Clintons Sell Possibly Troublesome Stock

[cheezedoodle]

Posted: 6/15/07 at 6:50pm

They don't call it "blind" trust for nothing.

Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton liquidated the contents of their blind trust upon learning it contained investments of $5 million to $25 million that could pose conflicts of interest or prove to be embarrassing to her presidential campaign.

The blind trust and a bank account valued in the same range place the Clinton's total wealth at between $10 million and $50 million.

The Clintons opened the blind trust in April under instructions from the Office of Government Ethics and sold the assets in May, according to a disclosure form filed Friday. The Clintons have had a blind trust since former President Clinton was governor of Arkansas in 1983 and had no control over its transactions.

Once they peered inside it, they discovered it included investments in oil and drug companies, military contractors and Wal-Mart.

The report, filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission and the Office of Government Ethics, provides the most detailed look at the Clintons' holdings as their wealth has expanded since the former president left the White House in 2001.

The new report also shows that the former president made $16 million in speaking fees between January 2006 and Wednesday. So far this year, Bill Clinton has given 34 paid speeches for a total of $5.9 million.

The blind trust held stock in pharmaceutical companies, including $250,000-$500,000 in Biogen Idec and Johnson & Johnson and $100,000-$250,000 in Amgen, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. It also invested in General Electric and Raytheon, two leading defense contractors. The trust had a varied portfolio, with investments in numerous other companies, including Exxon Mobil, BP Amoco, Walt Disney and eBay.

The report said all the proceeds of the sales are being placed in a cash account. The massive unloading of stock means the Clintons face large capital gains taxes.

President Clinton registered his blind trust with the Office of Government Ethics when he became president in 1993, then Sen. Clinton registered it as a Senate blind trust when she took office in 2001.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said Friday that the Clintons now "will be working to create a new blind trust consistent with both OGE and the Senate's rules."

Though all the blind trust transactions were handled over the years by a trustee without the Clintons' knowledge, some of the holdings could have been awkward for Hillary Clinton as she pursues the Democratic presidential nomination.

The blind trust held stock worth $100,000-$250,000 in NewsCorp, the parent company of Fox News, which many Democrats have denounced as biased against them. The trust also held stock in Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart de Mexico.

The senator served on the Wal-Mart board from 1986 to 1992, and was close with the Walton family that created the nation's largest retailer. But she has recently called on the company to provide better worker benefits and last year her Senate campaign returned $5,000 to Wal-Mart's political action committee. At the time, Clinton campaign spokeswoman Ann Lewis said the money was returned "because of serious differences with current company practices."

Friday's report comes on the heels of Hillary Clinton's Senate disclosure report, made public Thursday, which only covered activity in 2006 and did not reflect this year's liquidation of the blind trust.

Clinton and other presidential candidates were required to file financial disclosure documents with the Office of Government Ethics by May 15. But Clinton, and Republican candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain asked for 45-day extensions because they all had blind trusts that the ethics office demanded be opened.


Time to sell

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/15/07 at 6:56pm

Watch how the Republicans spin this!

FYI: Blind Trust means the owners (i.e. The Clintons) have NO IDEA or control over their holdings. It's to avoid situations like Dick Cheney steering no bid government contracts to Halliburton to make his own stock options more valuable.

And it's funny they pick on WalMart-- Hilary Clinton once sat on their board of directors!

[Mamie]

Posted: 6/15/07 at 10:06pm

The money-cruncher heads who know about these things (MUCH better than I) say the Clintons will be taking a big loss by converting these stocks into cash holdings. They'll lose major bucks in taxes as a result. As you said - the whole reason behind 'blind trusts' are that the owner has no knowledge or input into where the funds are invested. All that is handled by the trust managers. They were also under no requirement to do this - they did it all on their own.

Bearing all this in mind, I'm impressed that they took this move to make sure that there would be no hint of any improprieties either during or after the campaign. (They learned the hard way with Whitewater). Despite this, the 'no dirty politics' Obama campaign immediately put out disparaging comments about the Clintons and where the investments had been made. I believe I saw the details of the snarky comments (and the Obama campaign request that they not be tied to the releases!) in the Times.

It's so early in the campaign and the mud is already flying.