It looks like the Clintons are running for cover.

After Donald J. Trump devastated the once formidable Clinton political machine in November – the Clinton Global Initiative, the centerpiece initiative of the Clinton Foundation, the former first couple's political and financial power structure – is being shut down.

According to a notice filed with the New York Department of Labor, the Clinton Foundation will lay off 22 members of the Clinton Global Initiative.

The initiative apparently became unsustainable after Hillary Clinton's defeat, as foreign governments began reducing or even withdrawing their donations. The Australian government, for example, ended a decade of funding the organization, and the government of Norway reduced its contribution by more than $15 million.

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The abandonment of CGI soon after the Clintons lost political power will only further accusations the foundation was the hub of a "pay-to-play" network of influence peddling that existed to personally enrich Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.

Indeed, one of the reporters who has been investigating the Clintons for years and whose articles and book helped expose corruption in the Clinton Foundation said the Clintons are "running scared."

Jerome Corsi, an investigative reporter at WND and a New York Times bestselling author, focused on the evidence of corruption in the foundation's financial reports in "Partners in Crime: The Clintons' Scheme to Monetize The White House for Personal Profit."

He argues shutting down CGI is a defensive action.

"The Clinton criminal enterprise is finally sputtering to its end, but that doesn't mean people should walk away," Corsi said.

"Actually, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest the Clinton Global Initiative is shutting down simply to avoid a further criminal investigation. But this only means it is more important that such an investigation take place. The fact they are shutting this down shows they are running scared."

Clinton Foundation corruption also was uncovered during the presidential election campaign by investigative reporter Peter Schweizer, the author of "Clinton Cash," which exposed the "pay-to-play" schemes.

Edward Klein's "Guilty As Sin" and "Gary Byrne's "Crisis of Character" also unveiled Clinton corruption.

In "Clinton Cash," Schweizer recounts how the Clintons, who claimed they left the White House "dead broke," have personally taken in more than $130 million since.

"Where did the money come from? Most people assume that the Clintons amassed their wealth through lucrative book deals and high-six figure fees for speaking gigs," the book poses.

'Grifter scheme'

Corsi argues the Clintons used their foundation to commit inurement, the criminal offense of running a charity for personal profit. Unlike bribery, which requires proof of an explicit quid pro quo, proving inurement can be done simply through scrutiny of financial records.

"The Clinton Foundation was simply a grifter scheme," Corsi declared. "Ultimately, how did Bill and Hillary Clinton, who have never held a job except for the Clinton Foundation, become so wealthy? It was because they used the massive donations that were given to the Clinton Foundation to personally enrich themselves. And we know this because financial reporting shows the money spent on the supposed programs of the organization was far less than the money which was taken in.

Corsi said analysis of the financial statements is essential.

"A close look at the financial records means the Clintons will literally be caught in the act," he said. "It's the exact same kind of thing that was used to bust Al Capone – and the Clintons' criminal empire is much more far-reaching than Capone's."

For example, Corsi alleges the many millions of dollars the Clintons took in speakers' fees were funneled through a dummy corporation called WJC LLC.

Corsi argues Bill Clinton essentially engaged in money-laundering by taking the money from speaking fees, using a "pass-through" account at his dummy corporation to transfer it to other nominal accounts. The scheme made it impossible to show whether or not the speakers' fees Bill Clinton received were foundation-related. Consequently, the Clintons' had created a way for donors to transfer money to them personally.

Jerome Corsi's "Partners in Crime: The Clinton's Scheme to Monetize the White House for Personal Profit" is available at the WND Superstore!

Corsi compared the Clintons to mobsters or drug dealers who use supposedly legitimate organizations to launder money, making it impossible to trace.

"The Clinton Foundation, despite its Byzantine complexity and the complication of its financial records, ultimately rests upon a simple model," Corsi said. "Donations are taken in to supposedly help out with severe global programs or whatever crisis is dominating the headlines at the time, such as what happened with the Haitian earthquake.

"Bill and Hillary Clinton's connections to foreign governments and to the wealthy and powerful facilitate these donations. The Clintons then use their political power to direct policy to reward donors. They also launder the money through various mediums to redirect it to cronies or to themselves personally," Corsi said.

"The system rests upon two things: Inurement, because obviously much of the money coming in for charitable ends is not going to those recipients, instead going to the Clintons and their cronies. Analysis of the financial records can prove this. And, of course, they need political power, which they no longer have.

"So absent political power, they are closing down the foundation to try to avoid an investigation of inurement, which is something I call for in 'Partners in Crime.'"

In Haiti, a diverse network of activists alleges the Clintons mismanaged or even stole donations that were supposed to help the impoverished citizens of that nation after a devastating earthquake.

Haitian human rights lawyer, playwright and poet Ezili Danto accused Hillary Clinton of "preying" on Haiti by directing charitable donations to Clinton cronies through the Clinton Foundation. She also claimed an astounding 85 percent of donations to the foundation went to salaries, travel, luxury hotels, dinners and overhead, rendering the entire foundation a "slush fund."

There are also allegations that payments to the Clinton Foundation led to specific payments or deals being made to benefit donors. For example, Boeing donated $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation in 2010 only two months after then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed Russia to approve a $3.7 billion purchase from Boeing.

Similar deals were also allegedly made with foreign governments, including Morocco, Algeria and Colombia. The payments from such deals also benefited certain for-profit corporations part-owned by people with ties to the Clintons.

The smoking gun

Some analysts claim a huge share of the almost $2 billion raised by the Clinton Foundation between 2002 and 2013 was seized by the Clintons for private gain.

"In 2015, my good friend, Charles Ortel, a brilliant Wall Street analyst, got my interest during a lunch conversation when he mentioned he had been studying the audited financial statements of the Clinton Foundation," Corsi said of how the investigation began. "I decide to have a look myself, and I was amazed to realize Ortel was right."

WND published an article in October 2015 titled "Clinton Foundation 'fraud' began with exploiting earthquake" that featured the sharp criticism of Ortel, who was then in the midst of conducting a comprehensive study of Clinton Foundation financial reports. It was the first of some 20 articles Corsi published in WND detailing Ortel's research.

Ortel explained to WND his allegation that former President Bill Clinton had developed a methodology of exploiting epidemics and natural disasters to raise hundreds of millions in "charitable donations" that in a relaxed regulatory environment could be diverted to personal gain, funding Hillary Clinton's political campaigns and supporting Democratic Party causes.

Corsi believes these initial allegations and the WND reporting of them contributed to Hillary Clinton's defeat and "the beginning of the end" of the Clinton Foundation.

"I wrote 'Partners in Crime' to make clear Bill and Hillary Clinton were grifters who had stolen millions of dollars from charitable donors that thought they were contributing to a good cause," Corsi said.

"The Clintons turned out to be the worst of the worst – grifters who saw no problem making money on the misery of those caught in disasters, floods, earthquakes. The Clintons had no conscience. The Clintons decided to cash in on their White House fame to become the multi-millionaires they felt was their entitlement, even if they had to steal the money from the unfortunate victims of disease and natural disasters. The Clinton Global Initiative proclaimed the highest and most lofty ideals, but it was all a scam.

"Writing 'Partners in Crime,' I came to see the Clinton Foundation scheme to monetize the White House as the defining act in the Clinton family crime melodrama."

For that reason, Corsi says he will continue to investigate and will urge the incoming Trump administration to probe inurement at the Clinton Foundation.

"Inurement is the smoking gun which proves the Clinton criminal machine," he said. "This shouldn't be the end of this investigation. It's only the beginning."

Jerome Corsi's blockbuster, "Partners in Crime: The Clinton's Scheme to Monetize the White House for Personal Profit," is available at the WND Superstore!