Stephen Lendman

Hard evidence shows the Clinton Foundation is a Bill and Hillary money-laundering, influence-selling, self-enrichment racket masquerading as a charitable NGO.

Not according The New York Times, operating as her virtual press agent, promoting her candidacy for the nation’s highest office, suppressing her deplorable public record since the 1990s.

Richard Painter is a University of Minnesota law professor. From 2005 - 2007, he was Obama’s chief White House ethics lawyer. The Times gave him feature op-ed space to whitewash Clinton Foundation wrongdoing - serious stuff enough to land ordinary people in prison if they tried doing what she did.

“There is little if any evidence that federal ethics laws were broken by Mrs. Clinton or anyone working for her at the State Department in their dealings with the foundation,” Painter shamelessly claimed.

The 1978 Ethics in Government Act did nothing to deter dirty business as usual - any more than did Dodd-Frank curb abusive Wall Street practices, both measures more window dressing than serious reform efforts.

Painter sees no conflict of interest with Hillary as secretary of state requiring large contributions to her foundation for direct access - nor favoritism in the form of lucrative government contracts or other special favors in return for sizable donations.

Pay-to-play is longstanding Washington practice. Law Professor Jonathan Turley bashed what he called the “abysmal” Justice Department record for failing to prosecute high US officials, past and present.

He urged appointment of an independent special prosecutor to investigate Hillary’s pay-to-play practices while at State, saying “I don’t see how anyone could deny…troubling disclosures” now known.

He called lack of media coverage and concern about Hillary’s pay-to-play dealings “astonishing.” Her emails show special favors afforded large foundation donors.

Numerous other emails relating to State Department business were improperly deleted - some recovered, others not.

Washington is so debauched beyond fixing, its hard distinguishing between dirty business as usual v. unethical and illegal practices.

The Clintons notoriously continue getting away with hugely corrupt practices, becoming super-rich in the process, Hillary heading toward becoming America’s 45th president, an unindicted felon to be elevated to the nation’s highest office.

In his op-ed, Painter ignored all of the above, claiming she committed no crimes or ethical violations. How does he know without a full, independent, no-holds-barred investigation? It’s essential to hold her accountable, especially as she’s likely to succeed Obama.

He whitewashes her offenses by saying special access “is the most corrupting brand of favoritism and pervades the entire government” under Democrat and Republican administrations.

It’s high time something was done to address it, holding crooks in high places fully accountable for their wrongdoing. Instead, Painter treats major abuses as ordinary business as usual.

He shamelessly and disgracefully claimed “the Clinton Foundation is principally about doing good deeds.”

False! At most, around 10% of funds received go for charitable purposes, the rest for enriching the Clintons and their cronies, along with perhaps other activities unrelated to charity.

For the Clintons, it begins at home, selling influence for self-enrichment.

Good governance, entirely absent in America, demands they be held fully accountable - including prosecuting them and foundation officials under the RICO statute used to go after Mafia kingpins, along with shutting down their racket once and for all.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III ".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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