Explosive charges on the Clintons exploiting Haiti aid funds
Normally, I don’t cite reports from websites that I don’t know anything about. But a site called newsjunkiepost.com has some very interesting facts and allegations about the Clintons and Haitian relief, where billions of dollars have been raised with little benefit to the Haitians but considerable benefit to the Clintons.
For the Clintons, the boon from Haiti’s earthquake of January 12, 2010 came while HRC was Secretary of State, and Bill Clinton was the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti. As soon as massive numbers of Americans began to donate small sums of money for earthquake relief, Bill and Hillary Clinton transformed themselves into the face of Haiti. In their most calculated compassionate voices, they told stories about their marvelous honeymoon on the island and implored the public for donations. In reality, in the US State Department, the mood was festive. On February 1, the US Ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, cheerfully titled a section of his situation report, “THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!”
By March 8, 2010, Bill Clinton had applied sufficient pressure on President René Préval, to force Haiti’s Lower House to vote yes on a State of Emergency that would allow a group of rich donors to run the country for 18 months via the IHRC [Hillary Clinton’s Interim Haiti Recovery Commission]. During the same month, Hillary Clinton went to Montreal to raise money, ostensibly for Haiti’s reconstruction, and Bill Clinton went to Davos to collect the rich donors. The next month, Bill Clinton worked to push his project on Haiti’s Senate, where it was ironically called a coup d’état d’urgence. The Senate voted no on April 8, but President Préval insisted on another vote. In the next vote on April 13, 10 out of 25 senators stayed home to prevent a quorum. On April 14, Michelle Obama made a special trip to Haiti, and the next day the deal was done. The vote was 9 away, 2 abstaining, 1 no, and 13 yes. All but one of the yes votes had come from Préval’s party. Thus slightly more than three months after the earthquake, on April 21, 2010 the IHRC was inaugurated. (snip)
As the reconstruction money poured in, the IHRC became increasingly arrogant and opaque. According to the IHRC charter, Clinton and Bellerive gained the right of final approval over all major construction projects in Haiti. In addition, they even gave themselves the power to grant titles. Meanwhile, Haitian ministers and elected officials were blocked from IHRC meetings because they were “not on the list.”
The IHRC is estimated to have collected $5.3 billion over two years and $9.9 billion over three years, without reconstructing much of anything. This represents more than five times the money that the Clintons have collected by other mechanisms like the Clinton Foundation or Laureate Education. Bill Clinton has claimed at various times that he only received 10 percent of the funds that had been pledged to the IHRC, but even if this were true, a vast sum of money would still have disappeared. By July 2011, Haiti’s Ministry of Public Works, Transportation and Communication (MPTC) had approved $3.2 billion of IHRC projects, but only $0.084 billion (2.6 percent) worth of projects had been completed.
There is a lot more in this lengthy post. It is well worth a read.
Hat tip: Clarice Feldman