By Robert Laurie ——Bio and Archives--April 10, 2015
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The report centers on donations from Frank Giustra and the oil company that he founded, Pacific Rubiales. In a Wall Street Journal story from 2008, Giustra is described as a “friend and traveling companion” of former President Clinton who donated more than $130 million to Clinton’s philanthropies. He’s also a Clinton Foundation board member and has participated in projects and benefits for the foundation. When workers at Pacific Rubiales decided to strike in 2011, the Columbian military reportedly used force to stop the strikes and compel them to return to work, IBT reports, citing the Washington office of Latin America, a human rights group. Those accusations of human rights violations were part of the criticism of the United States-Colombia Free Trade Promotion Agreement, which was passed by Congress later that year. Pacific Rubiales has repeatedly denied charges that it infringed on workers’ rights. On the campaign trail in 2008, Hillary Clinton, along with then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, opposed the deal as a raw deal for workers, according to IBT. The pair changed their tune after the election and publicly supported the trade agreement. As secretary of State, Clinton’s State Department certified annually that Colombia was “meeting statutory criteria related to human rights.” The deal had originally been negotiated by the administration of former President George W. Bush, and the Obama administration won changes on labor and environmental issues not included in the original deal. Just months after Congress approved the agreement, IBT reported, Giustra helped raise $1 million for the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, supported by Pacific Rubiales.So far, of course, there's no hard evidence of a direct quid pro quo. Still, you’d have to be frighteningly naive to ignore the cash, timing, and players involved. Given the Clinton's shady history, it wouldn't be surprising to learn they were peddling influence. ...And the stink isn't going to go away. As IBT writes, Hillary's past is very real problem for her and her party.
“Giustra’s donations create the problem that it could be difficult for the public to have confidence that Clinton’s certifications of Colombia’s labor rights record were made on the merit and without bias or partiality,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a national expert on ethics in government. “Public officials need to know that even feelings of gratitude are an inappropriate influence.” The Clintons’ financial relationship with Giustra “could undermine the public’s confidence in [Hillary’s] decisions,” Clark said, particularly in a case that involves certifying the human- and labor-rights record of a country where Clinton’s own State Department has admitted that “violence, threats, harassment, and other practices against trade unionists continued.” “It would be one thing if it was the secretary certifying that Finland is complying with human rights standards,” Clark said. “But Colombia?”Some enterprising young reporter should start looking through Mrs. Clinton's official State Department email account to see if there's anything in there that might shed some light on the situation. Oh wait, I forgot. She didn't use it. She only used her secret, private, account. ...And then permanently wiped all the correspondence that she deemed "personal." What was it Obama used to say about his administration? Something about "transparency," wasn't it?
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