Here we go - the beginning of the probable end. Clinton Foundation Audit.

[magical thyme]

66. yup. Feb report: Clinton foundation received up to $81m from clients of controversial HSBC bank

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/10/hillary-clinton-foundation-donors-hsbc-swiss-bank

The leaked files have now been obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, the French daily Le Monde, CBS’s 60 Minutes and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Another Clinton foundation donor who had a HSBC account in the tax haven is Jeffrey Epstein, the hedge fund manager and convicted sex offender who once flew the former president on his private jet for charity events in Africa.

Caring arranged for 18th century Russian costumes, borrowed from the Hermitage Museum, to be tailor-fitted for each guest at the event at Catherine the Great’s Winter Palace. Photographs from the event in November 2005 show Bill Clinton, dressed as a Russian general, partying with other VIP guests such as Elizabeth Hurley. Entertainment was provided by Tina Turner and Elton John.

HSBC notes on Caring’s accounts contain an instruction to “transfer [$1m] to Bill Clinton’s Foundation as a contribution following his involvement in the Charity Function [Caring] organised at the end of November”.


Another client of HSBC Geneva to donate to the Clinton foundation is Denise Rich, the ex-wife of the late billionaire and commodities trader Marc Rich, who fled to Switzerland in 1983 after being indicted by US authorities for tax evasion, fraud and racketeering. Mark Rich was was controversially granted a presidential pardon by Bill Clinton just hours before the former president left office in 2001.

The total sum donated by Giustra is unknown but could be significantly more than the minimum $50m the foundation indicates comes from his foundations, including the Vancouver-based Radcliffe Foundation.

He is on the record as having donated $31.1m to the foundation in 2007 and, later that year, pledged a $100m commitment to tackling poverty in conjunction with the Clinton foundation. Giustra’s generosity has earned him unique access to Bill Clinton, making him one of an elite handful of philanthropists who have accompanied the former president for overseas charity events.