It’s time to get Bubba fitted for a burnoose.
Arkansas good ol’ boy Bill Clinton turned the ancient lands of Arabia into his personal ATM over the past decade, raking in tens of millions of dollars worth of donations to his private foundation, records disclosed by the former president yesterday show.
Desert-dwelling donors, including Gulf states, billionaire Saudis and Arab-focused charities, gave big to his William J. Clinton Foundation in what could be called the world’s biggest sheik shakedown.
The oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia alone gave between $15 million and $35 million to the nonprofit.
In all, more than 200,000 individuals and entities gave to Clinton – for a total of nearly $500 million. And that means 200,000 possible conflict-of-interest headaches for wife Hillary, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick for secretary of state.
For years, Clinton steadfastly kept his donors’ identities more hidden than Ali Baba’s cave, even as Hillary campaigned for president and watchdogs called for transparency.
But, to help ease her upcoming Senate confirmation hearing, Clinton finally said “open sesame” to his foundation’s books and provided the names of every donor plus broad range amounts of the gifts.
Many of the largest gifts, either to fund his presidential library or global poverty-fighting charity initiatives, came from the Saudis.
Friends of Saudi Arabia, a government-sponsored agency that fosters ties between the kingdom and the United States, gave an additional $1 million to $5 million on top of the direct $10 million to $25 million from the kingdom itself.
And Saudi billionaires Sheik Mohammed H. al-Amoudi and Nasser al-Rashid donated in the $5 million-to-$10 million range. Hamza B. al Kholi, a Saudi construction titan, gave between $100,000 and $250,000.
The Persian Gulf governments of Kuwait, Qatar and Oman and the Far Eastern sultanate of Brunei each gave between $1 million and $5 million, and another $250,000 to $500,000 came from the US Islamic World Conference.
The United Arab Emirates-based Dubai Foundation, which aims to promote education in the Middle East, gave between $1 million to $5 million, as did the Zayed family, that country’s ruling family.
“It’s not conducted the way they do it in Chicago, a situation where you give me millions and I give you that. It’s for a cultivation of good will,” said Harvey Sicherman, president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a State Department adviser during the Reagan administration.
“Often, people who do this have some business with a government and they are cultivating friends, that’s the extent of it,” he said.
But it can lead to at least the appearance of friends with benefits. For instance, mining financier Frank Giustra gave Clinton between $10 million and $25 million along with a donation of $1 million to $5 million from his private foundation.
In 2005, Giustra flew Clinton to Kazakhstan on his private jet, where the ex-prez sang the praises of the Central Asian nation’s autocratic leader. Giustra then won a lucrative uranium mining contract.
A similar appearance of a conflict could weigh on Hillary when Bill’s donors have an agenda before the State Department.
“People may say, well, even if they are not sharing the same bed at night, they still may talk to each other and it doesn’t look right,” Sicherman said.
Homegrown billionaires weren’t shy to open their wallets either. Stephen Bing, an old “Friend of Bill” and real-estate heir, handed over between $10 million and $25 million, as did New York’s independent political power broker Thomas Golisano and Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner.
Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg and Cameron Diaz donated as well. Songwriter Denise Rich gave between $250,000 and $500,000 and saw her tax-cheating husband, Marc, pardoned in 2001.
More modestly, US sugar baron Alfonso Fanjul Jr., the man who famously called Clinton in the Oval Office when Monica Lewinsky was hanging out, gave between $50,000 and $100,000.
Notably absent, however, is Clinton’s BFF and former business partner, Ron Burkle, a billionaire playboy and California supermarket king.
Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) promised that Bill Clinton’s prolific fund-raising would be thoroughly discussed at Hillary’s confirmation hearing.
“I don’t know how, given all of our ethics standards now, anyone quite measures up to this – who has such cosmic ties,” he said.
In a statement, Bill Clinton thanked the donors for their support.
Adding to the list of conflicts were substantial donations from individuals connected to India and Israel.
Indian politician Amar Singh, who discussed an Indian-US agreement to share civilian nuclear technology this past September, donated between $1 million and $5 million.
Any appearance that a Secretary of State Clinton has a close relationship with India could add drama to tense negotiations with the Asian subcontinent’s nuclear-armed rival Pakistan.
Among other big donors are TV producer Haim Saban, who splits his time between California and Israel and gave between $5 million and $10 million. And American Israel Public Affairs Committee board member and Slim-Fast founder S. Daniel Abraham gave in the $1 million-to-$5 million range.