Reply #113: Don't forget my favorite - Vin Gupta - $3 Million to Bill & Use of Jet & Trips for Hillary & Bill!

[1776Forever]

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/30vin.htm

Vin Gupta: The man the Clintons love

Aziz Haniffa in Washington, DC | May 30, 2007

Vinod 'Vin' Gupta, 60, founder, chairman and CEO of infoUSA -- one of America's largest consumers of information with millions of clients -- is probably the single biggest contributor to the Democratic Party over the years.

He is a longtime Clinton benefactor, who has suddenly found himself thrust into the public domain in the wake of major articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post regarding his use of his company's private jet to fly the former President and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on personal, business and campaign trips.

Some shareholders in infoUSA have filed a lawsuit alleging that all of this was 'a waste of corporate assets', and an effort by Gupta to 'ingratiate himself', with these high-profile guests.

(snip)

Gupta, besides being one of the single biggest individual contributors -- whom Kapur by now had coveted and cultivated -- was afforded the honour of introducing Clinton, which he did with rousing gusto.

From then on, Gupta courted the Clintons and in turn, was afforded the opportunity of spending a night in the White House Lincoln Bedroom -- the first Indian American to do so.

As his sustained contributions to the Democrats continued to flow, Clinton offered him the post of first Counsel General to Bermuda and then the Ambassadorship to Fiji, both of which Gupta declined. While he maintained this was for business reasons, it was rumored to be because there were doubts his nomination would be confirmed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee due to alleged violations of Securities and Exchange Commission rules.

Just before his second term ended, Clinton appointed Gupta as a member to the prestigious Board of Trustees of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. But even with Clinton out of the White House, Gupta's friendship with the now former President grew, and he brought him on as a consultant to infoUSA and, according to the lawsuit, beyond nearly $3 million in consulting fees, had flown the Clintons and himself to Acapulco, Mexico, on a vacation in 2002 and also to Switzerland, Hawaii and Jamaica. He was also said to have provided corporate jets for Mrs. Clinton at least seven times since 2002, although it was unclear whether he had done so after she began her Presidential campaign.

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:wow: