More than a year before the Associated Press reported the remarkable access Clinton Foundation donors had to the State Department, the news wire revealed that Hillary Clinton’s required financial disclosure report ahead of her 2012 run for president omitted a mystery company owned by her husband that had no apparent employees or assets.
While the balance sheets and the activities of the limited liability company – known as WJC, the initials of William Jefferson Clinton – remain unknown, it’s the type of legal financial entity that drug cartels and other international criminal enterprises use to launder money to avoid law enforcement detection, argues Jerome Corsi in his new book “Partners in Crime: The Clintons’ Scheme to Monetize the White House for Personal Profit.”
Describing it as a “pass-through account” that holds no assets for any length of time, Corsi points out that by emptying the account to zero following each transaction, the Clintons avoid having to publicly disclose the account.
Funds passing through WJC LLC could end up in offshore accounts, money market accounts or other investments without any public scrutiny, Corsi explains.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said when the Associated Press broke the story in May 2015 that the “revelation that the Clintons had a secret shell company that went unreported on Hillary Clinton’s financial disclosures further demonstrates they are not giving voters the full picture of their wealth.”
“Clearly, there’s a lot that they don’t want voters to see,” he said.
The AP reported at the time that the purpose of WJC LLC was not disclosed in any of its corporate filings, but the company name turned up in emails from Bill Clinton’s aides to State Department ethics officials. Memos from Clinton’s counselor, Douglas Band, said Bill Clinton would provide “consulting services regarding geopolitical, economic and social trends affecting the entity and philanthropic opportunities” through WJC, LLC.
On Monday, the AP published a blockbuster story in which it reported finding 85 of the 154 private individuals who got meetings or phone calls with Hillary Clinton while she was at the State Department had donated to the foundation, either personally or through their organization.
The report came after the Clinton campaign and the State Department had been arguing for days that Clinton gave no special treatment to foundation donors while she was secretary of state.
Republican nominee Donald Trump has called the Monday AP report proof of a “pay-for-play” scheme, accusing the Clintons of running a criminal enterprise.
Avoiding scrutiny
In “Partners in Crime,” Corsi writes that the existence of WJC as a corporation or as a shell bank account has never been mentioned in any Clinton Foundation audited financial statements or IRS Tax Form 990s since the foundation’s inception in 1997.
The AP said in 2015, “While Bill Clinton’s lucrative speeches have provided the bulk of the couple’s income, earning as much as $50 million during his wife’s four-year term as secretary of state in the Obama administration, the former president has also sought to branch out into other business activities in recent years.”
But little is known about the exact nature and financial worth of Bill Clinton’s non-speech business interests, the news wire said.
The AP reported WJC was set up in Delaware in 2008, reincorporated in New York 2009 and reincorporated again in Delaware in 2013. There was no mention of WJC in any financial disclosures made by Hillary Clinton between 2008, when she was first running for president, and 2013, when she held the position of secretary of state.
Corsi writes that because WJC accounts might never show up with a positive balance in records reported to bank regulators, the Clintons could also avoid disclosing the existence of the account in their income tax filings.
But the U.S. Money Laundering Threat Assessment Working Group – comprised of the U.S. Department of Treasury, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service – Corsi writes, have warned that legal entities, such as shell corporations formed in Delaware, have become “popular tools” for money launderers “because of their ability to hide ownership and mask financial details.”
“Clearly, Bill Clinton’s use of a shell company pass-through account for the receipt of personal income throws into complete doubt any ability to estimate accurately the income the Clintons might receive from undisclosed payments received in the United States or internationally for unspecified services rendered,” Corsi writes.
It means, the author says, that Clinton Foundation audited financials and IRS Form 990s “are completely blind to any and all funds transferring to the Clintons through WJC even if the funds relate to a Clinton Foundation donor or associate, such as Frank Giustra.”
Giustra, a Canadian mining magnate and philanthropist, was featured in Peter Schwiezer’s expose of the Clinton Foundation, “Clinton Cash.”
Giustra arranged millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 speaking fee for Bill Clinton in Moscow after Hillary Clinton’s State Department signed off on the sale of a Giustra company – which had contracts controlling about half of U.S. domestic uranium output – to an energy company owned by the Russian government.
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