A pair of Clinton Foundation donors with financial ties to the former first family have both been at the center of major corruption cases, raising questions about why they chose to give millions to the Clintons’ charity.
Nigerian businessman Gilbert Chagoury’s connections to the Clintons have come under scrutiny following revelations that State Department policy may have benefited him personally while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has repeatedly pressed the State Department for documentation of Hillary Clinton’s decision not to place Boko Haram on the terrorist watch list while serving as secretary of state.
“Disturbingly, while the department was refusing to make the [foreign terrorist organization] designation, former President Bill Clinton, also the head of the Clinton Foundation and account owner of the Clinton email domain, participated in events with a long-time donor and major Nigerian land developer, Gilbert Chagoury, who previously agreed to a $66 million plea deal during international investigation into corruption charges against him,” Vitter wrote in a March letter to Secretary of State John Kerry.
“We need to know if Mr. Chagoury had any influence in the decision not to designate Boko Haram a [foreign terrorist organization], or had any other influence with Secretary Clinton’s foreign policy decisions,” Vitter added.
Chagoury’s financial support of the Clintons has raised red flags in the past. In 1996, he was reportedly prodded by a Democratic National Committee fundraiser to give $460,000 to a nonprofit voter registration group that later won the DNC’s business.
The group, Vote Now 96, drew attention “from congressional investigators because of its connections to the DNC and indications that in some cases, at least, donors ineligible to give to the party were steered to the voters group,” the Washington Post reported in 1997.
Chagoury was one such ineligible donor whose gift to the supposedly nonpartisan organization nonetheless earned him a seat at a White House dinner for top DNC donors months later “although he is not a party contributor and could not legally give to the Democrats,” according to the same Washington Post report.
Chagoury’s donation was solicited by Mark Weiner, a top Democratic bundler who will co-host a fundraiser for Clinton’s presidential campaign in Rhode Island Wednesday.
Chagoury was an adviser to Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, who held power in Nigeria from 1993-98. He reportedly paid the incoming Nigerian government $300 million to avoid prosecution after Abacha’s death.
Chagoury was “believed to have acted as a middleman for the late and corrupt Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha,” according to the American Criminal Law Review.
Nigerian media outlets reported Chagoury and his brother, Jack, were among 80 local officials who were indicted in the Halliburton bribery scandal in 2010. The case alleged the Chagoury brothers were involved in a series of bribes to Nigerian officials that preceded Halliburton’s acquisition of lucrative oil contracts in the country.
In April 2011, a Lebanese media outlet reported Fouad Siniora, prime minister of Lebanon, “suggested that the U.S. deliver to Chagoury a stern message about the possibility of financial sanctions and travel bans against those who undermine Lebanon’s legitimate institutions.”
Siniora’s call for sanctions against Chagoury came after his ties to Lebanese officials gave the impression that he was interfering in Lebanese politics.
Chagoury did not return a request for comment.
But Chagoury isn’t the only international businessman whose checkered past has raised questions about the Clinton Foundation’s acceptance of generous donations from foreigners accused of bribery.
Victor Dahdaleh, a Canadian businessman and trustee of the Clinton Foundation, was arrested in October 2011 for his alleged role in a bribery scheme that funneled kickbacks from aluminum conglomerate Alcoa to Aluminium Bahrain.
Dahdaleh reportedly traveled with Bill Clinton through Europe in 2009, shortly after Hillary Clinton took office, and arranged speaking engagements for the former president dating back to 2005.
The U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office dropped its case against Dahdaleh in December 2013 after key witnesses backed down, Reuters reported.
The British agency had tapped lawyers from Akin Gum Strayss Hauer and Field to probe the bribery allegations, the same lawyers representing Aluminium Bahrain in “a ‘hotly contested’ U.S. civil lawsuit against Dahdaleh,” which raised “a potential conflict of interest between their assistance to the [Serious Fraud Office] and their own interests in the U.S. legal action.”
Akin Gump is also a Clinton Foundation donor.
