Bill Clinton just can’t seem to keep his sleazy private dealings out of the news: This time, it’s a 2005 dinner he shared with a wealthy mining mogul and Kazakhstan’s president, after which the businessman wound up with a coveted contract in that country.
The sordid story – about Clinton’s meal with Kazakh strongman Nursultan Nazarbayev and UrAsia Energy Ltd. head Frank Giustra – ran on the front page of Thursday’s New York Times.
Reporters Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr. deserve kudos: They describe how Clinton praised the Kazakh dictator, absurdly, for “opening up the social and political life of your country” and suggesting his nation lead Europe’s chief security agency – which would confer legitimacy on Nazarbayev’s regime.
They also recount how Giustra, at the time a newcomer to uranium mining, won a deal with Kazakhstan to buy into three of its uranium projects – just two days after the dinner.
And how Giustra, after letting a few months pass, gave $31 million to the Clinton Foundation – and later pledging another $100 million.
Now, it would be unseemly enough if Clinton were merely trading on his credentials as a former US president to raise funds, be they for his foundation or personal bank account.
But with his wife, Hillary Clinton, serving as a US senator and running for president, any such fund-raising prompts serious questions about conflicts of interest and influence-peddling.
It’s absolutely unacceptable.
The Clintons must decide:
* Will he give up his wheeling and dealing – and any activity that creates questionable appearances?
* Will he sever his relations to the foundation, and to business enterprises to which he’s been linked? (He’s already begun to do the latter.)
* Will he at least disclose the names of his foundation’s donors, so the public can judge his shenanigans for itself?
* Will Hillary step out of the public arena? (Fat chance, for awhile anyway.)
* Or will the pair simply continue indulging in the same sleazy behavior that has marked their political lives from the start?
We think we know what they’ll do.
We think you do, too.