Bill Clinton\u2019s foundation set up a fundraising arm in Sweden that collected $26 million in donations at the same time that country was lobbying Hillary Rodham Clinton\u2019s State Department to forgo sanctions that threatened its thriving business with Iran, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Times.<\/p>\n
As US prosecutors go after 14 people \u2014 nine current and former FIFA officials, four sports marketing executives and an accused intermediary \u2014 in corruption allegations, seven were taken into custody in Zurich on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
But strangely the Clintons and their dealings are not up for scrutiny it seems.<\/p>\n
The Swedish entity, called the William J. Clinton Foundation Insamlingsstiftelse, was never disclosed to or cleared by State Department ethics officials, even though one of its largest sources of donations was a Swedish government-sanctioned lottery.<\/p>\n
As the money flowed to the foundation from Sweden, Mrs. Clinton\u2019s team in Washington declined to blacklist any Swedish firms despite warnings from career officials at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm that Sweden was growing its economic ties with Iran and potentially undercutting Western efforts to end Tehran\u2019s rogue nuclear program, diplomatic cables show.<\/p>\n
At the time of Mr. Clinton\u2019s foray into Swedish fundraising, the Swedish government was pressing Mrs. Clinton\u2019s State Department not to impose new sanctions on firms doing business with Iran, including hometown companies Ericsson and Volvo.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Clinton\u2019s State Department issued two orders identifying lists of companies newly sanctioned in 2011 and 2012 for doing business with Iran, but neither listed any Swedish entities.<\/p>\n
Behind the scenes, however, the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm was clearly warning the State Department in Washington that Sweden\u2019s trade was growing with Iran \u2014 despite Swedish government claims to the contrary.<\/p>\n
The Swedes were resistant to new sanctions, telling State Department officials repeatedly and unequivocally that they were worried new penalties would stifle the business between its country\u2019s firms and Tehran. At the time, Iran was Sweden\u2019s second-largest export market in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
\u201cBehind the Swedish government\u2019s reluctance to support further sanctions in Iran, especially unilateral European measures, is a dynamic (though still fairly small) trade involving some of Sweden\u2019s largest and most politically well-connected companies: Volvo, Ericsson and ABB to name three,\u201d the U.S. Embassy wrote in one cable to Washington.<\/p>\n
U.S. intelligence officials told The Times that they kept the Obama administration apprised of Ericsson\u2019s activities inside Iran, including the fact that the Swedish firm had provided Iran\u2019s second-largest cellular provider with location-based technology to track customers for billing purposes. The technology transfer occurred in late 2009, shortly after Tehran brutally suppressed a pro-democracy movement in that country, the officials said.<\/p>\n
U.S. intelligence further learned that Ericsson in 2010 discussed with Iran\u2019s largest cellular firm providing tracking technology that could be used directly by Iranian security authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bill Clinton\u2019s foundation set up a fundraising arm in Sweden that collected $26 million in donations at the same time that country was lobbying Hillary Rodham Clinton\u2019s State Department to forgo sanctions that threatened its thriving business with Iran, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Times. As US prosecutors go after 14 … Continue reading “Clinton Foundation cashed in as Sweden lobbied Hillary”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[563,219,2553,174,1061,185],"class_list":["post-19275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-clinton-foundation","tag-corruption","tag-fifa","tag-iran","tag-sanctions","tag-sweden"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19276,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19275\/revisions\/19276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}