Discover the Networks

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste: Clinton Global Initiative is Back

The most corrupt couple in American politics is making a comeback.

In a statement on Friday, former President Bill Clinton said the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) will be reactivated to address the many challenges facing the world today, from climate change to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Cooperation and coordination has never been more urgent than it is now,” wrote the former president. “The COVID-19 pandemic has ripped the cover off of longstanding inequities and vulnerabilities across our global community. The existential threat of climate change grows every day.”

“Democracy is under assault around the world, most glaringly in Ukraine where Russia has launched an unjustified and unprovoked invasion that has put millions of lives in grave danger,” he continued. “The number of displaced people and refugees worldwide is higher than it has ever been—more than one in 95 of all people alive on the planet today has been forced to flee their home—and rising.”

A subset of the corrupt Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative “convenes global and emerging leaders to create and implement solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges,” according to its website. It ended in 2016 as failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton launched her campaign, fearing it could create a conflict of interest.

As the Washington Examiner noted in its 2016 profile of the initiative, “the group’s most recent philanthropic portfolio indicates fewer than half of the thousands of commitments made since 2005 have ever been completed. The charity’s financial structure has also raised eyebrows, since most direct contributions go toward the annual meeting or salaries rather than philanthropy.”

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Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation

15 Known Connections
https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/organizations/bill-hillary-and-chelsea-clinton-foundation

How Bill Clinton Used the Clinton Foundation to Enrich Himself Personally

In October 2016, WikiLeaks revealed that in a 2011 email memo that was circulated to John Podesta (who worked with the Clinton Foundation at that time) and others in Bill Clinton’s inner circle, longtime Bill Clinton aide Doug Band made reference to a number of occasions when he and his consulting company, Teneo Holdings, had helped Mr. Clinton secure for-profit contracts. Wrote Band: “Independent of our fundraising and decision-making activities on behalf of the Foundation, we have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities — including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements. In that context, we have in effect served as agents, lawyers, managers and implementers to secure speaking, business and advisory service deals. In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family — for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.”

At one point in the memo, Band referred to the former president’s money-making activities as “Bill Clinton, Inc.” Band also boasted of “the more than $50 million in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date,” and “the $66 million in future contracts, should he [Clinton] choose to continue with those engagements.”


To learn more about the Clinton Foundation, click on its profile link above.