As President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry close in on a nuclear deal with Iran, it’s worth remembering that the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation received money from “a front for the government of Iran” called the Alavi Foundation.
The front gave the Clintons $30,000 between April 2005 and March 2006, according to tax forms. This occurred years after law enforcement officials tied the group to Iranian radicals. “The center is funded by the New York-based Alavi Foundation, which law enforcement officials say is closely tied to the mullahs who dominate Iran,” the Washington Post reported in 2003.
“David Cohen, the New York City Police Department’s intelligence chief, said in a recent court document that the Alavi Foundation is ‘totally controlled by the government of Iran’ and ‘funds a variety of anti-American causes,’ including the Potomac center and other mosques. These organizations, said Cohen, a 35-year veteran of the CIA, have affiliates that support Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, two groups the U.S. government has deemed terrorist.”
In 2009, U.S. attorney Preet Bharara called the foundation a “front for the government of Iran.” “The Alavi Foundation has effectively been a front for the government of Iran … For two decades, the Alavi Foundation’s affairs have been directed by various Iranian officials, including Iranian ambassadors at the United Nations, in violation of a series of U.S. laws.”
The Clintons pledged in 2009 not to return the donations. “Matt McKenna, a spokesman for both the former president and the William J. Clinton Foundation, which focuses on public health, climate change, and economic opportunity both domestically and internationally, said the Alavi Foundation donated the money to a tsunami relief fund set up by Clinton in 2005 and that the Clinton Foundation had no plans to return it in the wake of Thursday’sgovernment action. He said neither Clinton nor the foundation had any comment on the government’s actions,” Newsweek reported.
