WIKILEAKS: Here’s How The Clinton’s Free Private Jet Scam Works
Authored by Richard Pollock, Reporter / 10/31/2016
URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/31/wikileaks-heres-how-the-clintons-free-private-jet-scam-works/
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton stands with her daughter Chelsea (L), vice presidential running mate Senator Tim Kaine (C, rear) and her husband former President Bill Clinton after accepting the nomination on the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. July 28, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar
Ira Magaziner, the CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, asked former President Bill Clinton to thank Morocco’s King Mohammed VI for “offering his plane to the conference in Ethiopia.”
“CHAI would like to request that President Clinton call Sheik Mohammed to thank him for offering his plane to the conference in Ethiopia,” Magaziner gushed in a November 22, 2011 email released by WikiLeaks.
Clinton frequently has expected free, luxurious private jet travel during his post-presidential life. Clinton, his wife and daughter have artfully secured free air travel and luxurious accommodations since they left the White House. It’s an effective way to accept gifts of great value without declaring them for the Clinton Foundation.
“It’s highly illegal and it’s likely that the owners of these aircraft took tax deductions as a gift to the Clinton Foundation,” Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst and critic of the Clinton Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
In the Moroccan case, Clinton was able to fly for free, jetting 3,367 miles from Rabat, Morocco, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on the King’s specially equipped 747-400 jumbo jet. Not including the flight, King Mohammed has donated at least $28 million to the Clinton Foundation. (RELATED: Hillary’s Two Official Favors To Morocco Resulted in $28 Million for Clinton Foundation)
Clinton was traveling to attend a conference organized by Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi, an Ethiopian-Saudi billionaire who is the second wealthiest man in Saudi Arabia. The sheikh has donated up to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation.
But neither the Clinton Foundation nor CHAI have listed any “non-cash contributions” — such as free jumbo jet travel — on their 2011 tax return for the free use of the aircraft.
Clinton also stayed in 2014 at a five-star hotel in Jaipur, India on official Clinton Foundation business and stayed in a $13,900 per night villa — which was not itemized on the foundation’s tax returns. There are a large number of other free trips and expensive perks Clinton and his family have enjoyed, many from foundation donors.
Vinod Gupta, former CEO of InfoUSA, was sanctioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for using company assets – such as cars, yachts and luxury vacations — without approval from the board or any other authorized party. He was later fired and fined $9 million. But Gupta also gave “Clinton and his family” $900,000 worth of free air travel on the company jet, according to the SEC. One free Gupta trip in 2002 was for Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton to fly free to Acapulco, Mexico for a family vacation, according to a New York Times report.
Another InfoUSA jet ride was for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to travel to New Mexico that cost $18,480. A group called “Friends of Hillary” paid a paltry $2,127 for the trip. Gupta has contributed up to $5 million to the foundation, according to the Clinton Foundation.
The Saudi Crown Prince in 2004 — now King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz — gave Clinton his personal Boeing 767 to fly with 20 of his best friends to Davos, Switzerland to attend the annual global gabfest led by the world’s business kingpins, according to Joe Conason, a Clinton supporter and author of the new book “Man of the World.” The Saudi king has donated more than $25 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Clinton also traveled numerous times free of charge on film producer Stephen L. Bing’s Boeing 737. Bing has donated up to $25 million to the foundation
The former president has flown on Ron Burkle’s private jets through Central Asia, India and China, and Clinton pocketed $15 million to be a part of Burkle’s Yucaipa Partners hedge fund. While at Yucaipa, Clinton became a business partner with United Arab Emirates Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and his Dubai Investment Group. The Dubai Foundation and the United Arab Emirates have each contributed $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Perhaps the most notorious freebie flights were when Clinton flew 26 times on the private jet owned by sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. His aircraft, dubbed the “Lolita Express,” was supposed to be equipped with a bed for sex with underage girls. On at least five occasions, Clinton dumped his Secret Service detail for the flights, according to Fox News.
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Hold on to your hats folks, this is going to be a wild ride. 
While working here at my newly recovered computer (third time I’ve been hacked), I was listening to Shepard Smith report that in Texas, formally known as a very RED state, that the dems are turning the state BLUE with their vote. Shepard response was, 
, our media already have a totally
It is unclear to which case Podesta was referring and whether he was joking about prison. But Podesta was caught in a sticky situation in both the Lewinsky affair and the Rich pardon scandal.
Guess who’s leading the polls now? Have these pollsters found something the others missed?
That’s why the media have to change the subject to something flashy that will capture the attention of the most down-market, easily fooled voters. Trump is a groper!
What Did You Say? 
Given our military’s tradition of defending religious liberty from attack, it is disappointing to see President Barack Obama threaten to veto the military’s main authorization bill if it contains protections for religious freedom.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is an annual bill that sets policies and budgets for our nation’s fighting forces and is currently being negotiated by both houses of Congress in conference before a final vote.
Included in the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act is an amendment offered by Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., that applies decades-old religious exemptions from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) to federal grants and contracts.
The Russell Amendment is sound policy that will prevent the administration from stripping contracts and grants from faith-based social service providers whose internal staffing policies reflect their faith.
Jewish day schools and Catholic adoption centers, for example, are not liable under Title VII for being authentically Jewish or Catholic, and their staffing policies shouldn’t disqualify them from federal grants and contracts either.
But Obama’s veto threat is actually the strongest proof of why the Russell Amendment is needed. It shows that the president wants absolute freedom to discriminate against religious social service providers that interact with the government—all because many religious organizations won’t endorse the LGBT cause. Congress should say no to the president’s blatant attack on religious diversity.
Undermining Religious Liberty
For decades, the left has attempted to raise sexual orientation and gender identity to special protected status through Congress. Seeing little success using the democratic process, the Obama administration has instead turned to issuing various edicts that misinterpret existing civil rights protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
On July 21, 2014, Obama issued an executive order that unilaterally elevated sexual orientation and gender identity to special status for purposes of federal contracts.
As our colleague Ryan T. Anderson pointed out at the time, the order “disregards the consciences and liberties of people of goodwill who happen not to share the government’s opinions about issues of sexuality. All Americans should be free to contract with the government without penalty because of their reasonable beliefs about morally contentious issues.”
The executive order left in place the Title VII religious staffing exemption, and the Russell Amendment merely reaffirms this protection while clarifying that religious organizations have a right to employ people committed to authentically living in accordance with their faith tenets. In short, religious organizations are free to be religious organizations.
But Obama would interpret existing religious protections narrowly in order to make religious groups bend to the LGBT agenda. As seen in the administration’s education and health care mandates on gender identity, in practice, this means requiring employee bathrooms and showers meant for women be opened to biological men who self-identify as female regardless of people’s religious beliefs on the matter. The administration’s proven lack of respect for religious freedom when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity policies is more than enough reason to keep the Russell Amendment.
Reaffirming Long-Standing Policy Is Apparently Unacceptable
Despite the Russell Amendment’s straightforwardness and precedent, 42 Senate Democrats have written to the Senate Armed Services Committee asking that the Russell Amendment be stripped from final National Defense Authorization Act language during conference negotiations.
The letter states that prospective employees should not be “disqualified from a taxpayer-funded job based on an individual’s religions.” Except that’s not how federal contracts typically work. Existing organizations bid for contracts to produce services or products based on their ability to deliver them, not to provide somebody “a taxpayer-funded job.”
The programs at issue are designed to help the needy in the most effective and efficient way possible, and faith-based organizations have proven that they are often the very best at providing these social services precisely because of their faith-based character.
But moreover, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act already specifically protects religious organizations’ ability to hire based on religion, so the burden is on the objectors to the Russell Amendment to prove why a system that has been affirmed by the Supreme Court and has served religious pluralism well for decades should now be stripped away when it comes to federal contracts.
Will Congress Hold the Line?
The Russell Amendment was included in the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act and passed by a comfortable margin (277 to 147) because it reflects the best of our traditions without taking away anything from anyone. Congress should not let the president’s veto threat get in the way of passing sound policy, and the Russell Amendment is just that—a commonsense continuation of policy that has served our diverse society well since 1964.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Roger Severino is the director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.
Melanie Israel/ @Melanie_Lea; Melanie Israel is a research associate for the DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.