Clinton, McCain delay on making tax returns public

[Ichingcarpenter]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Wolfson, now the Clinton campaign's communications director, won't say why Clinton wouldn't release her tax information earlier. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, released his 2006 tax returns last April.

Clinton isn't the only presidential candidate who hasn't made tax records public. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, hasn't either. His campaign says that he'll make his records public in the next month or so.

McCain has never made his tax returns public, but Clinton has. In 1994, under political pressure over the Whitewater land deal controversy, the Clintons made public all their tax returns since 1977. The couple also disclosed their tax returns during Bill Clinton's eight years in the White House, but not since.

Clinton, responding to an open-government questionnaire in connection with the American Society of Newspaper Editors' Sunshine Week initiative, vowed Sunday to disclose the names of the Clinton library and foundation donors if she's elected president.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/30678.html

[madrchsod]

1. as public servants what right do they have to hide

their tax returns? when people decide not to release information i can only assume they are hiding something that could be damaging to them...well that`s the way it is in the real world..

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Won't disclose Donors names to the Foundation or Library

Forget if she is nominated, she won't do it unless she is elected.

[People4Change]

42. You can see a partial list of library donors by New York Sun

No wonder the Clintons do not want to reveal the donor list for the Clinton presidential library. I found on line a story by Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun from 2004 in which he disclosed a number of the Clinton library donors. He found the donors on a 3rd floor computer at the Clinton Library.

You can go to the article at www.nysun.com/article/5152

Why isn't the mainstream media discussing this article and the donor list? Donors giving $1 million or more include:
Saudi royal family
Governments of Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei & Taiwan
Prime Minister of Lebanon
Arab businessmen Abdullah Al-Dabbagh, Nasser Al-Rashid and Walid Juffali
Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton

Donors giving $100,000 to $500,000 include:
King of Morocco, Mohammed VI
Pakistani-American businessman Farooq Bajwa
US-Islamic World Conference

Marc Rich's ex-wife, Denise, gave $450,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich just before leaving office in 2000.

As to secrecy of the donors list, Bill Clinton allowed portions of the donors list to be sold thru a data company, InfoUSA, headed by CEO Vin Gupta, who gave over $1 million. Gupta then "gifted" Bill Clinton 100,000 shares of InfoUSA options.

Current law treats presidential libraries like nonprofit groups - no caps on donations, no mandatory disclosure and no ban on donations by corporations and foreigners. Senators John Cornyn and Barack Obama co-sponsored a bill to require disclosure of any donations over $200. A similar bill passed the house but the Obama sponsored bill stalled in Congress.

What exactly do these mid-east governments expect in return? How will these donations influence a Clinton White House? NOW DO YOU SEE WHY THE CLINTONS SHOULD REVEAL THE ENTIRE CLINTON LIBRARY DONOR LIST?

[uberblonde]

23. Why's Obama still hiding his state legislative records?

He says he can't find them. Hmmm.

[tabasco]

33. Bullshit.

Fact Check: Obama's State Senate Records Are Publicly Available

http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2007/11/14/fact_check_obamas_state_senate.php

You're using the old republican trick. When caught doing wrong, blame the opponent of the same thing.

- Obama has released all of his US Senate earmarks. Where are Hillary's?

- Obama has released last year's tax returns? Where are Hillary's?

- Where are Hillary's White House records, which the Clintons have now, which will show her grossly exaggerated claims of more experience?

- Where are the library contributor records? Why has Bill Clinton REFUSED to let Democratic voters see who gave him money for his project? We know Saudi Arabia gave $10 million, who else is on that list?

WHAT ARE THE CLINTONS HIDING FROM DEMOCRATIC VOTERS?

[darue]

28. then make it a requirement for ALL of them instead of just the ones they can bully into disclosure?

I can't seem to google ANY reference to bush's tax records form the 2000 campaign.

[Diane R]

3. Hillary won't disclose info UNTIL SHE'S ELECTED PRESIDENT?!! Thumbs her nose at us...again.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. What are you gonna do, Impeach her, after she is Prez?

If something comes out sleazy, we know how that has worked out in the
last seven years with this Congress.

[peace13]

5. * and Hill cut from the same cloth. n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. certainly suspicious!

then she can hide them under prez priviledge

[disndat]

14. A real HC Nose-Thumb-er

"After she's elected?? Like NEVER!!! Nita Lowey on Meet the Press yesterday with millions of people watching, said HC will release her tax return ON April 15th. HC said something like, "after April 15th." Now she says after she's elected. Obama will no doubt use this goal post moving tactic to his advantage when he campaigns.

[darue]

29. I couldn't care less about her tax records and she can release them never as far as I care

what could possibly be in there that would make any difference to anyone about anything?

[mod mom]

30. You forgot the sarcasm notation-I hope. What could be there? all the bought

alliances both foreign and domestic-that's all.

[darue]

31. hmmmm...

sounds like tinfoil territory doesn't it? who would these bought alliances be with?

...her day job is corporate lawyer, so she's made money doing 'stuff' for some companies, That's not in and of itself grounds to start the witch trials. If there were any bought favors (which we would already know about probably as they'd be stuff done in the Senate right?) no quid-pro-quo will be provable, so why get bogged down about some tax returns? Better to spend time coming up with ideas on how to get more votes than that elderly maverick admirals son.

the entire media, on queue, like a marionette dumped Iraq down the coverage drain a year or more ago, they've pronounced the surge successful and don't be surprised if Georgy surprises everyone and declares victory and starts pulling out any day now.

[mod mom]

36. Tinfoil? Take some time (If you're really interested in facts)& look @ this w JACKSON STEPHENS

EAST LIVERPOOL TOXIC WASTE INCINERATOR (as you say they were doing "stuff" for this bush/clinton/bcci financier)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4537770

AND MORE RECENTLY, THIS MIGHT SHOW UP AS WELL AS TIES TO DUBAI:

After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton

By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: January 31, 2008
Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

-snip

snip

"Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent."

"Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy."

-snip

Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s more recent and public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its privileges.

LINK:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html

SO I GUESS BILL CLINTON PRIZES LARGE DONATIONS OVER THE INTEGRITY OF FOREIGN ELECTIONS-HOW TELLING!

[darue]

39. sounds like a good deal

I don't think Bill Clinton tisk-tisking Nazarbayev is going to do a thing about Kazakhstan's autocratic leadership. That'll work out, like all things, in time, and through other efforts The real opening for DOING something about it was when BUSH failed to do a damn thing about the killing of protesters now several years ago. So Clinton's empty words of praise were enough to help this Giustra guy, who seems swell enough to me, make a huge amount of money off the uranium, money that came from UraniumOne, a company I'm not going to cry about being made to pay big bucks. Good play. One of our guys made some serious damn money. good. Decent folk need all the money and power we can get our hands on if we're going to defeat the imperialist fascist republicans.

In February 2007, a company called Uranium One agreed to pay US$3.1 billion to acquire UrAsia. Giustra, a director and major shareholder in UrAsia, would be paid $7.05 per share for a company that just two years earlier was trading at 10 cents per share.<7>

In May 2007 Giustra was one of four chairs of the 2006 Global Leadership Awards dinner in New York where Clinton was honoured along with out-going UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

In June 2007, Giustra joined with Clinton to launch the Clinton-Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative to address global poverty. Giustra committed $USD 100 million plus half of what he makes in the resource industry for the rest of his life. Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican businessman and richest person in the world, made a matching contribution and Giustra is expected to enlist others in the Canadian resource industry.

These kinda deals get done. period. the only question is, do we position decent democratically oriented folks, or do we just stand aside and let republican scum make all the fortunes. I guess then we can all have useless feel-good protests against them once they own everything there is worth owning and sell us our wicker to weave baskets with.

[darue]

40. the BCCI and bush crime family connections are really damning

I just don't know what think they seem to do some good stuff, then turn their backs on others, I'm very frustrated with them that's for sure. IF Clinton had gone after the BCCI crap and everything else they could have, maybe he wouldn't have wasted his presidency running from bullshit made up scandals. surely that toxic waste site in Ohio needs to be shut down permanently. it seems to me to present a clear and present danger.

[earthlover]

41. I can only imagine the excuse she would make if she was president....

executive privilege? well, that doesn't exactly fit but it might be tried. She probably would simply count on most of us forgetting. When pressed, she would say that after her second term is over she will make it part of a time capsule to be opened in the year 2048.

[peace13]

6. Why anyone would support a candidate that thumbs his/her nose

at them is beyond me. Go figure. I am all full up from the same crap * has fed us for years. I do want to hear someone support her on this though.

[sallyseven]

10. Has Obama given out his 2007 yet?

I have never thought that it was important to delve into their tax returns. I doubt that anyone could tell you anything about the person through their tax returns. Obama is a sleaze asking for that information to cover up his little transgressions. Every year Hillary has complied with the forms that the Senate and Congress are required to submit. That is enough. This bull shit about her hiding something is o obscene. Why should Bill a private citizen have to tell you anything about his Library? Your just a bunch of ignorant vultures. You all make Rush look like a award winning journalist

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Did you even read the news story before displaying your ignorance?

She hasn't done it since she was elected as senator..


Wolfson, now the Clinton campaign's communications director, won't say why Clinton wouldn't release her tax information earlier. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, released his 2006 tax returns last April.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, released his tax information in December 2003, for example.

Clinton was listed as the 21st richest lawmaker, with a net worth estimated at $12 million, but she could be worth up to $50 million based on her 2006 financial disclosure form for Congress. It's much less detailed than tax records.

[earthlover]

22. "Your just a bunch of ignorant vultures"

Don't you mean you're?

I think Clinton has loaned her campaign $5million. I also believe that the Clintons didn't have that much money when they left office. Now they apparently have gonzo cash.

I think it is a relevant question for someone running for PRESIDENT just where did this money come from? Did it come from foreign countries? Fat cats? Where?

At first I thought this to be a relevant question, but i wasn't particularly suspicious. I assumed the Clintons would divulge their tax returns. But they haven't. Now I am suspicious as to why they are not beings as how they would stand to gain by disclosure if they are clean.

[Diane R]

32. Most people haven't prepared their 2007 returns, yet. Why should he release it yet? Others released

[usregimechange]

8. There must be a reason

or a number of them...

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. McCain too but we know what an asshole he is

What strikes me is now changing it from nominated to elected on
the names of the donor story, which opens up a can of executive
privilege worms

[ingac70]

12. Shady crooks, the both of them. n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. Has McCain released his Pork barrel ear marks? Obama did

Clinton will not.


Hillary won't disclose her pork barrel past
March 17, 2008 - 4:08am

Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton continues to practice the politics of evasion and doublespeak.

Her campaign's latest example of doubletalk concerns earmarks -- otherwise known as pork barrel legislation.

Seems the Senator won't disclose her past earmark requests, choosing to say that she will be transparent about things she does from now on and not about what she has done in the past.

Writes John Riley in Newsday:

Close observers of yesterday's reports on the efforts of McCain and Obama to get Sen. Clinton to disclose her earmark requests going back to 2001 may have noticed a strange thing about the statement her office issued at the end of the day.

It said all manner of things about earmarks, and moratoriums, and funding, and accountability. But it never said whether she would disclose her earmark requests going back to 2001.>>>>snip

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/4875

[JBoy]

15. Where there's smoke there's fire.

Where there's secrecy there's something being hidden.

Disclosing donor names only if elected president is bullshit. That's like saying I'll only submit to drug testing after I win the Tour de France.

Hillary, meet your albatross.

[NeedleCast]

16. Indicates to me

that there is sometehing more damaging in the returns than the damage she is taking from not releasing them.

[gmudem]

17. Does she realize how absurd that sounds?

After 7 years of the Bush Administration and their ultra-secrecy, why does she think Democrats will accept this response?

[mhoran]

19. Trying to defend HC gets tougher all the time

It's the hypocrisy, doublespeak and parsing that tells the tale. Same old, same old, dirty Washington politics. She's too much a part of the problem to foster any real hope that she can be part of the solution.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

18. How do Hillary backers here defend her in this?

[TML]

26. They'll make up shit

Just like when Bill Kristol wrote his NYT column. They'll reference Newsmax.

[rateyes]

20. Hmmmmm. If people are hiding something, it's because

they have something to hide.

[OhioChick]

21. What's the big secret?

Didn't HRC say during a debate that she'd release them prior to April 15? What am I missing here?

[marshall]

34. You mean you believed her?

Most people take everything she says with a grain of salt. I knew she'd never release those returns. She keeps moving the date of when she would release them. At this point even if she is by some miracle elected president she will come up with some reason not to release them.

[AzDar]

24. Eight years of this skeevy bullshit is enough, thanks.

No more Clintons, No more Bushes, No more taking it in our tushes!

[raebrek]

35. Now that is catchy. N/T

[johnnydrama]

25. I have an idea

Obama should say, next week Mon-Wed should be "no campaign days" so Hillary can get home and get her 7 years of taxes straightened out so she can release them.

She shouldn't be too busy if she's got 72 hours to release them.

[bluesmail]

27. HA! IF she's elected president. Good one Hil

Bush enabler, HA!

[snooper2]

37. More of the fucking same with these two...

more of the fucking same... :puke:

All I can do is donate more money to Obama....and hope...

[catgirl]

38. She'll release the donor list IF she's elected president

How cowardly!!!!