated Press reporter that the children were delivered to the missionaries by “distant relatives” or “orphanages that had collapsed in the quake,” adding that “‘[t]hey are very precious kids that have lost their homes and families and are so deeply in need of, most of all, God’s love and his compassion.’”62 But an AP reporter revealed that Silsby had engaged an Atlanta-based Haitian minister, Reverend Jean Sainvil, and a local orphanage worker, Isaac Adrien, to find “homeless” children for her shelter.63

Parents of some of the children confirmed to the press and testified in court that they gave up their children to the missionaries after being promised by the recruiters and the group of Baptists that “the kids would be educated and relatives could visit them.”64 Reverend Sainvil convinced one parent to hand over his children to the missionaries for their better care, pointing out “that dead bodies buried under rubble in his El Citron neighborhood would breed disease.”65 Reverend Sainvil told reporters that:

Everybody agreed that they knew where the children were going. The parents were told, and we confirmed they would be allowed to see the children and even take them back if need be.66


Adrien—the orphanage worker—stated that parents jumped at the offer, while a mother who handed over her daughter observed that it was “only because the bus was full that more children didn’t go.”67

The parents gave their consent to the missionaries to take their children under the impression that Silsby and her group were providing shelter and education; the parents’ understanding was not that they were permanently parting with their children.68 Contrary to the parents’ expectations, Silsby’s express intent—according to her online action plan—was to place the children for adoption.69

Suspicions about Silsby’s intent to smuggle or traffic the children to the Dominican Republic further increased, when on March 19, 2010, Silsby’s legal advisor—Jorge Torres-Puello, an American-Dominican living in the Dominican Republic as a fugitive—was arrested and accused of human trafficking. 70 U.S. authorities revealed that Torres-Puello was “linked to a network that trafficked in Haitian and Central American children and [was] wanted in the United States, El Salvador and Costa Rica.”71 His wife was already imprisoned in El Salvador and “faced charges of presumed sexual exploitation of minors and women.”72

Despite Silsby’s stated intent to take the children over the border to an unauthorized orphanage and her connections to human traffickers such as Torres-Puello, the courts eventually dropped the kidnapping and criminal association charges against her.73 Silsby was instead convicted under the additional charge of organizing illegal travel, sentenced to time served (3 months and 8 days), and released on May 17, 2010.74 In the end, her sentence was based on the least polemic charge against her. The pressing issue— whether Silsby intended to deliver the children into trafficking rings or grey adoption markets—was not addressed or resolved.

Rather than turning on Silsby’s actions, the decision in her case appeared to turn on the actions of the parents. Judge Bernard Saint-Vil explained that his decision was based on the Haitian parents’ testimony that they had “[given] their kids away voluntarily.”75 Similarly, defense lawyer Jorge Puello stated that the missionaries “willingly accepted kids they knew were not orphans because the parents said they would starve otherwise.”76 Another trial attorney for the missionaries, Aviol Fleurant, argued that “[t]he parents’ testimony means no law was broken and ‘we can’t talk any more about trafficking of human beings.’”77 Essentially, the Haitian children are described as victims of the incapacity and poverty of their parents and country; their parents are portrayed as childlike because they are incapable of taking care of themselves or their children. In other words, the Baptist missionaries were justified in their actions because they were “rescuing” the children from incapacitated parents.

II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ICA AS A MEANS OF “SAVING” POOR CHILDREN

A. A Brief History of ICA


Since the mid-20th century, adoption rates in the U.S. have increased dramatically.78 The increase is generally attributed to “an increased incidence of infertility among married couples and an absolute decrease in the numbers of infants placed for adoption.”79 The decrease in the numbers of infants placed for adoption does not mean that children are not available for adoption in the United States. On the contrary, as of September 30, 2009, there were approximately 115,000 children waiting for adoption from foster care.80 There has been a decrease in infants placed for adoption, in large part, because the population of “preferred” adoptable infants (white and non-special needs) has decreased since the 1950s.81 Several factors have contributed to the decrease in preferred adoptable infants in the U.S. since the 1950s, including an increase in the use of contraception and abortion, a decrease in the rate of relinquishment of children born to unwed mothers (particularly women who have greater resources), and more women entering the workforce and delaying having children.82

During the same period, ICA has increasingly served as a “substitute” for domestic adoptions.83 While it represented only 1% of all adoptions in the United States in 1965, in 2002 ICA represented 13.9% of all adoptions.84 Scholars offer several reasons for the increase in ICA, including a perceived lack of adoptable children in the United States (manifested as a preference for healthy light skinned infants),85 the ineligibility of adoptive parents in their own countries (age, marriage status, etc.),86 and the rise of open adoptions in the United States.87 Humanitarian concerns88 and lower costs have also been cited as reasons for the rise of ICA.89

Today, the United States is the country with the largest absolute number of intercountry adoptions per year, though that number has decreased to 12,753 in 2009 from an all-time high of 22,990 in 2004.90 Several European countries surpass the U.S. demand for children from abroad with greater per capita ICA than the United States, specifically Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands.91 Together these Western nations are spending billions of dollars to form families.92 In the United States, domestic adoption costs range from $0 to $2,500 for foster care adoptions and $5,000 to over $40,000 for domestic private adoptions while intercountry adoptions range between $7,000 and $30,000.93 The total number of children that were moved through ICA to developed nations was approximately 30,000 in the late 1990s.94 And, in 2004, over 45,000 children were moved through ICA worldwide.95

On the opposite end of the ICA market are the sending countries. For 2009, the top twenty sending countries to the U.S. (in descending order) were China, Ethiopia, Russia, South Korea, Guatemala, Ukraine, Vietnam, Haiti, India, Kazakhstan, Philippines, China-Taiwan, Colombia, Nigeria, Ghana, Mexico, Uganda, Thailand, Jamaica, and Poland.96 Countries often emerge as “sending countries” in the wake of political, economic, social, military, or natural upheaval.97 The first wave of ICA en masse to the United States came after World War II from countries affected by war such as Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, and continued from Korea and Vietnam after the respective wars in which the United States participated.98 After the 1970s, in the years of economic collapse and political regime transformation, Latin American and Asian countries became the focus of ICA.99 Successive regulatory changes at an international level during this period also facilitated ICA to the United States.100 A third wave of adoptions followed after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the 1990s, with countries such as Romania, Russia, and China becoming major sending countries.101

B. ICA’s Rescue Narrative: Saving Poor Children

The rescue narrative surrounding the Silsby case is consistent with that surrounding ICA generally.102 This narrative places the Western “rescuers” at a moral and normative center to justify foreign intervention as goodwill and can be very dangerous in the context of ICA because it encourages and facilitates the adoption of children who are not orphans. In fact, very few children who are adopted internationally are actual orphans.103 Instead, they may be deemed “social orphans” because their parents or relatives are impoverished and disempowered individuals who live in underdeveloped nations that do not have the social infrastructure to support economically disadvantaged families.104 By conceptualizing these children as victims of poverty, Westerners tend to justify paternalistic interventions, including ICA.

Post-colonial theorists might describe the rescue justification as a process of “Othering,”105 in which colonizers create narratives about the moral inferiority or helplessness of the people they subjugate (the “Others”106). In my previous work, I have described Othering in the context of ICA as MonoHumanism.107 In the context of ICA, MonoHumanism means that children are not viewed in the context of their family, community and culture, but instead as the potential children of Westerners.

Ratna Kapur identified a similar process involving women; she has shown how women in developing countries are portrayed as victims of their culture, thereby reinforcing stereotypical representations and subordinating those cultures to the presumably enlightened or more civilized culture of the West. Kapur explains how this process not only reinforces the notion that women in developing countries are perpetually marginalized and underprivileged, but encourages interventions into their lives that are “reminiscent of imperial interventions in the lives of the native subjects and which represent the ‘Eastern’ woman as a victim of a ‘backward’ and ‘uncivilized’ culture.” Kapur’s work provides a useful framework for understanding how conceptualizing children as victims of poverty invites paternalistic interventions under the banner of aid, when in reality, such interventions may cause more harm than good by disrupting local social networks of selfaid. 108

Along these lines, Smolin questions the moral underpinning of child rescue narratives, noting that the cost of one intercountry adoption could support an entire family in an impoverished country, instead of separating a child from his or her family.109 Moreover, Saunders explains that while humanitarian narratives are often used to explain demand for ICA, self-serving and personalized motivations are driving a profitable market.110 For the most part, humanitarian or rescue narratives serve as a cover for the intense demand for adoptable children from developing nations to counter Western infertility. Western parents seeking to adopt can ultimately overcome obstacles to acquiring a child with their wealth, and the combination of their demand and resources makes for an inevitable capitalist dynamic.111 As Nicole Bartner Graff states:

Any area with such large amounts of capital flowing into it, when guided by a free market economy, such as the one in place in the U.S., will be driven by the demands and expectations of that market. International adoption has, in effect, become a market driven avenue to child acquisition.112

These market demands, justified in part by the rescue narrative, continue not only to drive lawful ICA but also, as in the Silsby case, to temper the response to potential trafficking cases.

C. The Link Between ICA and Child Trafficking

UNICEF defines “child trafficking” as “the act of recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation regardless of the use of illicit means, either within or outside a country.”113 “Illicit means” include “coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person.”114 And “exploitation” includes illicit adoption.115 Thus, the Silsby case, apparently involving illicit means to facilitate ICA—namely fraud, deception, and the abuse of the families’ position of vulnerability after the earthquake—would fit the definition of child trafficking.

But is the logical conclusion that ICA is generally linked to child trafficking? After all, the vast majority of parents who adopt internationally do not have nefarious intentions, and the vast majority of ICA does not involve abduction, fraud, or deception. But what of the abuse of power and vulnerability? Even in cases where good intentions drive ICA, the transaction overwhelmingly occurs between families that are at opposite ends of the power spectrum—the birth families are undeniably vulnerable, and the adoptive families are undeniably powerful.

Because of this power imbalance, the needs of the adoptive families are predisposed to drive ICA. And, because of a conceptual and theoretical displacement of the lives of poor people and concomitant failure to see children in the context of their society, family, and culture, the needs and worldview of Western families drive ICA. As early as 1978, in “The Economics of the Baby Shortage,” Richard Posner and Dr. Elisabeth Landes116 discuss “the pros and cons of using the market to equilibrate the demand for and supply of babies for adoption.”117 Posner argues for partial deregulation of the baby market so that the supply of babies will meet demand. He also states that, “some unknown fraction of adoptions is of babies bought in the black market, and the part of the demand for a good that is satisfied in a black market reflects the shortage in the lawful market.”118

Although Posner was writing decades before the surge in ICA, his analysis can be used to show how supply and demand drive ICA today and open the door to illicit trafficking. As the demand for children has increased, child traffickers who operate in the black or grey adoption markets have infiltrated some sending countries.119 In particular, child trafficking has plagued countries that were unprepared to handle a sharp rise in the demand for children and unable to effectively regulate ICA.120

The reality is that even countries that have handled ICA well thus far are susceptible to child trafficking. China, for example, is known for its tightly controlled adoption market.121 Even so, recent accounts of child trafficking in China’s adoption system suggest that high demand has led to the exhaustion of “babies and toddlers who are legally available for adoption, [thereby] causing the temptation to illicitly launder and traffic children for purposes of [ICA].”122

Western demand for children may even drive the development of child trafficking in the adoption markets of countries already plagued by child trafficking for other purposes.123 The prospect of Western money invites corrupt actors who “develop systems that can deliver” children “as quickly and as young as possible” to meet the desires of Western adoptive parents. 124 As Smolin has found, “[s]ocieties in which children can be bought and sold for sex and labor for a few hundred dollars or less, with police and public officials bought off, easily transition into the business of supplying paper-adoptable ‘orphans.’”125

Ultimately, for child traffickers involved in ICA markets, Western demand means Western money. Child traffickers exploit the demand for children for financial gain. Smolin and others have highlighted the corrupting influence of the large amounts of wealth from Western countries pouring into the adoption markets of sending countries.126 In short, “[l]arge amounts of money, relative to the economy of the sending country, create a temptation to launder children.”127

Thus, Smolin suggests that ICA can provide cover for illegal practices because it is a mechanism for “laundering” (legitimizing) children who are made available for adoption through trafficking, kidnapping, buying, and selling, but shuffled through licensed agencies for placement.128 In a case of history repeating itself, solutions to these problems are mostly brought up as questions of regulatory “design.”129 However, as Smolin points out, the problem is money:

Money is the primary motivation in most cases of child laundering in the intercountry adoption system. The transfer of Western wealth into sending nations is the primary vulnerability of the intercountry adoption system. Western funds provide an incentive to engage in child laundering which attracts unscrupulous persons into the system while tempting even charitable child welfare institutions into unscrupulous conduct.130

Some have suggested eliminating and diminishing money transfers in all ICA transactions to reduce the profit-seeking motives of intermediaries, reforming international and domestic legislation towards accountability and transparency of parties involved in ICA, and criminalizing trafficking.131 However, as most law and economics experts would agree, the creation of regulatory obstacles to transactions in a profitable market simply heightens the positive incentives for black markets.132 Furthermore, the only means to counter black markets is to lower the profit or increase the cost of illegality through enforcement, which in a world of porous borders and laws has proven impossible with respect to nearly every illegal trade.133

The instability of countries that suddenly become supply countries for ICA further invites the possibility of deplorable practices involving the buying, selling, “baby farming,” and abuse of children. Countries such as Romania, Cambodia, and Guatemala that were socially, politically, economically, and legally unprepared to receive the onslaught of adults seeking children, have had to cease ICA altogether for long periods at a time due to corruption and the trafficking, selling, and abuse of children.134 These odious practices are repeated on a global scale as a consequence of a global market in children.135

D. The International Community’s Response to ICA

The international community has responded to ICA by seeking to protect the internationally recognized human rights of children and the birth family’s right to unity, while facilitating the adoption of children for whom international adoption is the best solution. The international community as a whole, of course, is not tethered to the theoretical and conceptual construct of MonoHumanism. The first effort to address the surge in ICA and protect children’s rights was the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”).136 The CRC “establishes a set of globally defined children’s rights and provides that in all actions concerning children, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”137 Although the CRC is one of the most widely adopted conventions, it resulted in controversy because its final language excluded an obligation for countries to take “appropriate measures to facilitate permanent adoption of the child.”138 The language was left out because of the idea that adoption was not the only way to provide children with stable homes and that it could sometimes work in opposition to the best interests of the child.139 The exclusion of this language is one of the reasons the United States has refused to ratify the CRC.140

In partial response to conflict over the terms of the CRC, the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (“Hague Convention”) was produced by the Hague Conference on Private International Law in May 1993.141 The purpose of the Hague Convention was to establish standards for ICA and a system of enforcement, as well as the means to address the worst ICA practices, such as corruption, kidnapping, sale of children, and falsification of documents.142 The United States ratified the Hague Convention in 2000 and enacted the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (“IAA”)143 to comply with the Hague Convention’s mandate to create a Central Authority to oversee the implementation of the Hague Convention, among other obligations.

UNICEF is guided by the spirit of the CRC. As such, UNICEF believes “every child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her own parents,” and that “families should receive support to care for their children.” 144 In this sense, UNICEF supports ICA only if it facilitates the “best interests of the child,” and thus considers the Hague Convention a positive achievement towards improving conditions of ICA.145 UNICEF also calls for more stringent protocols to be applied in the case of disasters and war to protect children without parental care, who may be temporarily separated from their parents or other family caregivers.146

International organizations including UNICEF, UNHCR, the International Confederation of the Red Cross, and international NGOs such as the Save the Children Alliance reject ICA in cases of disaster or war, and instead place priority on “family tracing.”147 Creating a national registry of children in disasters is a critical instrument for family tracing and reunification. 148 Ultimately, these efforts to regulate ICA may mitigate some of the harm that can come of ICA markets. But since ICA is tethered to MonoHumanism and driven by market forces, and because the interests of Western prospective adoptive parents drive the demand side of the market, ICA will continue to separate children from their birth families, communities, and countries. By contrast, poor communities in places like Haiti have developed their own systems of child placement, which do not sever these ties. The next section specifically focuses on the timoun or restav`ek child placement system in Haiti.

III. TIMOUN (RESTAVE`K): HAITIAN CUSTOMS OF CHILD PLACEMENT

In a country such as Haiti where 80% of the population lives below the international poverty line and 54% lives in abject poverty,149 periods of conditioned monetary aid do not address the institutionalized poverty and extreme class stratification of the country. Instead, in the day-to-day, most Haitian people manage for themselves without foreign assistance. This section discusses a long-standing custom of child care arrangement used by poor parents in the poorest nation of the Western hemisphere—known as timoun or restav`ek.

Some Haitian parents customarily place their children into boarding arrangements with wealthier extended family or acquaintances in cities, where a child earns his or her keep by providing unpaid domestic work. These children are known in Haitian Creole as “restav`eks,” meaning children who “stay with” or “reste avec” others.150 The term “restav`ek” is also used colloquially in a pejorative way to denote servile dependence.151 To avoid humiliating a child who provides domestic services, Haitians use more socially acceptable terms such as “children who live with others” (ti moun ki rete kay moun) or “children who render services” (timoun rann s`evis), where timoun in Creole simply means “little one.”152

Like ICA, the timoun system has also been abused, raising widespread concern about the exploitation of children, including forced labor. But the fact that some actors exploit this custom should not completely overshadow the benefits it provides poor families and poor children, when it works as intended. The point of this section is to recognize that some of the benefits of timoun—such as maintaining family relationships—must inform child placement schemes.

A. Understanding Timoun

Because of the informal nature of the practice, it has been difficult to determine precisely how many children in Haiti are affected by the timoun system. A 2010 U.S. Department of State report estimates that approximately 200,000 children in Haiti work in the restav`ek system.153 However, many statistics confuse the number of children living outside the unitary family model with restav`ek.154 According to anthropologists Smucker and Murray, a more reliable statistic is that one-fifth of children in Haiti are living away from both of their biological parents (over 650,000 children).155 Perhaps 60% of such children, or maybe only 4%, are restav`ek, as a recent 2000 article suggests.156 Researchers know that most restav`eks are in the age range of 5 to 14 (with a majority in the age range of 12 to 14), girls are twice as likely to be restav`eks, and there is a higher incidence of this form of child placement in urban settings.157 Yet, the true overall numbers remain unknown.158

Not all host household arrangements qualify as restav`ek. For example, a parent might place a child in another’s house during a crisis or as a temporary means to send a child to school.159 Or a child might be sent to live with extended family, and though the child might help around the house without payment, the child very much remains a child of the house, not a servant.160 Orphanages in Haiti are also places were a parent might send a child for a brief time as a means to make ends meet and provide temporary child care.161 Many orphanages are not officially licensed, and though termed orphanages, function primarily as child boarding or group homes.162

The institution of timoun is old. In a 1942 article, Simpson claims that “Ti-moune . . . has been followed since the founding of the Republic of Haiti.”163 In a 1941 article, Simpson observes two primary classes in Haiti: “the members of the small privileged elite and the immense mass of barely subsisting peasants.”164 Explaining that they were “almost separate societies,”165 Simpson points out ways in which the two classes integrated through “[p]atterns of dominance and deference inherited from the colonial period.”166

One such pattern was the institution of timoun, which supported the relatively infrequent vertical mobility and integration of a child from the masses into the elite class.167 In his 1942 article, Simpson explains that the custom of sending peasant children to live several years with well-landed estates was a means for “a peasant to have an influential [military or otherwise prominent] protector,” or a means by which a poorer family gained favor and connection to a more influential family.168 A child might be sent to live in another estate as a “token of friendship,” and as such, timoun was also an established adoption practice.169

In a later 1952 article on affiliations through work in a rural region of Haiti, Metraux likewise notes that the transfer of people from poor households to wealthier households was common.170 Both Simpson and Metraux see timoun as a form of familial and estate affiliation used to establish networks of support among landed or military estates, within an agriculturebased economy with extreme class stratification.

In a similar fashion, a 2004 article by Smucker and Murray confirms that “[r]elationships in Haiti often have a transactional character. Negotiations over the giving and taking of children are no exception. Decision making in child placement is based on a calculus of costs, benefits, and household needs.”171 The relationship between the sending and receiving family remains a fundamental part of the transaction:

[P]lacement of a restav`ek child has a long-term connotation whereby the receiving household assumes primary responsibility for ‘taking care of the child’ or rearing the child in return for the child’s domestic services. The traditional arrangement for such restav`ek children also assumes that the caretaker household will send restav`ek children to school and cover the costs for doing so.172

Employers of restav`ek children generally wish to show sending parents that, true to the expectations, their children are being treated well and receive care and education in exchange for their labor.173 From the point of view of Haitian parents, sending children to live with others is a means of instilling values, such as responsiveness to family needs, generosity, a good work ethic, and a fierce pride in schooled education.174

The practice of timoun also transfers children from poor rural families to poor urban families, to assist in daily survival activities such as carrying water to the home.175 From this point of view, the practice of timoun is a means by which the poor support the poor in an extremely stratified society. The custom of timoun is a creative adaptation to poverty, which allows poor parents to provide alternative care for their children, including education.

B. Benefits of Timoun

Despite its vulnerability to exploitation, the practice of timoun can be mutually beneficial to Haitian parents, children, and host families. For example, parents benefit by “loan[ing] children to gain sociopolitical and commercial contacts in village and urban areas and to attain educational opportunities for their children.”176 Generally, timoun placements are a solution to difficult circumstances faced by the child’s family.177 It is a response to parents’ inability to support a child, whereby the host family provides care when the child’s family cannot.178 Consequently, parents no longer face the burden of providing for the expenses of that child’s care.179

Timoun can also benefit children by allowing them to live in a more stable environment. The host family provides for the child’s basic needs, and the boarding arrangement tends to offer an improved living environment and better material conditions.180 The child receives “better care, better clothes, and better schooling.”181 Timoun also fosters opportunities for upward social mobility for the child and her parents.182 A principal advantage of the practice is that it addresses Haitian parents’ strong desire for their children to obtain a formal education, since there are better schools in towns and cities.183 Parents have an expectation that the child will be sent to school under the boarding arrangement.184 Because parents believe that their child will encounter better life opportunities in cities and towns, the expectation is that the child’s placement with the host family will allow the child to secure some advantage for the child or her parents.185 Similarly, the expectation is that the child’s school attendance will enable her to develop contacts that will lead to a good paying job, so the child will be able to assist her parents.186

On a more fundamental level, in some circumstances, timoun facilitates Haitian children’s development by equipping them with life skills and aids their maturation by building character. It has been found that both parents and children find that timoun placements make children more disciplined and give them a sense of competence.187 School attendance leads to the child’s literacy, and having responsibilities cultivates in the child “being well-mannered” and developing “new habits.”188 Similarly, parents also appreciate the informal training and guidance that the child obtains from working in another household.189 Perhaps most importantly, the child/parent relationship is not severed.190

Claudia Fonseca describes similar local community-based practices of “child circulation and ado¸cao `a brasileira [adoption Brazilian-style]” in poor favelas in Brazil.191 Fonseca argues that these local customs are functional for both temporary and permanent child placement, based on community support and open relationships. But Cardarello cautions that today, these forms of child placement face pressure by legal authorities to place Brazilian children for international adoption as a preference over local child placement customs.192 Nevertheless, Fonseca believes that poor parents from the favelas will continue to find creative ways to evade interventionist government adoption policies, which increasingly reflect international and foreign standards of child rights, and which favela mothers are legally disempowered to contest in the grand scheme of inequalities between the South/Third World countries and the North/Western countries.193

Like “adoption Brazilian style,” the practices of timoun or restav`ek do not fit the idealized model for Western child care or the idealized Western family, whereby parents raise their children in a self-sufficient nuclear family. These caregiving practices do not correspond with our unacknowledged MonoHumanistic approach to the world. As I have said elsewhere, this Western definition of family “fails to reflect the cultural diversity and realities of many children” and negates other prevalent family configurations which make up functional families, such as single-parent households, grandparentgrandchild households, same-sex couples, and extended family arrangements, even within the United States.194

C. Timoun’s Vulnerability to Exploitation

Despite the benefit and opportunity a child may derive from an arrangement of timoun, the practice has also long been questioned, due to abuses and denial of promised opportunities that children living in host households may encounter.195 The debate has changed very little over time. Specifically, timoun is highly criticized by many humanitarian aid and religious organizations as a form of child slavery.196

UNICEF is concerned about situations in which timoun becomes child labor exploitation, and the ways in which it may become child trafficking. 197 The organization also notes that there are worse forms of labor to which children can be trafficked, such as physically hazardous work, sexual work, and illicit (drug courier) labor that may affect the development of a child, including her physical and mental integrity.198 The practical concern around timoun is the lack of means to supervise whether a child’s rights are being respected. UNICEF reports that each year approximately 2,000 children are trafficked to the Dominican Republic from Haiti, often with the apparent support of their parents.199 The Silsby case is an example of how this can happen.

In studying timoun, Smucker and Murray find no evidence of “literal” child slaves in Haiti, but do find cases in which restav`ek children are abused as unpaid domestic workers and other cases in which parents might be deceived and their children diverted into trafficking circles for exploitative work or sexual purposes.200 The authors insist on the need to use operationally precise language to differentiate a culturally sanctioned practice of foster care or even smuggling where there might not be any abuse involved, from child abuse and child trafficking.201

Timoun and other forms of placement outside the home are generally instigated by necessity.202 However, UNICEF indicates that poverty alone does not often trigger the movement of a child towards a possible exploitative work condition. The organization identifies several additional points of risk and vulnerability that decrease the capacity of parents to take care of their children, and which result in sending children away to work or children themselves moving away from home to find work. The organization refers to these factors as “poverty plus” and notes that they may include “individual, family, community or institutional-level risk” factors.203 Factors may include domestic violence, illness of parents (e.g., AIDS), war, community violence (e.g., gangs), lack of institutional support for education or health services, unemployment, and the breakdown of systems of livelihood due to disasters (e.g., ecological disaster that ruins fishing or farming communities).204 Such factors aggravate the conditions of poverty that may trigger a child’s movement away from home towards possible exploitation.

UNICEF’s examples for why a child may become a victim of trafficking do not apply to all timoun or other cases of placement outside the home, either because there is no work exploitation or there is no cross border travel. But UNICEF’s analysis is very useful when contemplating why timoun in Haiti has survived into the 21st century as an option for child placement, when the risks of exploitation are known. Specific to Haiti, we must ask how timoun continues to fill an indispensable social need for child placement services in the face of cumulative histories of violent conflict, lack of institutional support for education, health and income, foreign intervention, and a growing youthful population in Haiti.205 Ultimately, the problem is not the best efforts made by impoverished Haitian parents or their children to find work-placement arrangements, but the complex conditions of “poverty plus” that institutionalize timoun and other forms of child placement outside the home, as a means to secure basic housing, food and education for children.

Ultimately, timoun is a form of foster care, but never a permanent separation of children from their parents. ICA, on the other hand, while also making children vulnerable to exploitation, severs the relationship between children and their families and communities and disrupts the support networks that poor families use to help themselves. Below, I tell a similar story of disruption regarding foster care in the United States.
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Re: Memorandum Re Background on Teneo and Clinton Foundation

Postby admin » Thu Nov 17, 2016 4:57 am

Part 2 of 3

IV. FOSTER CARE AS A DISRUPTION OF TRADITIONAL FORMS OF CHILD PLACEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

The history of foster care in the United States, like the history of ICA, is the history of an interventionist policy that overwhelmingly affects poor families. Through the foster care system, the State is placed in a position to “know best” how poor children should be raised away from their families. Like ICA, foster care has institutionalized early child separation from parents and families for generations. The history of foster care is rooted in a belief that people cannot be left to their own devices to design their own families. At one point, the foster care system became the means for transferring poor children to rich families, until the civil rights movement ended the practice. But the foster care system still devalues family integrity and too often unnecessarily separates children from their families. As is the case with ICA, the U.S. approach is MonoHumanistic: one that excludes and displaces the knowledge and discourse of poor families and fails to see children in the context of their family, community, and culture. The critical question here is how to balance the protection of children with family integrity. Part of the solution seems to lie in acknowledging agency exercised by poor families who can find alternative solutions in their extended family and within their own cultural domains that are healthier for child development. This would take self-reflection, introspection, and a dismantling of MonoHumanism.

A. Traditional Forms of Child Placement in the United States

Private forms of child placement—like timoun—were pervasive in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.206 Herman notes that “[a]t the dawn of the twentieth century, many methods— formal and informal, commercial and sentimental, deliberate and impulsive— existed to acquire children.”207 She mentions that “foundlings (abandoned infants), illegitimate children (born to unmarried parents), and orphans (most of whom were ‘half’ orphans with one living parent rather than ‘true’ orphans with none) continued to be placed in orphanages because of poverty.”208 By 1910, there were over 1,000 orphanages in the United States, some of them housing over 1,000 children.209 In addition to orphanages, there were timoun-like practices of “placing out” children. Herman describes these practices in the following way:

“Placing out” was the term that designated all noninstitutional arrangements to care for dependent children. . . . Agencies paid families to care for children in boarding homes, whereas in working homes, children earned their keep. Traditional indentures were still used in many states well into the twentieth century. These contracts secured children’s services for a period of years in exchange for food, shelter, and basic education. . . . Although many indentures amounted to apprenticeships, a study of 827 indentures in Wisconsin between 1913 and 1917 suggests that indenture was not an unusual means of securing children for adoption.210

Most placing out arrangements were instigated by necessity “to survive economic hard times and family catastrophes, such as death, serious illness, or desertion, and to provide their children with practical job skills and entry into the labor market.”211 They were also meant to be temporary, but if they did lead to adoption, relationships with the biological families were not closed. Despite the benefits of these placing out arrangements, as with timoun, reports of child abuse and profit seeking schemes led to the condemnation of certain practices, particularly “baby farming” (paid care centers for infants primarily used by poor working mothers) and other boarding arrangements that sometimes provided unsanitary and neglectful care.212

Leading up to the 1920s, Western liberal governments adopted a new approach to governance based on rationalization and research (“a literal science of statecraft”) to address social problems.213 “Design,” or “purposeful social planning and management” such as “intelligent child rearing,” became the ethos of Progressive and New Deal reformers and professionals.214

By the 1930s, applying psychoanalytical research, social work was redefined as casework, and private and public agencies became fully involved in “how Americans raised their children.”215 Caseworkers (within the government or specialized agencies) claimed to minimize differences between the adoptee and adoptive parents to create families that were as “natural” as possible.216 Regulation, interpretation, standardization, and naturalization were the key concepts behind this design that aimed to prevent, protect, instruct, and help the population against “risk” in creating families.217 In this cultural shift, adoptive families were seen as “different, fragile and prone to difficulty,”218 and thus professionals were sought to help citizens make a “normal,” “natural,” or “ideal” family.219 Adults seeking to take in a child through such public or private agencies underwent a process of inquiry and education in the stages of application, home study, placement, and supervision.220

“Matching” became the technique by which caseworkers placed children into homes based on physical resemblance, religious likeness, racial sameness, and emotional and purported intellectual fitness.221 However, as professionals sought to make “natural” families, they implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) sent the message that adoption and foster care were not natural, and concluded by emphasizing racist or discriminatory perceptions of who belonged where.222 In this process, adoption also “departed from earlier methods of child transfer, sharing and exchange,”223 towards long-term permanent family arrangements that were closed adoptions rather than open.224

Design and matching were not without opposition due to “the investigations and delays that were trademarks of kinship by design.”225 Likewise, people seeking alternative family formation through adoption were comfortable in accepting risk and difference, claiming that nurturing rather than sameness was the key to a successful adoption.226 Furthermore, black markets, grey markets, and other profit-driven schemes for acquiring children that circumvented the standardization process, continued to exist without abate.227 Ironically, commercial forms of adoption fueled reports of child abuse and trafficking that kept standardized governance of adoption alive.228

By the late 1950s, practices that circumvented standardization and critiques of matching as a discriminatory practice pushed government and private agencies to establish more flexible standards for child placement, particularly with regard to age, race, and disability.229 Leading into the 1970s, there was a shift in adoption that saw “difference” rather than “sameness” as “natural” in adoption.230 Until then, minority children were rarely placed through the system, and even actively excluded as too difficult to place.231

Before the 1960s, black children in need of placement were adopted within their communities through means similar to those described by Fonseca as adoption Brazilian style.232 By the 1970s, the adoption of transracial, “special needs” (children with disabilities), older children and intercountry adoptions became widely accepted. These adoptions directly challenged the dominance of the ideology behind “matching.”233 Ironically, this period coincided with the rise of civil rights movements that made transracial adoption controversial, particularly those of black children into white families. 234 Minority populations claimed that minority children should be placed within their same social group to maintain their cultural heritage and integrity, including the skills to survive a racist society. In yet another instance of irony, the transracial controversy within the United States, alongside adult preferences that aimed to circumvent standardization, led to a decline of adoption after 1972 across transracial lines and a spike in ICA (initially of non-black children).235 Herman concludes that by its own ambitions of standardization “kinship by design” failed, but also revolutionized the boundaries between public and private life by allowing government interference into decisions “previously considered beyond the legitimate reach of state power.”236

Bringing private behavior into the public light has increased a desire for oversight and protection against child abuse and exploitation. It has also reflected the imposition of a certain conception of family not nuanced enough to reflect the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity of families both domestically and internationally. More concretely, it has resulted in the displacement of cultural traditions by new, supposedly more scientific schemes, to meet the needs of a certain narrow slice of the U.S. populace. And because this displacement is based on the rule of law, we fail to interrogate our assumptions while promoting a demagogy of equalitarianism and liberalism.237 We should, however, question whether children who are subjected to this system of design are really better off. In other words, is “kinship by design” better for children than nineteenth-century placing out, adoption Brazilian-style, timoun, or the placement practices of African- American communities in the United States prior to their incorporation into placement by design? Are these placement systems simply cultural manifestations, with more or less government intervention, that serve the same purpose with no better results?238 We should also consider whether the Silsby case is an aberration or the inevitable consequence of our history of displacing and ignoring forms of child rearing with what we have determined to be scientific and legally sanctioned.

The next section shows how international adoption is like U.S. domestic adoption in that both systems impose a unitary and plenary concept of family that fails to reflect and often disregards the cultural and socio-economic reality of families, sometimes resulting in the transfer of children from marginalized populations to more affluent “consumers,” while failing to respect the cultures and traditions from which these children come. Both systems reflect an unstated theoretical justification for the disrespect we show for the integrity of poor families as a society. In this context, it is not primarily the West vs. East juxtaposition that is important, but rather, the poor vs. rich juxtaposition. In other words, it is the exclusion and displacement of the knowledge and discourse of poor families and the failure to see children in the context of their birth family, community, and culture—or a slightly broadened version of MonoHumanism—that explains our failure to respect the integrity of poor families, not only abroad, but domestically in the context of the U.S. foster care system.

B. Disruptive Foster Care Policies in the United States

Foster care in the United States is the system for temporary placement of children. One major difference between the U.S. foster care system and traditional forms of child placement is that foster care in the United States is a highly regulated, professionalized, and bureaucratized form of child placement.239 Foster care includes “all out-of-home placements for children who,” according to the state, “cannot remain with their parents. Children may be placed with nonrelative foster families, with relatives, in a therapeutic or treatment foster care home, or in some form of congregate care, such as an institution or a group home.”240

According to Jones, maltreatment is the principal reason that children enter U.S. foster care.241 Maltreatment is defined as a deliberate or intentional act by a caregiver that causes harm to a child.242 Harm may include abuse (physical, sexual or psychological) or neglect (physical, emotional, medical, or educational neglect, or inadequate supervision or exposure to violent environments).243 In 2009, neglect (not including medical neglect) represented 78.3 percent of the child maltreatment cases across 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.244

In the United States, conditions of poverty translate into an overrepresentation of children from poor families in the foster care population:

Although most poor families do not abuse their children, poor children are more likely to enter the foster care system, in part because poverty is associated with a number of life challenges, such as economic instability and high-stress living environments, which increase the likelihood of involvement with the child welfare system. Poor families are also more likely to have contact with individuals who are mandated by law to report child maltreatment, so questionable parenting practices are more likely to be discovered.245

Furthermore, poverty and poverty-related factors result in “children of color” being overrepresented in the foster care population.246 In 2003, African- American, American-Indian/Native Alaskan, and Hispanic families composed 55% of the foster care population, even though these minorities represented only 33% of the national population.247 Data from 2006 shows that minority children continue to be overrepresented in the child welfare system.248 And research shows that a mother’s income also has a significant impact on the speed of reunification with her children; the greater her income (including welfare assistance), the greater the speed of reunification.249

Like elsewhere in the world where there is poverty, the moment when a child leaves his or her family for placement through the U.S. foster care system seems to be determined by “poverty plus” factors.250 In the mid- 1980s, the foster care population in the U.S. spiked due to an aggravation in the conditions of poverty:

The crack epidemic, homelessness, the rapidly growing incarceration rate, and HIV/AIDS proved devastating for poor families and communities. In turn, families contending with multiple problems were unable to appropriately care for their children, and the number of children entering foster care rose. In 1980 approximately 300,000 children were in foster care; by 1998 that number had climbed to an unprecedented 568,000.251

Swann and Sylvester likewise attribute the spike in the foster care caseload from 1985 to 2000 to similar factors, emphasizing that “increases in female incarcerations and reductions in cash welfare benefits played dominant roles in explaining the growth in foster care caseloads over this period” and “highlight the need for child welfare policies designed specifically for the children of incarcerated parents and parents who are facing less generous welfare programs.”252 Given the strong associations between foster care populations, race, poverty, and poverty-related issues, Jennings suggests that any welfare policy that aims to decrease the severing of ties between mothers and children and also increase placement options in families “must be coupled with economic strategies that aim to strengthen low-income families of all races.”253

Unfortunately, this is not the approach the U.S. foster care system takes. On the contrary, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (“ASFA”) restricts poor people’s—and in particular African Americans’—choices over the structure and composition of their families.254 ASFA weakens the requirement that child services agencies make “reasonable efforts” to reunify families by providing exceptions to the requirement of such efforts, speeding up the time frame for the termination of parental rights, and providing states financial incentives to terminate parental rights in the process of freeing children for adoption.255

More specifically, states must make “reasonable efforts” to provide birth parents with the services and supports they need to regain custody of their children.”256 But if a child is in foster care for “15 out of the previous 22 months, states are to recommend that parental rights be terminated and the child be made available for adoption.”257 While a caseworker may waive termination if parents are making progress towards reunification or if there are alternative placement options in the interests of the child that do not require termination of parental rights,258 the typically inadequate family preservation services provided to poor families of color make the exercise of this waiver not nearly frequent enough.259

Moreover, as I have written elsewhere,

as the norm for child welfare service agencies is to provide inadequate family preservation and reunification services, so-called concurrent permanency planning, in which children are placed simultaneously on an adoption track and a reunification track very early in the proceedings, is likely to serve as a fast track to adoption of black children.260

In a prescient statement that was meant to apply to ASFA in the context of domestic adoption, but could also apply to Haiti in the context of intercountry adoption, two well-known family law scholars have found, “[t]here is currently too much state disruption and supervision of poor minority families. Any innovations . . . should be aimed at minimizing coercive intervention in families and at family preservation.”261 Bass et al. conclude that while “foster care is a necessary lifeline that undoubtedly saves thousands of maltreated children each year,” it is also true that “placing children into state custody is an extremely invasive governmental intervention into family life.”262 These authors justify government intervention only if the behavior is guided by a policy of “do no harm.”263

The reality is, however, that children occasionally encounter maltreatment in foster care families.264 And many foster children are vulnerable to “poor developmental outcomes” due to (a) genetic factors, prenatal substance exposure, and other physical health issues, (b) trauma or maltreatment experienced prior to foster care entry, and/or (c) placement instability experience in foster care.265 While the first two reasons may justify a child’s entrance into foster care in the first place, displacement and associated instability are problems caused by the child welfare system.

Multiple displacements cause developmental problems in children, primarily “disordered attachment,”266 and are also associated with “child behavioral and emotional problems, such as aggression, coping difficulties, poor home adjustment, and low self-concept.”267 Jones points out that most children in foster care will experience only one to two placements, but onethird to two-thirds of foster care placements will be disrupted within the first two years.268 Also, the longer a child remains in foster care, the greater the likelihood that she will experience multiple placements.269 In 2006, the majority of children (approximately 68%) who had been in foster care for at least 24 months had experienced more than two placements.270 It is worth pausing for a moment to consider why we disrupt and then fail to support poor families. Why are we systematically failing to respect the care-giving patterns of traditionally marginalized communities if we provide such a poor substitute?

In essence, the U.S. foster care system intervenes in the lives of poor families and families of color much the same way that ICA intervenes in the lives of families in other countries around the globe. The analogical similarities are undeniable. Both systems intervene in family structures in ways that are painful, catastrophic and destabilizing for individual families and communities. And in both systems, children often suffer for the satisfaction of other interests.

V. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

As discussed above, commentators generally accept that poor families, both in the context of intercountry adoption and the U.S. foster care system, are more likely to be involved in these systems, and, thus, are more likely to be disadvantaged by them.271 My intent here is not to re-state what has been said before, but to offer three important contributions to the literature. First, I seek to focus on a gap in the existing literature by offering a clear theoretical conception of the genesis for this disregard of poor families. This theory I have previously described as MonoHumanism.272 It is this unstated theoretical justification for the disrespect we show for poor families as a society that severely hinders the extent to which we approach poor families on their own terms.

The second broad contribution is showing how this theoretical justification has become a narrative that determines our perception of and interaction with poor families both domestically and abroad. To that end, the Silsby case and the discussion of the U.S. foster care system are key examples highlighting the theoretical justification.273

The third broad contribution is to show how customary child placement schemes have not only been replaced by structures set in motion by MonoHumanism, but may actually provide a better safeguard for the integrity of poor families than systems which may contain inherent unfairness and cultural biases.274 The discussion of timoun, so-called kinship by design and analogous child placement systems by poor families in the United States demonstrates the displacement.275 These three contributions convene in the ultimate goal of this Article, which is to highlight the fact that as a society, we fail to respect the integrity of poor families to such a degree that it is currently unrealistic to expect the United States to create structures that protect these families.

For Westerners who have financial privilege, the fundamental question is whether we can meet families who are not like us, on their own terms. As a general matter this means we should do more to prioritize community and family assistance abroad and at home.276 We need to approach children as if they are our own children and do everything we can (as we would) if someone tried to take them away from us. We must admit that to remove children from their families is always second best if the families have the means and the will to take care of them, and not accept that we do not have the resources to provide families with such means—particularly when we are funding structures to make separation of children and families possible. To support the integrity of poor families, our social structures must change, and we must be honest about the classism, racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, and basic fundamental unfairness that permeates our international and domestic child care systems. In adopting children, we should lose the “rescue narratives” that I have discussed here and elsewhere. Only when we do so will we be able to evaluate honestly whether there are alternatives to international adoption and domestic foster care that support family integrity. In doing so, we must ask whether we need to forgo intervention and focus on bottom-up community organizing, whether there is sufficient transparency in our international adoption processes, and whether we are truly promoting the best interests of poor children.277 We have a moral imperative to understand the theory, its manifestation, and the family formations that we break up by our failure to turn a critical eye back towards U.S. society and policies.

VI. CONCLUSION

A collaborative report by Haitian, U.S., and international organizations showed that eight months after the earthquake in Haiti, 1.3 million Haitians continued to live in makeshift camps in living conditions defying basic human rights to water, food, health, physical integrity, safety, housing, education, self-sufficiency, and political participation.278 In October 2010, an outbreak of cholera began to claim lives in Haiti, bringing to the public eye once again the failure of promises to reconstruct and improve the quality of life in that country.279 Yet, the aid that is often offered is the extraction of individual Haitian children through adoption, resulting in the severance of familial ties. In this situation, ICA disrupts traditional forms of child placement that would otherwise maintain familial and cultural ties. And while the answer is not necessarily to outlaw ICA, it may instead be to manage ICA in a way that minimizes the disruption of family unity. One way to do this is to first consider whether it is possible to support the child in a domestic placement, preferably with her own family.

The same is true for child placement in the United States. Analyzing “kinship by design” from a post-colonial perspective, one can conclude that the Western standardization and regulation of foster care and adoption is a unique cultural manifestation of a U.S. regulatory stance. Compared to social practices of placing out that are pervasive around the developing world, government intervention into family arrangements may even seem unnatural or unwarranted. In terms of law and economics, we may also describe “kinship by design” as “inefficient” compared to how people in poor countries solve child placement problems by themselves (at lesser cost to themselves and society). Nevertheless, despite its shortcomings, there is a continued domestic and international push to design more “efficient” regulatory systems to place children who need placement, satisfy adults who want children, and regulate the undesired consequences of exploitation and abuse and Otherness in ways that reflect Western preferences.

In the end, recognizing society’s failure to respect the integrity of poor families presents a first step in seeking a solution. With this understanding, the next time we see an international adoption scandal, hear about the many children in the U.S. foster care system, or otherwise learn of pieces of a poor family puzzle that have been broken apart, the question is whether we will step back and ask ourselves: What would we do if these “other” families were exactly the same as us? What if they weren’t poor? What would we do then?

_______________

Notes:

* Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director, Center on Children and Families, University of Florida Levin College of Law; J.D., Harvard Law School (1999); B.A., Brown University (1995); Mst., University of Oxford (2012). I would like to thank Adriana Camarena and Laquesha Sanders for outstanding research assistance. I would also like to thank the AALS Children and the Law Section Executive Committee for choosing this Article to be presented at the 2011 AALS Annual Meeting and the International Society of Family Law for accepting this Article for presentation. I continue to be grateful to Martha Minow for her kindness and unwavering support and to Elizabeth Rowe, Dorothy Roberts, Barbara Woodhouse, Nancy Dowd, Claudia Fonseca and Gabriela Ruiz for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I would also like to thank Benadieu Augustin, a National Human Rights Officer at the UN Mission in Haiti, for his valuable insights.

1. R´EPUBLIQUE D’HA¨ITI, S ´ EISME 2010, BULLETIN D’INFORMATION DU GOUVERNEMENT HA¨ITIEN 2 (2010), http://haiti.org/files/BULLETIN%20du%2021%20au%2023.pdf (noting the devastating impact of the earthquake on the Haitian population).

2. Anthony L. Hall, Missionaries Charged with Kidnapping Haitian Babies, CARIBBEAN NET NEWS, Feb. 5, 2010; Ten U.S. Missionaries Charged over Attempt to Kidnap and Smuggle Haiti ‘Orphans’, MAIL ONLINE (U.K.) (Feb. 5, 2010), http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... sionaries- charged-attempt-kidnap-smuggle-Haiti-orphans.html [hereinafter Ten U.S. Missionaries Charged].

3. NEW LIFE CHILDREN’S REFUGE, HAITIAN ORPHAN RESCUE MISSION, http://www.esbctwinfalls. com/clientimages/24453/pdffiles/haiti/nlcrhaitianorphanrescuemission.pdf; see also Ysabel Bilbao, Missionaries’ Plan for Rescued Haitian Children, IDAHO’S NEWSCHANNEL 7 (Feb. 4, 2010), http://www.ktvb. com/news/Missionaries-plan-for-orphanage-for-Haitian-children-83600197.html.

4. See Bilbao, supra note 3 (stating that the children found with the missionaries were handed over by parents who wanted them to have a better life); see also Haitian Judge Weighs New Charge for Silsby, BAPTIST PRESS (Mar. 15, 2010), http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=32497 [hereinafter Judge Weighs New Charge] (explaining that missionaries were arrested for trying to take children out of Haiti to a “makeshift orphanage in the Dominican Republic”).

5. Adviser to Missionaries in Haiti Kidnap Case is Arrested, CNN (Mar. 19, 2010), http://www.cnn. com/2010/CRIME/03/19/haiti.baptists.adviser/index.html.

6. Tony Allen-Mills, Clinton Brokers Deal over Haiti Orphan Abductions, SUNDAY TIMES (U.K.), Feb. 7, 2010, available at Factiva, Doc. No. ST00000020100207e627000xx.

7. Jonathan M. Katz, Laura Silsby, U.S. Missionary Leader, Convicted in Haiti, but Free to Go, HUFFINGTON POST (May 17, 2010), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/1 ... missionar_ n_579644.html; see also Evens Sanon, Haiti Frees U.S. Missionary; Group Leader Still Held, THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT, Mar. 9, 2010, at A5.

8. Haiti Tosses Kidnapping Charges Against Americans, SYRACUSE POST-STANDARD (Apr. 26, 2010), http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/ ... harge.html (stating that supporters of Silsby’s group argued that the group was trying to help the Haitian children and did not understand Haiti’s adoption laws).

9. Throughout this Article I use the term “poor families.” When I use this term in the context of the United States, I refer loosely to the terminology of the 2011 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Poverty Guidelines. See Annual Update of the HHS Poverty Guidelines, 76 Fed. Reg. 3637–38 (Jan. 20, 2011). When I use this term regarding families in Haiti or other countries besides the United States, I refer to the international poverty threshold as defined by the World Bank. See The World Bank, Data: Poverty (Nov. 11, 2011), http://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty (providing data on poverty indicators).

10. See Jacqueline Bhabha, Moving Babies: Globalization, Markets and Transnational Adoption, 28 FLETCHER F. WORLD AFF. 181, 185 (2004) (citing poverty as a leading factor for parents who give up their children to be adopted internationally); see also Jodi Kim, An “Orphan” with Two Mothers: Transnational and Transracial Adoption, the Cold War, and Contemporary Asian American Cultural Politics, 61 AM. Q. 855, 856–57 (2009) (describing international adoptees as “social orphans” who are placed for adoptions as orphans despite having living parents).

11. See Robert A. Saunders, Transnational Reproduction and its Discontents: The Politics of Intercountry Adoption in a Global Society, 1 J. GLOB. CHANGE & GOVERNANCE 1, 8 (2007) (describing both humanitarian and self-serving motives of Westerners seeking to adopt internationally); Nicole Bartner Graff, Intercountry Adoption and the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Can the Free Market in Children Be Controlled?, 27 SYRACUSE J. INT’L L. & COM. 405, 407 (2000) (describing the effect on international adoption by Westerners’ capitalistic demand for children).

12. David M. Smolin, Child Laundering: How the Intercountry Adoption System Legitimizes and Incentivizes the Practices of Buying, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Stealing Children, 52 WAYNE L. REV. 113, 117–24 (2006) (linking intercountry adoption to child trafficking).

13. See Sandra Bass, Margie K. Shields, & Richard E. Behrman, Children, Families, and Foster Care: Analysis and Recommendations, 14 FUT. CHILD. 4, 6, 14 (2004) (arguing that poor children are more likely to enter the foster care system because poverty is associated with multiple life challenges).

14. See Brenda Jones Harden, Safety and Stability for Foster Children: A Developmental Perspective, 14 FUT. CHILD. 30, 40 (2004) (showing that some foster children suffer maltreatment in their foster homes).

15. See Shani King, The Family Law Canon in a (Post?) Racial Era, 72 OHIO ST. L.J. 575, 610–11 & n.171 (2011) (discussing the U.S. child welfare system’s historical roots in child rescuing); see also David M. Smolin, Child Laundering as Exploitation: Applying Anti-Trafficking Norms to Intercountry Adoption Under the Coming Hague Regime, 32 VT. L. REV. 1, 36–37 (2007) (discussing the argument that adopting children internationally is justified because the children end up in better material circumstances).

16. See King, supra note 15, at 612–14 & nn.179 & 182 (discussing the U.S. child welfare system’s diversion of funds away from family reunification towards foster care); see also Smolin, supra note 12, at 127 (discussing the significant amount of money spent to arrange an intercountry adoption).

17. See King, supra note 15, at 612–14 (discussing the U.S. child welfare system’s failure to pro- mote family reunification and preservation); see also Smolin, supra note 12, at 127 (discussing the in- tercountry adoption system’s failure to provide birth families with aid that would preserve their families).

18. See King, supra note 15, at 613; see also Smolin, supra note 12, at 127.  

 19. See Twila L. Perry, Transracial and International Adoption: Mothers, Hierarchy, Race, and Feminist Legal Theory, 10 YALE J.L. & FEMINISM 101, 133–34 (1998) (citing poverty as a reason for intercountry adoption to the detriment of mothers who relinquish their children); see also Annette R. Appell, Protecting Children or Punishing Mothers: Gender, Race, and Class in the Child Protection System, An Essay, 48 S.C. L. REV. 577, 578 (1997) (discussing the disproportionate involvement of poor mothers in the U.S. child welfare system); Susan L. Brooks & Dorothy E. Roberts, Social Justice and Family Court Reform, 40 FAM. CT. REV. 453 (2002) (noting the class disparities in the U.S. child welfare system and the system’s roots in intervening into poor families); Naomi Cahn, Race, Poverty, History, Adoption, and Child Abuse: Connections, 36 LAW & SOC’Y REV. 461, 462 (2002) (stating that class is a significant factor for intervention by the U.S. child welfare system); Andrea Charlow, Race, Poverty, and Neglect, 28 WM. MITCHELL L. REV. 763, 764–65 (2002) (discussing the disproportionate removal of poor children from their homes to be placed into foster care); Marsha Garrison, Why Terminate Parental Rights?, 35 STAN. L. REV. 423, 433–38 (1983) (tracing the development of the U.S. child welfare system to colonial laws that intervened into poor families); Johanna Oreskovic & Trish Maskew, Red Thread or Slender Reed: Deconstructing Prof. Bartholet’s Mythology of International Adoption, 14 BUFF. HUM. RTS. L. REV. 71, 107 (2008) (discussing how dire poverty can drive the procurement of children for the intercountry adoption system); Dorothy E. Roberts, Child Welfare and Civil Rights, 2003 U. ILL. L. REV. 171, 172 (2003) (concluding that the U.S. child welfare system is “an institution designed primarily to monitor, regulate, and punish poor black families”); David M. Smolin, Intercountry Adoption and Poverty: A Human Rights Analysis, 36 CAP. U. L. REV. 413, 413–14 (2007) (describing extreme poverty as an impetus for intercountry adoption); Smolin, supra note 12, at 127 (discussing poverty as a grounds for families to surrender their children to be adopted internationally).

20. See Shani King, Challenging MonoHumanism: An Argument for Changing the Way We Think About Intercountry Adoption, 30 MICH. J. INT’L L. 413 (2009) (exploring scholarship on intercountry adoption); see also King, supra note 15 (critiquing family law scholarship on issues such as foster care).

 21. See generally King, supra note 20.

22. Id. at 414.

23. Id.

24. Id. at 414–15.

25. Id. at 415.

26. See id.

27. Id. at 414.

28. Id.

29. Id.

30. Id.

31. See DIANA KENDALL, SOCIOLOGY IN OUR TIMES 90 (4th ed. 2003) (defining “ethnocentrism” as the practice of using one’s culture as the standard by which to judge other cultures and stating that “[e]thnocentrism is based on the assumption that one’s way of life is superior to all others”); SANKARAN KRISHNA, GLOBALIZATION & POSTCOLONIALISM: HEGEMONY AND RESISTANCE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 73–74 (2009) (describing Edward Said’s seminal work Orientalism which advanced a postcolonialism framework of understanding how the Western “self” developed as a binary opposite to the Oriental “other”).

32. See Lee Epstein & C.K. Rowland, Interest Groups in the Courts: Do Groups Fare Better?, in INTEREST GROUP POLITICS 275, 278 (Allan J. Cigler & Burdett A. Loomis eds., 2nd ed. 1986) (stating that “[w]hen the NAACP was formed, one of its major goals was to eradicate ‘separate but equal’ policies”).

33. Samuel R. Gross & Debra Livingston, Racial Profiling Under Attack, 102 COLUM. L. REV. 1413, 1413 (2002) (describing a universal opposition to “racial profiling” prior to 9/11, and continued opposition and ambivalence about the practice afterward).

34. See King, supra note 20, at 415, 470 (discussing the goal of dismantling MonoHumanism).

35. See supra notes 2–8 and accompanying text.

 36. Magnitude 7.0 – Haiti Region, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURV. (Jan. 12, 2010, 9:53 PM), http://earthquake. usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010rja6.php.

37. Ker Than, Haiti Earthquake “Strange,” Strongest in 200 Years, NAT’L GEOGRAPHIC, Jan. 13, 2010, available at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... red-cross/.

38. Haiti, Background, CIA WORLD FACTBOOK, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld- factbook/geos/ha.html (last visited Mar. 4, 2010) [hereinafter CIA FACTBOOK]. In 2007, the average person in Haiti had an income of less than $1.25 a day. At a Glance: Haiti - Statistics, UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/hai ... stics.html (last visited Apr. 21, 2010).

39. R´EPUBLIQUE D’HA¨ITI, supra note 1, at 2.

40. Id.

41. Haiti: UN Launches Largest-ever Appeal for Natural Disaster, U.N. NEWS CENTRE (Feb. 18, 2010), http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?N ... haiti&Kw2= clinton&Kw3.

42. Id.

43. Former President Clinton to Lead International Haiti Coordination, U.S. FED. NEWS, Feb. 5, 2010, available at 2010 WLNR 2490284. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was the acting U.N. envoy for Haiti since May 2009. Id.

44. Allen-Mills, supra note 6.

45. Hall, supra note 2; Ten U.S. Missionaries Charged, supra note 2.

46. US Missionaries Charged with Child Kidnapping in Haiti, GUARDIAN (U.K.), Feb. 4, 2010, available at Factiva, Doc. No. GRULTD0020100204e625006sh.

47. US Missionaries ‘Knew They Were Doing Wrong’ in Haiti, BBC NEWS (Feb. 2, 2010), http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8491996.stm.

48. See Allen-Mills, supra note 6 (describing Clinton’s expected intervention); see also Sanon, supra note 7 (stating that all of the missionaries except Silsby were released).

49. In the context of international adoption, the grey adoption market has been defined as “a network of ‘baby brokers’ and orphanage practices of contested legitimacy” that facilitates “the legal and government-sanctioned transnational shuttling of children.” J.M. Weimer, Media and Migration: International Adoption, Globalization, and the Internet, GLOBALIZATION AND MEDIA, New School University, http://homepage.newschool.edu/~chakravs ... ation.html. A journalist described one grey adoption scheme discovered in Vietnam by the U.S. State Department as “a network of adoption agency representatives, village officials, orphanage directors, nurses, hospital administrators, police officers, and government officials who were profiting by paying for, defrauding, coercing, or even simply stealing Vietnamese children from their families to sell them to unsuspecting Americans.” E.J. Graff, Anatomy of an Adoption Crisis, FOREIGN POL’Y (Sept. 12, 2010), http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/ 2010/09/07/anatomy_of_an_adoption_crisis?page=full.

50. See James Leasure, Eight of Ten Baptist Missionaries Back from Haitian Detention, EXAMINER.COM (Feb. 18, 2010), http://www.examiner.com/evangelical-in- ... ariesback- from-haitian-detention-video.

51. Guy Adams, Baptist Laura Silsby Who Set Off to ‘Rescue’ Orphans Left Behind Debts and Bad Wages, THE INDEPENDENT (U.K.), Feb. 6, 2010, at 28; see also Katy Moeller, Eviction Hearing Scheduled for Laura Silsby’s Company, Personal Shopper Inc., IDAHO STATESMAN, Mar. 10, 2010, available at 2010 WL 5015921 (discussing specific amounts owed).

52. Adams, supra note 51; Moeller, supra note 51.

53. HAITIAN ORPHAN RESCUE MISSION, supra note 3.

54. Id.; Bilbao, supra note 3.

55. Bilbao, supra note 3.

56. Judge Weighs New Charge, supra note 4; see also New Kidnapping Charge Added to Jailed U.S. Missionary’s Case, DESERET NEWS (Mar. 13, 2010), http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700016208/ New-kidnapping-charge-added-to-jailed-US-missionarys-case.html.

57. Karl Penhaul, Americans Jailed in Haiti Tried Taking Other Kids, Officer Says, CNN (Feb. 8, 2010), http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-08/just ... ionaries?_ s=PM:CRIME.

58. Judge Weighs New Charge, supra note 4; New Kidnapping Charge Added to Jailed U.S. Missionary’s Case, supra note 56.

59. Ninth U.S. Missionary Freed in Haiti: Charisa Coulter Returns Home as Group Leader Remains in Jail, N.Y. DAILY NEWS (Mar. 9, 2010), http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/03/09/2010- 03-09_ninth_us_missionary_freed_in_haiti_charisa_coulter_returns_home_with_group_leade.html.

60. Id.

61. The identity of the last child was undergoing verification, which is why he was not released at the time. Michelle Faul, Haiti Parents Take Back Kids Given to Missionaries, DESERET NEWS, Mar. 18, 2010, at A04, available at Factiva, Doc. No. DN00000020100318e63i0001v.

62. Americans Charged with Haiti Child Kidnap, CBS NEWS (Feb. 5, 2010), http://www.cbsnews. com/stories/2010/02/04/world/main6174535.shtml.

63. Parents Willingly Gave Children to U.S. Baptists, Who Are Mostly from Idaho, OREGONLIVE.COM (Feb. 3, 2010), http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ss ... ve_childre. html [hereinafter Parents Willingly Gave Children]; see also Faul, supra note 61; Americans Charged with Haiti Child Kidnap, supra note 62.

64. Kirsten Johnson, Haiti Parents Testify They Gave Kids to Americans, ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 9, 2010, available at Factiva, Doc. No. APRS000020100209e6290005l.

65. Faul, supra note 61.

66. Americans Charged with Haiti Child Kidnap, supra note 62.

67. Parents Willingly Gave Children, supra note 63; see also Americans Charged with Haiti Child Kid- nap, supra note 62.

68. Parents Willingly Gave Children, supra note 63.

69. “We will strive to also equip each child with a solid education and vocational skills as well as opportunities for adoption into a loving Christian family.” HAITIAN ORPHAN RESCUE MISSION, supra note 3, at 3.

70. Adviser to Missionaries in Haiti Kidnap Case is Arrested, supra note 5.

71. Id.

72. Id.

73. Katz, supra note 7. As of the date of this writing, the status of the case against Jean Sainvil, who faced the same charges as Silsby, was not clear.

74. Id.

75. David Fischer & Frank Bajak, Missionaries Freed by Haitian Judge Land in U.S., NEWS J. (Wilmington, D.E.), Feb. 18, 2010.

76. Parents Willingly Gave Children, supra note 63.

77. Johnson, supra note 64; cf. infra note 197 (UNICEF’s definition of “trafficking”). Trafficking implies the movement of children across borders with the intent of labor exploitation. The fact that the parents gave their consent does not mean that Silsby did not intend to traffic the children.

78. The number of adoptions has increased [. . .f]rom less than 20 per 1,000 births in the early 1950s to over 45 per 1,000 births in 1968-1973. Adoption rates then declined sharply in the 1970s and possibly in the 1980s. As a result, adoption rates in 2002 (32.4 to 37.6 per 1,000 births) are still substantially lower than the historical peak reached in 1971 (47.5 per 1,000 births). Raquel Bernal et al., Child Adoption in the United States: Historical Trends and the Determinants of Adoption Demand and Supply, 1951-2002, at 7 (Dec. 2007) (unpublished paper), available at http:// faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~cmo938/adoptAEA.pdf.

79. Burton Z. Sokoloff, Antecedents of American Adoption, 3 FUT. CHILD. 17, 23 (1993).

80. U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS., ADMIN. FOR CHILD. & FAMILIES, THE AFCARS REPORT: PRELIMINARY FY 2009 ESTIMATES 5 (July 17, 2009), available at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/ programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report17.pdf.

81. Sokoloff, supra note 79, at 23 (describing the decrease in infants placed for adoption and the trends which may have contributed); see also Twila L. Perry, Transracial Adoption and Gentrification: An Essay on Race, Power, Family and Community, 26 B.C. THIRD WORLD L.J. 25, 28–29 (2006) (citing the “shortage of adoptable white infants result[ing] from, among other factors, the increased availability of abortion and contraception and from a growing tendency of unmarried white mothers to keep their babies” beginning in the 1960s).

82. Sokoloff, supra note 79, at 23; Bernal et al., supra note 78, at 9–13, 20–21; see also Richard A. Posner, The Regulation of the Market in Adoptions, 67 B.U. L. REV. 59, 61–64 (1987) (discussing the impact of societal trends on supply and demand in adoption markets).

83. Bernal et al., supra note 78, at 15.

84. Id. at 35 tbl.1. The authors also point out that domestic private agency adoptions, foster care adoptions, and intercountry adoptions need to be better understood in terms of the very different populations of adoptive and relinquishing parents that they serve.

85. The complex reasons for adoption preferences around race are discussed in the section below on foster care. Remarkably the United States was the third largest sending country of children to Canada in 2005, with the majority of such children being African American. Galit Avitan, Protecting Our Children or Our Pride? Regulating the Intercountry Adoption of American Children, 40 CORNELL INT’L L.J. 489, 499 (2007). The following authors discuss the preference for white babies: Kirsten Lovelock, Intercountry Adoption as a Migratory Practice: A Comparative Analysis of Intercountry Adoption and Immigration Policy and Practice in the United States, Canada and New Zealand in the Post W.W. II Period, 34 INT’L MIGRATION REV. 907, 933 (2000); Amy Grillo Kales, The Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000: Are Its Laudable Goals Worth Its Potential Impact on Small Adoption Agencies, Independent Intercountry Adoptions, and Ethical Independent Adoption Professionals?, 36 GEO. WASH. INT’L L. REV. 477, 479–80 (2004). Forty-four percent of unrelated adoptions in the United States are from foster care, and most of these adoptions are of older children, children with disabilities, a sibling group, or children of color. Bernal et al., supra note 78, at 8–9.

86. Saunders, supra note 11, at 4.

87. An “open adoption” is an arrangement in which birth parents select their child’s adoptive parents and “can negotiate a mutually agreeable level of involvement in the child’s life after his or her birth, not unlike visitation arrangements of a divorce.” Jack Darcher, Market Forces in Domestic Adoptions: Advocating a Quantitative Limit on Private Agency Adoption Fees, 8 SEATTLE J. SOC. JUST. 729, 739 (2010). There have been high-profile cases in the United States of birth parents reclaiming their children successfully in courts. Saunders, supra note 11, at 8.

88. Humanitarian concern is the historical reason given for the start of intercountry adoption in the United States with the first waves of children arriving to the country after World War II, followed by war orphans from the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The problematic narrative of humanitarian concern for the start of U.S. intercountry adoption is discussed in King, supra note 20, at 429–35.

89. For a discussion on costs (monetary and non-monetary) of adoption from foster care that act as incentives to seek a “substitute” (either traditional conception, private domestic or intercountry agency adoption, foster care, etc.), see Mary Eschelbach Hansen & Bradley A. Hansen, The Economics of Adoption of Children from Foster Care (Am. Univ., Dep’t of Econ., Working Paper Series, No. 2005-10, 2005).

90. In the United States, “the number of immigrant-orphans soared from 6,000 (or 1.6 per 1,000 births) in 1992 to over 20,000 (or 5.6 per 1,000 births) in 2004.” Bernal et al., supra note 78, at 7. The latest figures show that during the last years of economic recession the number of annual intercountry adoptions dropped from an all-time high of 22,991 in 2004 to 19,608 in 2007, 17,456 in 2008, and 12,744 in 2009. U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS, INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION: STATISTICS, http://adoption.state.gov/about_us/statistics.php (click on “Adoptions by Year”).

91. Saunders notes that: Although the US is the largest receiving country in total adoptions, on average accounting for half of all ICA, Norway is the leader in per capita intercountry adoptions with 11.2 international adoptions for every 1,000 births. Other European countries with a higher ratio of per capita intercountry adoptions than the US include Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands. Saunders, supra note 11, at 5.

92. See id. at 8 (stating that the United States’ market alone for intercountry adoption is over one billion dollars).

93. Bernal et al., supra note 78, at 4; see also CHILD WELFARE INFO. GATEWAY, COSTS OF ADOPTING 2 (2011), http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_cost/s_costs.pdf (estimating ranges for the cost of different types of adoption).

94. See Peter Selman, Intercountry Adoption in the New Millennium; The “Quiet Migration” Revisited, 21 POPULATION RES. & POL’Y REV. 205, 209–10 (2002).

95. Peter Selman, The Rise and Fall of Intercountry Adoption in the 21st Century, 52 INT’L SOC. WORK 575, 575 (2009).

96. U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, FISCAL YEAR 2009 ANNUAL REPORT ON INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTIONS (Nov. 2009), http://adoption.state.gov/content/pdf/f ... report.pdf.

97. Ethan B. Kapstein, The Baby Trade, 82 FOREIGN AFF. 115, 116 (2003). Selman mentions that sending countries decrease the number of adoptees sent abroad as countries move away from crisis, or change policies towards internal adoption to counter ICA, or suspend ICA in order to control trafficking, as has been the case in the past of Romania, Vietnam and Guatemala. Selman, supra note 94, at 216; see also Laura Briggs & Diana Marre, Defining Reproduction: Law, Strangers, Family, Kin, in INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION: GLOBAL INEQUALITIES AND THE CIRCULATION OF CHILDREN 29 (Diana Marre & Laura Briggs eds., 2009) (stating that the “advent [of intercountry adoption] is intimately related to conflicts that arose from colonialism, international warfare, and civil conflicts, and its current patterns are profoundly shaped by global, racial-ethnic, and class inequalities within and between nationstates”).

98. Selman, supra note 94, at 212; see also Lovelock, supra note 85, at 911–26.

99. Lovelock, supra note 85, at 927–30; Selman, supra note 94, at 212–13 (mentioning Colombia, India, and Korea as major sending countries in the early 1980s).

100. See Mary E. Hansen & Daniel Pollack, The Regulation of Intercountry Adoption 7–8 (Berkeley Electronic Press, Working Paper No. 1385, 2006), available at http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=6337&context=expresso&seiredir= 1#search=%22intercounty%20adoption%20regulations%201980s%22 (describing the genesis of international regulation of intercountry adoption in the late 1980s through the adoption provisions of the 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the work of the 1988 Hague Conference on Private International Law).
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