Hillary Clinton's husband shook down a small school-building charity for $500,000

The Happy Hearts Fund almost sounds like something George Costanza would make up, but it's actually a legitimate charity that builds schools in poor neighborhoods. The group's annual gala is a major part of its fundraising effort, and in 2013, founder Petra Nemcova decided to try again (after being turned down in 2011) to get Bill Clinton to attend as the event's honoree.

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This is a pretty standard technique in fundraising, of course. You "honor" someone with connections and rich friends, then you market the event hard to those people. You couldn't do much better than a former president of the United States. Well, it turned out Bill was busy that night. Unless, of course . . . I'll let the New York Times take it from there:

Ms. Nemcova subsequently met with officers at the Clinton Foundation, Ms. Veres Royal said. Afterward, she said, “Petra called me and said we have to include an honorarium for him — that they don’t look at these things unless money is offered, and it has to be $500,000.” The invitation letter was revised and sent again at the end of August. It moved the gala to 2014, offered to work around Mr. Clinton’s availability, dropped the focus on Indonesia and shifted it to Haiti, and proposed the donation. “Understanding the need and commitment to ‘rebuilding better,’ Happy Hearts Fund would like to also share the proceeds of the event with the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, committing at least $500,000 in partnership on a joint educational project in Haiti, of your selection,” Ms. Nemcova wrote, ending with her customary signoff, “Lots of Love, Light and Laughter.” When charities select an honoree for their fund-raising events, they generally expect that the award recipient will help them raise money by attracting new donors. But the Happy Hearts Fund raised less money at the gala featuring Mr. Clinton than it did at its previous one.

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Further, it is extremely rare for honorees, or their foundations, to be paid from a gala’s proceeds, charity experts said — as it is for the proceeds to be diverted to a different cause. The entire cost of the event itself, the honorarium for Hillary's husband not included, was not even $400,000. And apparently the strategy of ponying up the half-mill to attract a higher class of attendees didn't work out so well. Maybe you didn't know that if you want to give Bill Clinton an award, you have to pay him half-a-million dollars to accept it from you. Then again, you could probably guess. As for the Happy Hearts Fund, if you'd like to chip in a little change to help them make up for ill-advised $500,000 they paid to Bill Clinton for no good reason, here's where you can do that. Hat tip on this one to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, and have you noticed how doggedly the Times is pursuing anti-Clinton stories these days? They don't do that for no reason.

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