Written with an axe to grind, this book came out in May this year, with orchestrated pre-publication announcements in The New York Times , The Washington Post and elsewhere keeping in mind the 1916 presidential race. The author was once a consultant to the Speech Writing Office of President George Bush and foreign policy advisor to Sarah Palin, the failed Vice-Presidential candidate. He is the founder president of Government Accountability Institute. The Institute came out with a finding that President Obama was often skipping his daily security briefing. Another finding was that he was not finding time to meet with the Health Secretary to discuss what is known as Obama Care. Both the findings were wrong. Despite the obviously dubious credentials of the author, we need to look at his book objectively.
The main thesis of the author is that though Bill Clinton, after he left office, started the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) as a humanitarian mission, CGI has received funding from donors, including foreign governments and foreign businesses, that wanted favours from US government. By associating with ex-President Clinton, these donors enhanced their respectability and hoped to influence decisions taken by US through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In a number of cases, Hillary Clinton changed her known positions to favour those who invited her husband to speak and paid huge fees or made contributions to CGI. The author is careful to say that he has not found any smoking gun, but insinuates that in the real world if there are too many coincidences there might be a cause-and-effect chain.
The author has given many examples to substantiate his thesis. Bill Clinton went to Kazakhstan in 2005 and praised in public President Nazarbayev, in office since 1990, with a reputation for running a police state. The ostensible reason was to help the HIV/AIDS patients. Curiously, the incidence of HIV/AIDS in the country was between 0.1% and 0.3% unlike South Africa’s 24.1%. Frank Giustra, a Canadian businessman, negotiating a uranium deal with Kazakhstan was also there, and thanks to Clinton’s introducing him to Nezarbayev, the deal was finalized soon. Clinton publicly supported Nezarbayev’s claim to be president of OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), an organization created to uphold democratic values. The Department of State, initially opposed the candidature, eventually supported him and he got elected. Guistra donated $31.3 million to CGI.
There are many more examples, but we shall dwell on the 123 Agreement and the role played by Amar Singh and Sant Chatwal in persuading Hillary to vote for it. In September 2005, Bill Clinton flew into Lucknow in Giustra’s plane, met with Amar Singh, became friends with him and invited him to a big CGI event in New York. Singh was at the head table and the Mauritius prime minister wanted to know of which country Singh was president or prime minister. Singh replied that he was “a humble political worker” from Uttar Pradesh. He met with Senator Clinton and later claimed that he got her to support the Agreement. A similar claim has also been made by Sant Chatwal.
The last chapter is titled ‘Quid Pro Quo’. It will be of interest to the Indian reader that a US court has ruled that “quid pro quo” does not require a “a particular identifiable act”, but it is sufficient, “ if the public official understood that he or she was expected to exercise some influence on the payer’s behalf as opportunities arose.”
All told, despite some factual errors, the thesis is reasonably proven. Though Hillary had undertaken to inform US government about the contributions to CGI, full disclosure was not made. Since the book is about the correct conduct of the spouse of a high official, it is of some topical interest to the Indian reader.