Clintons Sell Possibly Troublesome Stock Jun 15 01:50 PM US/Eastern By JIM KUHNHENN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton liquidated the contents of their blind trust upon learning it contained investments of $5 million to $25 million that could pose conflicts of interest or prove to be embarrassing to her presidential campaign. The blind trust and a bank account valued in the same range place the Clinton's total wealth at between $10 million and $50 million. The Clintons had to disclose the contents of the blind trust in April under instructions from the Office of Government Ethics and sold the assets in May, according to a disclosure form filed Friday. The Clintons have had a blind trust continuously since 1993 and had no control over its transactions. Over time, the Clintons' blind trust grew significantly and included stock holdings in oil and drug companies, military contractors and Wal-Mart. The report, also filed with the Federal Election Commission, provides the most detailed look at the Clintons' holdings as their wealth has expanded since the former president left the White House in 2001. The new report also shows that the former president made $16 million in speaking fees between January 2006 and Wednesday. So far this year, Bill Clinton has given 34 paid speeches for a total of $5.9 million. The blind trust held stock in pharmaceutical companies, including $250,000-$500,000 in Biogen Idec and Johnson & Johnson and $100,000- $250,000 in Amgen, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. It also invested in General Electric and Raytheon, two leading defense contractors. The trust had a varied portfolio, with investments in numerous other companies, including Exxon Mobil, BP Amoco, Walt Disney and eBay. The report said all the proceeds of the sales are being placed in a cash account. The massive unloading of stock means the Clintons face "substantial" capital gains taxes, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said. President Clinton registered his blind trust with the Office of Government Ethics when he became president in 1993, then Sen. Clinton registered it as a Senate blind trust when she became a senator in 2001. Wolfson said the Clintons now "will be working to create a new blind trust consistent with both OGE and the Senate's rules." Though all the blind trust transactions were handled over the years by a trustee without the Clintons' knowledge, some of the holdings could have been awkward for Hillary Clinton as she pursues the Democratic presidential nomination. The blind trust held stock worth $100,000-$250,000 in NewsCorp, the parent company of Fox News, which many Democrats have denounced as biased against them. The trust also held stock in Wal-Mart and Wal- Mart de Mexico. The senator served on the Wal-Mart board from 1986 to 1992, and was close with the Walton family that created the nation's largest retailer. But she has recently called on the company to provide better worker benefits and last year her Senate campaign returned $5,000 to Wal-Mart's political action committee. At the time, Clinton campaign spokeswoman Ann Lewis said the money was returned "because of serious differences with current company practices." Friday's report comes on the heels of Hillary Clinton's Senate disclosure report, made public Thursday, which only covered activity in 2006 and did not reflect this year's liquidation of the blind trust. Clinton and other presidential candidates were required to file financial disclosure documents with the Office of Government Ethics by May 15. But Clinton, and Republican candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain asked for 45-day extensions because they all had blind trusts that the ethics office demanded be opened. "As a presidential candidate, Senator Clinton was required to make her assets public," Wolfson said. "As a result, she had to dissolve her blind trust. Upon its dissolution, she and the president chose to go above and beyond what was required of them and liquidate their assets in order to avoid even the hint of a conflict of interest." When it comes to family affluence, the reports show that the New York senator is the wealthiest of all members of Congress seeking the presidency. Among all presidential candidates, however, Republican Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, stands alone with assets of between $190 million and $250 million. Republican Rudy Giuliani and Democrat John Edwards have each reported assets of about $30 million. Last year and this year, Bill Clinton earned fees from $100,000 to $450,000 speaking to such corporations as IBM, General Motors, and Cisco Systems, finance giants such as Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, and trade groups such as the National Association of Realtors and the Mortgage Bankers Association. He also has been paid to speak to nonprofit or charity groups, including the TJ Martell Foundation, which finances leukemia research, Nelson Mandela's Children's Fund and, last March, to the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles. Jay Carson, the former president's spokesman, said Clinton typically donates millions of dollars in free speeches to charities.
I find it more troubling that she thinks so little of Americans that she believes that people would not "get" the idea behind a blind trust and how it eliminates conflicts of interests. She's may well be right, who knows, but I'm more troubled by that than the fact that she's rich.
I'm more troubled by her lack of character/integrity. She's a chameleon. She panders to her audiences. I especially liked her southern drawl.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I'm also concerned about her menopause. Menopausal women can be scary. And dangerous. If she's on hormone replacement "therapy", that could be troublesome as well. I don't see anything attractive about Hillary in any way.
i find it amazing that when a dem does this people flip but ignore the fact th repubs do it. the repubs are far deeper in the pockets of corprate america then the dems and have to do things like this far more often. i'm sure bush did things like this yet you don't rail on him or other repubs for it why?
Oh no, an elected representative that actually represents those who elected her! Nice sexism too, by the way.
Sexism? It's a fact no one is talking about. They probably won't. The liberal American press wants her so bad they are hiding her shady past too. She gets a pass on all her corruption/faults.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
as politictions go she not really all that bad i mean she cannot be linked to a family that has a known terrorist in it unlike some polititions
Of course she isn't.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://www.io.com/~cjburke/clinton/clinatoz.html http://www.hillaryproject.com/index...ry_is_a_felon_just_release_tape_proves_crime/ http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/swirsky/03132006.htm http://www.hillaryclintonrevealed.net/hillary_clinton_scandals.htm
I rail on both, mostly because I'm in and among politicians and see how small of a pond politics really is, and how that pond largely consists of people who have made obscene amounts of money from their "public service", which, in my opinion, should not happen. However, Hillary tries to garb herself in populist sentiment and sometimes speaks in quasi-socialist terms. For her to do so, when she and Bill have very obviously made heaps of money from "public service", is patently ridiculous, and I think people should be aware of it.
She's right. Although it is fun to watch W voters learn words and concepts apparently brand new to them - like "pandering" and "conflict of interest" - any politician who counted on them comprehending such matters in practice would be betting foolishly. And Hillary, being a conservative and corporate-friendly candidate, is going to need some votes from that crowd. As far as actually being corrupt - she's been investigated more thoroughly, at greater expense, by more different people, over more years, than any other President or candidate ever. If she gets the nomination, she will be running against someone who fully endorsed and supported and made whoopee with an administration made of up ex-Enron execs and friends of Jack Abramoff, backed by a Party that endorsed - repeatedly - a candidate for Pres with a no-bill SEC investigation against him and a history of personal financial irregularities involving foreign powers and oil, and a VP candidate who was an ex-CEO (still taking money, still owning stock options) from what became under his political oversight the major bid-rigging and boodle-glomming government contractor of two wars and a botched disaster response. She doesn't have to look that clean. It's nice that she makes the gesture.
Hillary is about as conservative/conservative-friendly as I am liberal.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yeah, yeah, yeah: Bush sucks. Believe me, we get it Iceaura. You don't have to bring it up in every single thread in the politics section... Frankly, it's getting extremely old...
She backed the war...so does that mean that you are somewhat liberal? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
She backed the war, something Ice and his ilk deny, because she read the polls and didn't read the intelligence estimate and made a knee jerk decision based on what would sound good on the evening news, and to "help" her presidential ambitions. In other words, it was a wholly personal and calculated political decision that was not based on anything other than her own ambitions...
