Washington Post Plum Line blogger Greg Sargent overlooked an important fact today about the man who is expected to manage former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, John Podesta.
In an otherwise-thorough Plum Line reporting of the Center for American Progress’ decision to release its donor list, Sargent noted that CAP is “poised to exert outsized influence over the 2016 president race and — should Hillary Clinton win it — the policies and agenda of the 45th president of the United States. CAP founder John Podesta is set to run Clinton’s presidential campaign, and current CAP president Neera Tanden is a longtime Clinton confidante and adviser.”
Sargent listed several of CAP’s most notable heavy hitter donors, including Walmart, Citicorp, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
Tanden told Sargent that CAP is “proud of our donors. We’re very diversified. We have a very low percentage of corporate donors. We have a wide panoply of individual and foundation supporters. Given that transparency is a progressive value, we wanted to get our list out there.”
Sargent did not tell his readers, however, of a potential problem for Clinton, CAP and Podesta — the latter’s association with “Hansjorg Wyss, a reclusive Swiss billionaire whose company conducted illegal human experiments that resulted in the deaths of three elderly patients.” That’s how the Washington Examiner‘s Richard Pollock described Podesta’s patron in a July 23 story that generated little notice when it was published.
“Justice Department attorneys negotiated a $23.8 million plea deal in 2011 with Synthes Inc., and Norian Corporation, its wholly owned subsidiary, and sent four of its U.S. executives to prison. The money was paid to the federal government,” Pollock reported.
Wyss was CEO of Synthes and opened its U.S. office in 1974. He remained CEO until the company was bought by Johnson & Johnson in 2012 for $21.3 billion.
Podesta and Wyss “have been financially linked for years,” according to Pollock. “Among the Swiss billionaire’s largest gifts in recent years have been those made to the Center for American Progress. CAP received $4.1 million from Wyss during Podesta’s tenure as the liberal nonprofit’s founding president and chief executive officer.”
Podesta was a paid consultant to the HJW Foundation, Wyss’s private foundation. Podesta was paid $87,000 in 2013 for his services to the foundation, according to his White House financial disclosure statement.
The federal judge who oversaw the Synthes settlement with the government said the company’s “pattern of deception is unparalleled.”
Sargent has not responded today to a request for comment.
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
