Why Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers’ Case Against IRS May Cause US Political Dynasties to Shiver
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – February 12, 2020
While the mainstream media in the US was preoccupied with Donald Trump’s impeachment another legal drama has been unfolding since March 2019, namely Lawrence W. Doyle and John F. Moynihan v Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel has explained why the case matters more than the impeachment saga.
Lawrence W. Doyle and John F. Moynihan, both graduates of the Catholic Jesuit College of the Holy Cross and independent expert forensic investigators, came to prominence on 13 December 2018 when they testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the Clinton Foundation’s alleged fraud.
According to them, the charity does not operate as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organisation and has acted as nothing short of a foreign agent “throughout its existence”. Summarising their conclusions the two Jesuit alumni suggested that the Clinton Foundation owes between $400 million and $2.5 billion in taxes and informed US lawmakers that if the IRS refuses to consider their “tax claim” they would appeal to the US Tax Court. According to Zero Hedge, the ongoing litigation is apparently related to this very case.
Multinational Charities “Perfect” Disguise for Money Laundering
Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist who has been conducting a private inquiry into the Clinton Foundation for several years opines that the aforementioned legal case may involve unprosecuted crimes by some “charities” operated by political dynasties and may even put the IRS itself under the microscope.
“I believe that Doyle and Moynihan, like most concerned citizens, want the IRS to enforce charity laws and regulations fairly, without regard to whether a given charity might be linked to a Republican, Democrat, or Independent person,” he says, specifying that the precise claim and details of the legal case in question are unknown since they’re sealed by the court.
According to Ortel, multinational charities have become “perfect” vehicles for disguising money laundering and influence peddling since regulators do not have enough resources to check their revenues and spending scrupulously especially when these non-profits are operating abroad.
“Compounding the above problems is the fact that numerous foreign actors including governments, companies, and individuals are eager to curry favour with sitting or rising politicians who, typically, are also hungry for financial support,” he suggests. “While foreign interests are barred from directly supporting or financing political candidates, they are allowed to ‘contribute’ to charities in which dynastic political families have interests or associations.”
Why IRS & FBI Turns a Blind Eye to Loosely Operated Charities
To illustrate his point Ortel referred to the Clinton Foundation that has repeatedly come under the spotlight being suspected of alleged “pay-to-play” schemes. Echoing Doyle and Moynihan, Ortel believes that the Clinton Foundation cannot be called a “charity” since its operations in the US and abroad go beyond charitable activities. Furthermore it is neither validly organised nor properly audited, he highlights. The Wall Street analyst raises the question as to why the supposed violations have remained unnoticed by the FBI and IRS for over a decade.
Referring to page 432 of the first IG Horowitz Report, Ortel notes that the FBI opened investigations into the Clinton Foundation in January 2016. By July 2016, the IRS too confirmed that they had opened a Clinton Foundation investigation, he points out. However, nothing has been heard since then about the cases.
The Washington Post reported on 10 January that John Huber, the US attorney in Utah, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November 2017 to look into the FBI handling of possible corruption at the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s alleged pay-to-play schemes during her tenure as secretary of state, “found nothing worth pursuing.” The media outlet specified, however, that “the assignment has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to lawmakers”, citing knowledgeable sources.
“What I suspect is that bureaucrats and others in the IRS and Department of Justice have been reluctant to press into their investigations because high level current and former politicians and powerful donors, across the political spectrum are likely implicated in trafficking influence through these false-front charities, and others”, Ortel presumes.
US Debt is Soaring While “Charities” Sit on Trillions
The Wall Street analyst explains why financial violations and fraud on the part of charitable organisations are fraught with risks for national economies and societies.
“One hopes that the overwhelming majority of American charities abide by relevant laws”, he says. “This is likely true concerning charities that tackle local, state, or national challenges, but American charities and foreign charities that operate internationally are rife with potential for fraud and corruption.”
He points out that this is particularly true when it comes to disaster relief when “pocketbooks open instantly and large sums swarm” towards various “tax-exempt organisations” often connected to celebrities that say they are going to help.
Ortel bemoans that fact that “afterwards, too frequently as in the case of Haiti, for example, there is no rigorous accounting for the vast sums claimed as donations or expenses”. The Clinton Foundation’s role in fundraising to tackle the consequences of the 2010 Haiti earthquake is still triggering controversy and was addressed by Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign.
“In 2020, America has run up a mountain of government debt and we see little progress in paring back soaring annual government deficits that add to our monstrous debt pile”, the investigative journalist emphasises. “At the same time, loosely regulated charities, some funded by monopolists and near monopolists sit on trillions of dollars of unencumbered assets inside private foundations or public charities.”
According to him, if the IRS and Department of Justice did their best to enforce existing laws and regulations that prohibit certain tax-exempt organisations from enriching themselves “vast sums could be raised to help reverse erosion in [the US] national balance sheet”.
Ortel expresses hope that the effort spearheaded by Doyle and Moynihan will help restore confidence in the administration of justice.
Fools pedal in…
Climate Discussion Nexus | February 12, 2020
They’re really going to do it. Britain is going to ban cars. Well, not all cars. Just all the ones you can afford that work. Because climate. By 2035 instead of 2040, because those extra five years after the 2030 final deadline are really important. And what impact will crippling private transportation and crashing the British economy have on people’s well-being, including their ability to deal with inevitable extreme weather events? They don’t know and apparently don’t care.
For all his willingness to challenge conventional wisdom on a variety of topics, including Brexit, Boris Johnson appears thoroughly orthodox on climate, consorting with David Attenborough and gadding about promoting the launch of the 26th UN Climate Change conference in Glasgow, even though it doesn’t start until November. It’s never too early for a photo op.
There is a remarkably casual arrogance about suddenly moving the deadline for scrapping the family car up by five years, and telling citizens if they have trouble adjusting it’s their tough luck. NBC says “Britain’s step amounts to a victory for electric cars that if copied globally could hit the wealth of oil producers”. Yes, and of everyone else too. It adds that “More than a dozen countries around the world have announced plans to crack down on new sales of gas and diesel vehicles” including France, still on its 2040 target and Norway with a classic “non-binding goal that by 2025 all cars should be zero emissions.” Zero? Really? No net emissions in the construction of the vehicle, the generation and transmission of the power (and thus the construction of the power plant or other facility), the disposal at the end of its life? None? Bosh.
Double-bosh to the British government’s plan to cut total national GHG emissions to net zero by 2050. Nobody knows how to do it and the only way they’ll get there is to fudge the numbers. Humans emit CO2. So does almost everything we do. Nobody can foresee all the consequences of everything everyone does, not even the carbon consequences. And with fading evidence that slow accumulation of CO2 portends catastrophe, it’s astounding to court economic catastrophe in such a confused manner.
For instance, in echoes of Europe’s great diesel debacle, where governments pushed consumers hard to buy this “cleaner” technology including subsidizing both the vehicles and the fuel only to realize it wasn’t cleaner at all, the British government suddenly added the previously subsidized and relatively popular hybrid gas/electric cars to the forbidden zone. And said it will act sooner than 2035 if possible. Plan? What plan?
It is easy to see ways this lack of plan might fail. Including consumers stocking up on gasoline cars to beat the ban. Or crumbling gasoline infrastructure and limits on resale rendering virtually all existing cars worthless over time. Or a vast popular revolt. (Especially if the UK government also goes ahead with a scheme to ban gas furnaces whenever the whim strikes, without any idea who should pay, what it will cost, if there are even enough tradespersons and so forth.)
NBC sees none of these potential drawbacks. Perhaps because it did not look. Instead it burbled that “According to experts, the targets of countries to ban sales of new gas and diesel vehicles won’t be effective without accompanying action.” And these actions evidently include “informing consumers about the vehicles on offer” according to one completely unbiased expert NBC sought out with no preconceived notion what he’d say, namely “Peter Mock, managing director of the International Council on Clean Transportation in Europe.” And certainly consumers will have to be told about cars they are allowed to buy because otherwise they’d only find out from advertisements, the internet, their friends and car dealers.
Then there’s the pesky matter Mock also mentioned of “building of the necessary charging infrastructure”. Um yeah. Don’t forget to do it. Unless of course you enjoy the thought of even lower emissions as people don’t bother buying cars they can’t drive anyway.
NBC did its best to make it all sound easy, saying “In Britain, diesel and gasoline models still account for most new vehicle registrations in Britain. However, registrations of electric vehicles rose 144 percent between 2018 and 2019, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.” Yes, but to what total share? Oh dear. 2.3%.
So the government will totally change the way Britons drive within 15 years, utterly rebuild a vast national infrastructure network, and get it all done right on time from the engineering to the estimates of which technology to back. Sure. Just like it always does. And if you don’t like it, well, don’t worry. They’ll probably have another inspiration and junk this one.
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70 Neocons Petition Congress To Effectively Allow Israel To Say When The US Should Attack Iran
By Damian Lataan | January 10, 2014
Seventy senior Israeli-centric neoconservatives have written an open letter to Congress imploring them to do more to ensure Iran complies with the conditions of any agreement finally reached with the P5+1 over Iran’s nuclear program.
While the neocons are ostensibly asking Congress to ensure compliance, it is clear that their real aim is to convince members of Congress to support the bill currently passing through the Senate which calls for tighter sanctions against Iran in the event of any waywardness on Iran’s part.
The neocons are eager to see the bill currently passing through the Senate with enough support to make it veto-proof, not so much because they are concerned about Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program – there’s still not a skerrick of hard evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program – but, rather, because embedded within the bill is this clause:
… if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence…
Essentially, the clause is an automatic trigger for the US to attack Iran at any time the Israelis choose to launch a first strike – regardless of whether President Obama is in favour or not.
Partial list… continue
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- Threats and missiles fly, death tolls soar in Iran, Lebanon, Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 151
- Lebanon: Israel’s White Phosphorous Use Risks Civilian Harm
- Corporate Media Go All Out To Support The US-Israeli War On Iran
- US-Israel war on Iran is creating a steady growing number of amputees
- Israel planned this war on Iran for 40 years. Everything else is a smoke screen
- The wrong question about the war in Iran
- ‘Your Tax Dollars Being Used to Raise Your Gas Prices’: US-Israel Bomb Major Iranian Oil Depots
- No Tricks Zone
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
- Televised! Leading German Political Candidate Tells Schoolchildren CO2 Makes Sun Hotter!
- New Study: A Century Warming Of 1.1°C Is ‘Commonplace’ And ‘Not Unusual’ During This Interglacial
- New Study: ‘Internal Noise’ And Volcanic Forcing Can Trigger 10-15°C Warming Within Decades
- Glaciers Worldwide Are Suddendly Surging, Experts Blame Warming!
- Surprising Discovery: Sahara Is Greening…Billions Of Trees Where Once Thought To Be Barren
- New Research Reaffirms Clouds, Aerosols, And Surface Solar Radiation Are ‘Driving The Climate System’
- Germany: Electric Car Catches Fire At Charging Station, Sets Off Local “Inferno”, Widespread Damage
- New Study: Canada’s New Brunswick Was 1°C Warmer Than Today During The Medieval Warm Period
- Coal Power Back In Trend As Globe Tries To Keep Pace With Growing Demand For Power
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