Largess to Clintons lands CEO in lawsuit

[ProSense]

Largess to Clintons lands CEO in lawsuit

Case is a window on couple's ties

By Matthew Mosk and John Solomon
Updated: 6:14 a.m. ET May 26, 2007

WASHINGTON - For the past four years, the Clintons have jetted around on Vinod Gupta's corporate plane, to Switzerland, Hawaii, Jamaica, Mexico -- $900,000 worth of travel. The former president secured a $3.3 million consulting deal with Gupta's technology firm. His presidential library got a six-figure gift, too.

Gupta, whose big donations to the Democratic Party earned him a Lincoln Bedroom overnight when Bill Clinton was president, has emerged as a key benefactor of Clinton's post-presidency -- and Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential candidacy.

The dispute over Gupta's bankrolling of the Clintons offers new detail about how successfully Bill Clinton has leveraged the inner circle of donors he cultivated during his tenure in the White House to his personal financial benefit since he left office. In addition, it suggests the degree to which Hillary Clinton's political career is also benefiting from those connections.

In the lawsuit, filed this year in Delaware, some investors in the company, InfoUSA, challenged Gupta's decision to direct his firm to pay the former president the consulting fees for the "extremely vague purpose" of providing his "strategic growth and business judgment."

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[mloutre]

1. Rut-roh! ... n/t

[ProSense]

2. Kick! n/t

[acmavm]

3. Same article, earlier discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3284764

[papau]

4. A Clinton contributor makes a living selling mailing lists - and this is a scandal? - the NYT needs

to get a clue.

One does not police ones customers.

If they were crooks before the sale, and he new about them being crooks, there is a problem - for him - not for Hillary.

But the crap thrown on the wall will not stick because they can't even allege that he knew he was dealing with crooks, besides he has employees that do sales and has in place the usual Sarbanes Oxley required oversight - making violations of corporate policy easy to check out - and there is again no assertion of prior knowledge of dealing with crooks -

and just where is the Hillary connection?

Good Grief - this like the Chi Trib articles about Obama dealing with the crook next door and buying land at possibly a below market price (Obama paid a pro-rata of what the crook paid for the whole lot - but that is not necessary the market price for the piece he got).

This only makes Hillary haters wet - and will have no effect on anything other than some folks opinion of the NYT and NBC.

[Skidmore]

7. $900K is some serious jetting time for the two of them..

I'm not forgetting that one of these Clintons has been serving in public office over the past few years, too. Not so cut an dried.

[ProSense]

5. "He was rewarded with a night in the White House's Lincoln bedroom..."

Gupta has been a major donor to Democrats over the years and especially prominent as a Clinton fundraiser. He was rewarded with a night in the White House's Lincoln bedroom during Clinton's presidency. He also donated at least $1 million to Bill Clinton's presidential library in Little Rock., Ark.

link

[Skidmore]

6. Time for a change from the same-old same-old...

Some times the anointed are not the worthy.