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Senate Committee on the Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has launched a new investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s effort to thwart a Bangladesh government corruption probe of Muhammad Yunus, a Clinton Foundation donor and close friend of the Clintons.
The Iowa Republican’s effort is the first new official inquiry of Clinton since her unexpected loss in the 2016 presidential election to President Donald Trump. Trump’s supporters often chanted “lock her up” during his many boisterous campaign rallies.
The Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF) Investigative Group exclusively reported in May that Clinton sent top U.S. diplomats to pressure Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheik Hasina and her son Sajeeb Wazed in an effort to kill that country’s corruption investigation of Yunus and Grameen Bank. Yunus was then managing director of the state-owned Bangladesh bank.
In a June 1, 2017, letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Grassley repeated TheDCNF charge that Clinton threatened Wazed with an IRS tax audit if his mother did not back away from the corruption probe. Wazed has lived in the U.S. for 17 years.
“If the Secretary of State used her position to intervene in an independent investigation by a sovereign government simply because of a personal and financial relationship stemming from the Clinton Foundation rather than the legitimate foreign policy interests of the United States, then that would be unacceptable,” Grassley told Tillerson.
“Co-mingling her official position as Secretary of State with her family foundation would be similarly inappropriate. It is vital to determine whether the State Department had any role in the threat of an IRS audit against the son of the Prime Minister in retaliation for this investigation,” Grassley continued.
Another official, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah also met with Wazed. Shah’s agency awarded $13 million to Yunus organizations and another $11 million to allied Yunus organizations during Clinton’s tenure. The Department of State oversees USAID programs.
As TheDCNF previously reported, Clinton’s aid to Yunus included 18 grants, contracts and loans awarded to two of his America-based foundations, the Grameen Foundation USA and Grameen America, according to USASpending.gov.
Yunus was stripped of his directorship of the state owned Grameen Bank in 2011 as a result of the Bangladesh government’s review of his financial mismanagement of the bank and its “micro-credit” loan program for poor peasants, mainly women.
Yunus eventually returned the money to Grameen Bank, but the government’s investigation exposed serious financial mismanagement and found the micro-loan program failed to lift recipients out of poverty. He was forced to resign under a law making 60 the maximum age for the bank’s top position. Yunus was 70 at the time.
Interest rates and payback amounts of the micro-loans sometimes resulted in more poverty, not less. Rather than re-paying the loans, a number of recipients in Bangladesh and India committed suicide.
Clinton’s support for Yunus dates to former President Bill Clinton’s years as Arkansas governor. Both Clintons became micro-credit loan advocates and enthusiastic backers of Yunus, who invented the lending scheme. Bill Clinton reportedly lobbied the Nobel Prize Committee on behalf of Yunus. The committee awarded him the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
From 2008 onward, Yunus was a featured speaker at the glitzy Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting. He donated between $100,000-$250,000 to CGI and $25,000-$50,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to the Clinton Foundation website.
“They threatened me with the possibility of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service,” Wazed said. “They would say over and over again, ‘Yunus has powerful friends’ and we all knew they were talking of Secretary Clinton. Everybody knew it was Mrs. Clinton.”
Grassley noted in his letter to Tillerson that Wazed recounted for Senate investigators “two conversations with then-Deputy Chief of Mission to Bangladesh Jon Danilowicz during which Danilowicz mentioned that Wazed may be audited by the IRS if he failed to use his influence to get his mother to drop the investigation into Yunus.”
Grassley added new details stating, “Furthermore, he was told by these same officials that Yunus was communicating with Secretary Clinton and her staff for assistance and, in turn, Secretary Clinton’s staff put pressure on the Embassy in Bangladesh to intercede on Yunus’ behalf.”
The World Bank also unexpectedly decided during Clinton’s tenure in 2012 to rescind a $1.2 billion loan to Bangladesh while the IRS was pressuring Wazed.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/04/senate-committee-launches-a-new-clinton-investigation/
The Iowa Republican’s effort is the first new official inquiry of Clinton since her unexpected loss in the 2016 presidential election to President Donald Trump. Trump’s supporters often chanted “lock her up” during his many boisterous campaign rallies.
The Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF) Investigative Group exclusively reported in May that Clinton sent top U.S. diplomats to pressure Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheik Hasina and her son Sajeeb Wazed in an effort to kill that country’s corruption investigation of Yunus and Grameen Bank. Yunus was then managing director of the state-owned Bangladesh bank.
In a June 1, 2017, letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Grassley repeated TheDCNF charge that Clinton threatened Wazed with an IRS tax audit if his mother did not back away from the corruption probe. Wazed has lived in the U.S. for 17 years.
“If the Secretary of State used her position to intervene in an independent investigation by a sovereign government simply because of a personal and financial relationship stemming from the Clinton Foundation rather than the legitimate foreign policy interests of the United States, then that would be unacceptable,” Grassley told Tillerson.
“Co-mingling her official position as Secretary of State with her family foundation would be similarly inappropriate. It is vital to determine whether the State Department had any role in the threat of an IRS audit against the son of the Prime Minister in retaliation for this investigation,” Grassley continued.
Another official, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah also met with Wazed. Shah’s agency awarded $13 million to Yunus organizations and another $11 million to allied Yunus organizations during Clinton’s tenure. The Department of State oversees USAID programs.
As TheDCNF previously reported, Clinton’s aid to Yunus included 18 grants, contracts and loans awarded to two of his America-based foundations, the Grameen Foundation USA and Grameen America, according to USASpending.gov.
Yunus was stripped of his directorship of the state owned Grameen Bank in 2011 as a result of the Bangladesh government’s review of his financial mismanagement of the bank and its “micro-credit” loan program for poor peasants, mainly women.
Yunus eventually returned the money to Grameen Bank, but the government’s investigation exposed serious financial mismanagement and found the micro-loan program failed to lift recipients out of poverty. He was forced to resign under a law making 60 the maximum age for the bank’s top position. Yunus was 70 at the time.
Interest rates and payback amounts of the micro-loans sometimes resulted in more poverty, not less. Rather than re-paying the loans, a number of recipients in Bangladesh and India committed suicide.
Clinton’s support for Yunus dates to former President Bill Clinton’s years as Arkansas governor. Both Clintons became micro-credit loan advocates and enthusiastic backers of Yunus, who invented the lending scheme. Bill Clinton reportedly lobbied the Nobel Prize Committee on behalf of Yunus. The committee awarded him the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
From 2008 onward, Yunus was a featured speaker at the glitzy Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting. He donated between $100,000-$250,000 to CGI and $25,000-$50,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to the Clinton Foundation website.
“They threatened me with the possibility of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service,” Wazed said. “They would say over and over again, ‘Yunus has powerful friends’ and we all knew they were talking of Secretary Clinton. Everybody knew it was Mrs. Clinton.”
Grassley noted in his letter to Tillerson that Wazed recounted for Senate investigators “two conversations with then-Deputy Chief of Mission to Bangladesh Jon Danilowicz during which Danilowicz mentioned that Wazed may be audited by the IRS if he failed to use his influence to get his mother to drop the investigation into Yunus.”
Grassley added new details stating, “Furthermore, he was told by these same officials that Yunus was communicating with Secretary Clinton and her staff for assistance and, in turn, Secretary Clinton’s staff put pressure on the Embassy in Bangladesh to intercede on Yunus’ behalf.”
The World Bank also unexpectedly decided during Clinton’s tenure in 2012 to rescind a $1.2 billion loan to Bangladesh while the IRS was pressuring Wazed.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/04/senate-committee-launches-a-new-clinton-investigation/
