http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/08/24/the_clinton_foundation_was_a_laundromat_for_cash_if_you_wanted_to_talk_to_hillary_as_secstate_you_had_to_payThe Clinton Foundation Was a Laundromat for Cash: If You Wanted to Talk to Hillary as SecState, You Had to Pay
August 24, 2016
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Mr. Snerdley came in at the appointed time to do some things, around 30 minutes before the program begins, so I hit him with a question. I said, "Mr. Snerdley, look at the Clintons. That's the other big story is that half the people Hillary met with paid her for the privilege. Half of the people, while she's secretary of state, half the people, if not more, paid her, paid the Clinton Foundation tens of millions of dollars."
In fact, if you wanted to talk to Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state, the odds are you had to signal that you were willing to pay her foundation something. And people, you know, the AP, it's a blockbuster story. The Clinton camp is trying to say they cherry-picked a bunch of stuff. "It's not anything like it looks. This is crazy. Mrs. Clinton was too busy as secretary of state to be doing all this kind of stuff. This is an outrageous story." It may be the first news story in a couple years that the Clintons think is unfair to them. We have to deal with multiple stories every day that we think are unfair to us or is unfair to us.
originalBut the question, Michael Goodwin at the New York Post had a column on Sunday about the collapse of journalism. And he's back today, and he's got a question: Why do all this? Here's the pattern, or the timeline. Hillary Clinton runs for president 2008, loses. Really humiliated. I mean, it was hers. That was to be her coronation. The Democrats had promised her that and they ended up throwing her overboard or under the bus, whichever is more appealing to you in your imagination, or Barack Hussein O.
So Hillary says, "Okay, I'm gonna do this again, I'm gonna run for president again," and the odds are the soonest she's gonna be able to do that is 2016, this year. So what does she do? She becomes secretary of state in the Obama administration for the first term, quits, writes books, does speeches, gets rich to set herself up for her presidential run.
Now, doing all of that, they set up the Clinton Family Foundation, they had the Clinton Global Initiative, and she sets up the private email server, and all of this stuff that is inarguably scandal ridden, and much of it is inarguably illegal. The question, why do it? The question is, what is there that we still don't know about this? Because there has to be something we don't know yet. It may not be easy and provable to say that whatever's gone on is criminal, but, boy, does it get close to the edge, and it clearly is in violation of ethics.
So she sets up the server with her private email account, and you have to figure she knows this is going to get discovered. Then we learn what's been going on when she was secretary of state. Forget Benghazi. I mean, we add this to all that. She wasn't doing anything but collecting money. If you wanted to meet with Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state, you had to pay for it, and a lot of people did. A lot of people paid $32 million, $10 million, $15 million, one million, $750,000, you had to pay her in order to get a meeting with her to discuss diplomacy.
If you're a world leader, if you're foreign government, you had to pay her, the odds are. Not everybody, but it's an inordinate number of people. Over half of her meetings that she took, and this does not include, by the way, meetings with 16 diplomats from other countries. This is strictly individuals. So they question, okay, why? You have to know that's gonna get learned. You know this is gonna come out. At some point it's gonna get learned that you've got a pay-for-play operation going. You've got your private email server.
You can get rich anyway, legally. All you gotta do is give speeches, write books, huge advances, and you can get plenty rich, you can get far richer than you were when you left the White House. Yet they did this. They were right up to the edge and they maybe crossed the line a number of times ethically and perhaps even legally. These are the people that monetized to Lincoln bedroom, for crying out loud. They sold access to the Lincoln bedroom. If you wanted to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom you had to donate to their reelection campaign back in the nineties.
So the question is, why? Why risk it all doing all of this? It can't just be to get rich, 'cause they could have done that without doing this. They might not have gotten as rich, but why do this? And the theory is there's still something out there. There's still something, there's an answer to that question that they don't want us to know that could be devastating. I have to take a break. So, anyway, Mr. Snerdley took a stab at answering this. It made me think I wasn't asking the question in the right way. So I'm gonna keep at this along with everything else we have.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, back to this blockbuster AP story, which the nub of this is the following. Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at state.
"More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money -- either personally or through companies or groups -- to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.
"At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million."
This is the very definition of pay-to-play. And for all of those people out there saying, "Hey, wait, wait, this is just access. This is not favors." As I said yesterday, the access is the favor. You pay to get Mrs. Clinton on the phone. You pay to get a meeting with Mrs. Clinton. That's the favor. Then after you've paid you get the meeting and you explain why you gave the money.
And, by the way, there's another side of this, too, that nobody's talking about. And I, El Rushbo, will bring it up. Who thinks this is only one way? Okay, so you have sleazebag number one who calls Huma Abedin Weiner and says, "I need to talk with Mrs. Clinton." Huma Abedin Weiner says, "Well, here, we can show you how this works."
When you wanted to give Mrs. Clinton money, when you wanted to talk to her, you would call the State Department, you'd call the number and you'd get an answering machine, a voice mail that would send you in various direction. Here's the process. This is what happens. This is how it started.
(playing of spoof.)
RUSH: Okay. So that's what happens. You call in and you enter the amounts and so forth. And what would happen next is Huma Abedin Weiner or Cheryl Mills would get hold of somebody over at Hillary's office and say, "Sleazebag 1 here from some Middle East potentate is interested in giving you $20 million and wants to speak to you." Hillary takes the call.
Now, everybody thinks that the guy giving the $20 million is expecting something and is gonna get it, the pay-to-play. He gives the $20 million, goes to the foundation, Hillary either as secretary of state or on the come as president, is -- I mean look, everybody knows what's going on here. Because it's very simple. If it ever became known that Hillary would not meet with or do favors to donors, the money would dry up. It's just that simple. And everybody knew. You didn't have to send out memos.
The Clinton Family Foundation didn't have to advertise. They didn't have to send out email blasts or any of that. It just was known that you could buy Hillary Clinton, that you could buy Bill Clinton, and buying Bill Clinton would help you buy Hillary. It was well known. No advertisement necessary. Donors to Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea received quo for their quid. And if they didn't, game over. If Hillary didn't pay back somehow, if that $20 million just sat there and nothing happened as a result, you think it'd keep coming in?
Everybody knew. Everybody out there who wanted to buy access knew that they could. This is something that, look, it seems obvious, but not a lot of people are talking about it. Ask yourself this. How did everybody who donated -- and we're talking here over half of 'em, how did they know to do it? How did they know they could? How did they know the Clinton concierge service was available? How does sleazebag potentate number 1 here know that he can reach Hillary Clinton by giving to her foundation? They don't advertise it. They don't send out email blasts.
So how did all of these people, again, as the AP says, just to give you the exact words, more than half the people outside government who met with Hillary Clinton while secretary of state gave money. How did they know they could? They did. They knew they could. And I'll tell you what. If, after giving the money, nothing happened, if it had become known that Hillary would not meet with you, if it had been learned that Hillary would not do favors, that money would dry up. They're not sending that money in 'cause they love Hillary, they love Bill. There had to be a quo, there had to be a quid, there had to be a pro, there had to be a payoff somehow, somewhere, or a promise to, otherwise the money dries up.
The Clinton Foundation is a front organization. A little bit of charity over here to keep everybody happy and occupied while a whole lot of corruption is going on over here. It's a laundromat. It's a laundromat for donations to the Clintons. And again, they didn't have to advertise it. People just knew. How did they know? I'm not asking it rhetorically. I know you're, "Well, what do you mean, Rush? How they know? I mean, the Clintons have been known" -- I know, that's my whole point. The Clintons have been selling access since the Lincoln Bedroom days. The Clintons have been selling access since they've been in politics. That's how everybody knew. That's why they didn't have to advertise it.
The Clintons had been corrupt from the get go. And Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, when these bribes came in they don't seem to be embarrassed or insulted by it. Imagine you're working at the Clinton Foundation and the phone rings, it's sleazebag potentate from the Middle East, "Hello. I wish to donate $50 million to the Clinton Family Foundation in exchange for a 10-minute meeting with Hillary Clinton."
"Sir, how dare you think that the secretary of state's time is up for sale." There was none of that. There was, "Oh, okay. Well, how about if you want 20 minutes, make it $60 million." Why was there no embarrassment? Why weren't these people insulted? None of that, because this was a well-oiled operation, a laundromat. Huma Abedin Weiner and Cheryl Mills were ecstatic when sleazebags from around the world phoned in, wanted a meeting with Hillary, and were more than happy to pay millions of dollars for it. This open-door corruption policy was working just as designed, and it didn't require any advertising.
Look, folks, if the Clintons were not interested in selling policy favors, well, then none of this would have gone on. But here's the second route. Okay, so sleazebag potentate A -- or pick any of them, pick any of these sleazebags that are giving money to the Clinton Crime Family Foundation. Everybody thinks that the Clintons have to perform in order to justify getting the money. But, but sleazebag potentate A gives -- pick a number -- $10 million to Hillary. Hillary is gonna come back to sleazebag potentate A, and she's gonna ask him for something somewhere down the line, too. It's gonna go both ways.
It's not just that Hillary is vulnerable. It's not just Hillary has to perform and pay off. For granting the access and for doing favors, even though he's paid for it, she can still ask additional favors. This is a two-way operation here, and I circle back to the question, why? Why? None of this is necessary to win the presidency. None of this. I mean, even if you don't know that Donald Trump's gonna be the nominee, and even if you think you're gonna have formidable opposition running for president in 2016 -- look, I need more time to delve into this question.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. I'm gonna get started on the phones. People backed up here waiting patiently, but I'm gonna circle back to all this, Trump immigration and the big question: Why are the Clintons risking everything doing what they're doing here when they don't have to? You may think you've got the answers, and you may have, but it doesn't mean that I'm not gonna keep asking the question, 'cause there's something more here. I agree with Michael Goodwin. There's something we don't know yet beyond what appears to be obvious.
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