Clinton Foundation Gave $2 Million To Clinton Family Friends
via Whoopie on May 13th, 2016 in Politics 1 comment
http://blurbrain.com/clinton-foundation-gave-2-million-clinton-family-friends/ The Clinton Global Initiative, which claims to “have made thousands of Commitments to Action that are helping millions of people,” arranged for a $2 million commitment to benefit a for-profit corporation owned in part by individuals with ties to the Clintons.
The $2 million commitment was placed on the agenda for a September 2010 conference of the Clinton Global Initiative at Mr. Clinton’s urging, according to a document from the period and people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Clinton also personally endorsed the company, Energy Pioneer Solutions Inc., to then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu for a federal grant that year, said people with knowledge of the endorsement.
Under federal law, tax-exempt charitable organizations aren’t supposed to act in anyone’s private interest but instead in the public interest, on broad issues such as education or poverty.
Last year Charity Navigator, a charitable organization watchdog group, placed the foundation on its watch list of problematic non-profits. It found that while the foundation took in $140 million in donations, less that 7 percent — $9 million — was paid out in direct aid. The rest went to administrative and other expenses.
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Energy Pioneer Solutions isn’t just “owned in part” by Clinton cronies. Here’s the breakdown according to HotAir:
An internal document from that year showed it as owned 29% by Mr. Kleeb; 29% by Jane Eckert, the owner of an art gallery in Pine Plains, N.Y.; and 29% by Julie Tauber McMahon of Chappaqua, N.Y., a close friend of Mr. Clinton, who also lives in Chappaqua. Owning 5% each were Democratic National Committee treasurer Andrew Tobias and Mark Weiner, a supplier to political campaigns and former Rhode Island Democratic chairman, both longtime friends of the Clintons.
To paraphrase Darth Vader, the Democrat force is strong with these ones.
In fact, you’d have to wonder how such a politically in-diverse group all managed to come together to own this company. You’d almost think they conspired to create a company just as an excuse to use their mutual connections to the Clinton family to enrich themselves.
As for Energy Secretary Chu, he kicked in an additional $812,000 in taxpayer money. Conveniently, Mr. Chu can’t recall the conversation he had with Bill Clinton before he wrote the check.
Scott Kleeb who founded Energy Pioneer Solutions is a perennial Democrat ‘also ran’ for Nebraska’s 3rd congressional district and the US Senate. His wife, Jane Fleming Kleeb founded the progressive citizen advocacy group Bold Nebraska that was instrumental in forcing the XL pipeline to divert around Nebraska’s ‘Sandhills’.
His company’s business model involves selling homeowners on the idea of upgrading the insulation in their homes and then billing them for the work through surcharges on their energy bills.
I haven’t been able to discover if the company actually does the actual work or if they just get a kick-back from the contractors they endorse. Likewise, what arrangements the company has with the utilities who bill the homeowners on their behalf.
I suspect the fact that Energy Pioneer Solutions has ‘friends in high places’ plays a big role in their ability to extract a percentage of the money that changes hands.
Because, what other reason is there for their existence? Most private contractors already offer payment plans to their customers and why would any utility company offer to act as a collection agent? Unless of course, they see some advantage to allowing EPS to act as the middleman.
