podesta-emails
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----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=5a6T
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
https://gop.com/rnc-releases-new-hillary-clinton-video-stay-secretive-my-friends/
From: NSM <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: Friday, March 20, 2015 at 10:51 AM
To: Jim Margolis <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Mandy Grunwald <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Joel Benenson <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, John Podesta <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Cheryl Mills <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Huma Abedin <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Robby Mook <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Dennis Cheng <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Dan Schwerin <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Jacob Sullivan <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, John Anzalone <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Cc: Jennifer Palmieri <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Kristina Schake <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: Stories Update
Haiti story one of two that will likely run today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-clintons-haiti-development-plans-succeed--and-disappoint/2015/03/20/0ebae25e-cbe9-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html
How the Clintons’ Haiti development plans succeed — and disappoint
[https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/03/18/Others/Images/2015-03-18/AMC15WAPOCLINTON0251426709107.jpg?uuid=GTlOps2qEeSHME9HNBbnWQ]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Deep in the Haitian countryside, peanut farmer Wismith Moricette epitomizes the success of <https://www.clintonfoundation.org/our-work/clinton-giustra-enterprise-partnership/programs/acceso-peanut-enterprise-corporation> Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s charitable work: Through an innovative program backed by the Clintons, the 23-year-old has doubled the yield from his one-acre plot. Along with all those peanuts, Moricette said, have come visions of a brighter future for his wife and young son.
Fifty miles away on Haiti’s Caribbean coast, Anelle Germinal exemplifies another reality of the Clintons’ work here: disappointment. The 33-year-old mother of four has been standing in the baking sun every day for months waiting for work in the struggling Caracol Industrial Park, which the Clintons have touted<https://www.clintonfoundation.org/our-work/clinton-foundation-haiti/programs/caracol-industrial-park> as a model that would change the economy of this impoverished country.
“They said we would have work,” Germinal said, “but I have nothing.”
Moricette and Germinal are two faces of the Clintons’ increasingly complicated relationship with Haiti, where their high-profile development efforts after a devastating earthquake in 2010 have produced both success and disillusionment.
As Hillary Clinton moves toward a second run for the White House, her family’s global charitable work, mostly through the Clinton Foundation<https://www.clintonfoundation.org/>, has come under intense scrutiny. The foundation has accepted large donations from corporations and foreign countries, raising concerns that the Clintons are creating conflicts of interest by blurring the lines between their political, business and charitable interests.
[https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/03/18/Others/Images/2015-03-18/AMC15WAPOCLINTON0051426705505.jpg?uuid=tLwsJs2hEeSHME9HNBbnWQ]Two farmers water plants in the Acceso farm, near Mirebalais. The Acceso Peanut Enterprise Corp. was started with a $1.25 million grant from the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership. (Andres Martinez Casares/for The Washington Post)
The Washington Post reported <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html> last month that the foundation’s donors include seven foreign governments that contributed millions during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. Among those donations was a $500,000 contribution for Haiti earthquake relief from the Algerian government that the foundation has acknowledged violated the terms of an ethics agreement with the Obama administration.
The Clintons’ defenders <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/26/obama-officials-defend-clinton-foundation-donation/> have dismissed concerns about the donations as political sniping, saying the test of the foundation is not where it gets its money, but how it spends it. They said their work has created economic opportunity, improved lives for women and girls, raised health standards, and fought the effects of climate change across the developing world.
The work has been especially visible in Haiti, where the Clintons first traveled as young newlyweds in 1975 and where many people credit them with drawing the world’s attention immediately after the earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people.
With former president Clinton assigned by the United Nations to head up the emergency recovery effort and Hillary Clinton guiding official U.S. assistance as secretary of state, the couple helped a vast relief effort that has included some of the world’s richest people, biggest celebrities and most successful businesses. The Clintons helped mobilize a vast relief effort in which international donors pledged $10.4 billion, including $3.9 billion from the United States.
Greg Milne, director of the Clinton Foundation’s Haiti Program, said foundation projects include programs that have helped more than 2,000 small farmers, an artisan-goods company that employs more than 300 people, a fish-farming operation, a cholera treatment center and improvements to schools in some of Haiti’s poorest slums.
Clinton supporters also point out that their successes have come amid Haiti’s chaotic political situation — parliament is not functioning, and President Michel Martelly, dogged by scandal, is ruling with virtually no checks on his power — endemic corruption, weak institutions, poverty, poor public education, terrible roads and other factors that have historically made it extremely difficult <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/clearing-earthquake-camps-in-haiti-is-not-pretty/2012/01/27/gIQAnxzNOR_story.html> for development efforts to succeed.
The country has long had a fraught relationship with foreigners who come to invest and provide aid. Haitians often regard them with gratitude for desperately needed resources, and at the same time with suspicion that their motives are more to make a profit in Haiti than to help it.
[https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/03/18/Others/Images/2015-03-18/1545750541426704791.jpg?uuid=DFqdFs2gEeSHME9HNBbnWQ]Landry Colas hugs former president Bill Clinton in 2012 to express his gratitude for the Caracol Industrial Park, one of the largest regional investment projects in Haiti, which was expected to create more than 60,000 jobs. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald/MCT via Getty Images)
Nevertheless, the Clintons are facing a growing backlash that too little has been accomplished in the past five years, and that some of the most high-profile projects they have backed — including the Marriott, another luxury hotel and the industrial park — have helped foreign investors and Haiti’s wealthy elites more than its poor.
“Bill Clinton is a good guy and well-intentioned, but the people here don’t think so — they think he’s here making money,” said Leslie Voltaire, a former government official who worked with Clinton on post-earthquake reconstruction. “There is a lot of resentment about Clinton here. People have not seen results. . . . They say that Clinton used Haiti.”
In January, Haitian expatriates picketed <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9WYNZsKolQ> the Clinton Foundation’s New York headquarters, demanding to know why more progress has not been made with the billions in international aid pledged after the quake.
Said Raymond Joseph, a former Haitian ambassador to the United States: “People are asking, ‘What has Bill Clinton done for us?’ ”
[Activist: Haiti redevelopment hasn’t been about helping Haitians<http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/12/its-been-five-years-since-haitis-earthquake-and-the-redevelopment-hasnt-been-about-helping-haitians/>]
The Clintons’ long influence in Haiti is hard to overstate. As president in 1994, Bill Clinton deployed about 20,000 U.S. troops to Haiti to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been ousted in a coup in 1991. Clinton’s trade policies as president, which he later called a “mistake,” were devastating to Haiti’s rice production and made it harder for the Haiti to feed itself.
In 2009, Clinton was named U.N. special envoy for Haiti, and he has visited the country 37 times since then.
After the earthquake, Clinton united with former president George W. Bush to create the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, <http://www.clintonbushhaitifund.org/> which distributed $54.4 million in the two years after the earthquake. Separately, the Clinton Foundation has spent more than $30 million in Haiti and led efforts through the Clinton Global Initiative <https://www.clintonfoundation.org/clinton-global-initiative> to persuade private companies to spend vastly more.
“What I think most people don’t know, even if they’ve been on the ground there, is these people are immensely talented,” Bill Clinton said in a 2010 interview with NPR. “They have suffered from 200 years of outside and inside abuses and neglect and misgovernment. And a lot of the people who’ve gone there even to help them in the best of faith, have done so in a way that would never have allowed them to support themselves and to lift themselves up. And now there is a true consensus for and determination for a sustainable, comprehensive, long-term, modern society in Haiti. And they can do it.”
But as the initial emergency response has evolved into efforts to ensure Haiti’s long-term development, Haitians increasingly complain that the Clintons’ most ambitious plans are disconnected from the realities of most people in the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
For instance, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund invested more than $2 million in the Royal Oasis hotel, where a sleek suite with hardwood floors costs more than $200 a night and the shops sell $150 designer purses and $120 men’s dress shirts.
One recent afternoon, the hotel appeared largely empty, and with tourism hardly booming five years after the quake, locals fear it may be failing. A spokeswoman for Occidental Hotels, the chain that runs the hotel, said that occupancy is up this year and that the project will “mature in the long run.”
Bill Clinton also introduced Marriott officials to Denis O’Brien, an Irish telecom billionaire who has contributed millions to the Clinton Foundation. The result is a $45 million Marriott Hotel that opened this month<http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/in-haiti-a-marriotts-opening-is-the-latest-milestone-in-quake-recovery/2015/02/26/bc3cadde-bd0e-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html> in central Port-au-Prince. O’Brien said no Clinton money was invested in the project.
The ultra-modern hotel is adjacent to the headquarters of Digicel, a communications giant owned by O’Brien. When The Post visited recently, many, if not most, of the guests seemed to be foreign businessmen connected to Digicel.
Clinton defenders argue that hotels that cater to well-heeled foreign guests can still buy local products and provide local jobs, and those guests are often involved in businesses investments or aid projects that benefit the neediest Haitians.
O’Brien said his hotel employs 200 Haitians, is filled with locally purchased art and serves food from Haiti. O’Brien leads the Haiti Action Network<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEFl6EUjrJs>, a collection of private businesses that have committed through the Clinton Global Initiative to spend $500 million on projects in Haiti. He and his company just built 150 schools and rebuilt Port-au-Prince’s historic Iron Market.
“I don’t know any modern leader that has spent more time helping a country and being so effective,” O’Brien said of Bill Clinton. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/in-haiti-a-marriotts-opening-is-the-latest-milestone-in-quake-recovery/2015/02/26/bc3cadde-bd0e-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html> “He works like a demon in the developing world. Nobody is doing that. Is Tony Blair doing that?”
Other Clinton-backed projects have not delivered on lofty promises: A 2011 housing expo that cost more than $2 million, including $500,000 from the Clinton Foundation, was supposed to be a model for thousands of new units but instead has resulted in little more than a few dozen abandoned model homes occupied by squatters.
Controversy surrounding the Clintons only deepened with the recent revelation, contained in an upcoming book by Peter Schweizer, that Tony Rodham — Hillary Clinton’s younger brother — serves on the advisory board of a U.S.-based company that in 2012 won one of Haiti’s first two gold-mining permits in 50 years. After objection from the Haitian senate, the permits have been placed on hold.
“Neither Bill Clinton nor the brother of Hillary Clinton are individuals who share the interests of the Haitian people,” said Samuel Nesner, an anti-mining activist who thinks mining poses great environmental risks and will mainly benefit foreign investors. “They are part of the elite class who are operating to exploit the Haitian people.”
Clinton Foundation officials said Bill Clinton had been unaware of Rodham’s involvement in the mine project. A spokesman for Hillary Clinton said she does not know the chief executive of the mine.
“I strongly believe the Clintons came to Haiti in good faith and they wanted to have an impact,” said Jean-Max Bellerive, who was Haiti’s prime minister at the time of the earthquake and served as co-chairman with Bill Clinton on the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. (Bellerive is also on the mining company’s advisory board.)
But, Bellerive said, the former president was hampered by a “weak” staff of American aides who were “more interested in supporting Clinton than helping Haiti.” Echoing a common sentiment in Haiti, Bellerive also said Clinton should have listened more carefully to the opinions and needs of ordinary Haitians. “How do you want a guy coming from Davos or Dubai to get the real feeling for what’s happening downstairs?” he said.
Milne, of the Clinton Foundation, said the criticism is wrong and unsurprising.
“President Clinton is one of the most dedicated and highest-profile advocates for Haiti, and he is still engaged while others have moved on,” he said. “So it’s not surprising that for some he is an easy target for natural frustration that the change we all want isn’t happening faster.”
Milne said the country has experienced strong economic growth in recent years, with more Haitians employed and more children in school.
“Is Haiti building back better?” Milne said, using a phrase that the Clintons frequently quote. “In many ways yes, though challenges remain.”
Paul Farmer, a doctor whose Partners in Health <http://www.pih.org/> has helped provide medical care in rural Haiti since the 1980s and whose health network has received more than $1.8 million from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to establish a medical residency program, also praised the Clintons’ work. He said he forged partnerships at CGI meetings with private businesses and other charities for a variety of projects he said would not have taken place without the Clinton connection.
He said that by any objective measure, Haiti has been improving, in part because of the Clintons’ efforts.
“Is the whole country built back better? I doubt it,” Farmer said. “Water insecurity and food insecurity are very pressing problems. But if you look at the health statistics for Haiti . . . infant mortality, child mortality — they’re all improving.”
Still, even some who have benefited from Clinton-backed programs have grown disillusioned.
“I read that Bill Clinton is the most popular politician in America, but he couldn’t get elected mayor in Haiti today,” said Jacky Lumarque, rector of Quisqueya University, a private school that was largely damaged in the earthquake and received $914,000<http://www.clintonbushhaitifund.org/programs/entry/universite-quisqueya/> from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to create an entrepreneurship center.
Lumarque said the program has helped hundreds of Haitians turn their informal street businesses into formal entities that keep records, pay taxes and have potential for growth.
He said it has been a huge success — but stands apart from the usual strategy of foreign groups, including the Clintons, who tend to favor projects imposed by well-meaning foreigners that are more “about Haiti” than “for Haiti.”
The entrepreneurship center, Lumarque said, “is an example of what Clinton can do, in spite of himself.”
[Foreign governments gave millions to Clintons’ foundation<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html>]
When Bill Clinton came here late last month to help inaugurate the new Marriott, he made a side trip by helicopter to Haiti’s central plateau to have a look at a Clinton-backed program that is revolutionizing the peanut-farming industry.
The Acceso Peanut Enterprise Corp.<https://www.clintonfoundation.org/our-work/clinton-giustra-enterprise-partnership/programs/acceso-peanut-enterprise-corporation> was started with a $1.25 million grant from the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which is headed by Bill Clinton and Canadian mining executive and philanthropist Frank Giustra, as well as the charitable foundation of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
Acceso buys feed, fertilizer and fungicide at bulk rates, then sells them to farmers for far less than normal prices. Acceso also hires tractors for farmers who otherwise would be using an ox and plow.
Robert Johnson, an American who runs the program, said the improvements are vastly increasing yields, quality and farmers’ profits.
He said Acceso worked with about 1,000 farmers last year and bought about 120 metric tons of peanuts. This year, it expects to triple the number of farmers and buy almost five times as many nuts.
At least half of Acceso’s sales have gone to two large Haitian factories that produce a peanut-based paste that is given to malnourished children. Most of the rest goes to local peanut-butter producers, he said.
The program’s success, Johnson said, comes from its market-driven approach: It’s not a charity, it’s a business with a charitable purpose.
“We’re building something that is going to be sustainable,” he said. “We talk to the farmers. We’re not going to just bring in something that someone thought up in Davos.”
The program is now branching out into lime production, and Clinton visited a site last month where thousands of lime seedlings are being cultivated by dozens of workers.
Benel Auguste, 32, is one of the small landowners who rented his plot, about a third of an acre, to Acceso to plant limes. “It’s a good idea; it’s going to work,” he said. “We know limes and we need them. We can do this.”
The Clintons also were enthusiastic backers of the Caracol Industrial Park, which was built on 600 acres of farmland just east of the Caribbean port city of Cap-Haitien.
They agreed with economists, particularly Oxford University development specialist Paul Collier, who concluded that Haiti is an ideal place to create mass jobs in garment factories because of its proximity to the United States, favorable trade agreements and cheap labor.
The Clintons helped Haitian officials identify Sae-A Trading Co., which operates factories across the developing world and sews garments for giants such as Target, Gap and Wal-Mart, as a potential major investor.
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, along with top aide Cheryl Mills, lobbied for the project with South Korean officials and hosted Sae-A executives in Washington to press the plan.
Bill Clinton attended the Sae-A contract-signing <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107157.html> ceremony in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 11, 2011 — a day before the first anniversary of the earthquake. He later laid the first stone of the park’s construction. And then in October 2012, the Clintons, Martelly and other officials attended the ribbon-cutting.
Speaking to a group of investors at the ceremony, officials and celebrities that included actors Sean Penn and Ben Stiller and business moguls Donna Karan and Richard Branson, Hillary Clinton said it represented “a new day for Haiti and a new model for how the international community practices development.”
“Haiti is truly open for business, and we want your help,” she said. “We see this partnership between governments like our own and the private sector as absolutely essential in promoting and supporting long-term prosperity in Haiti. We know very well that long-term prosperity cannot come from just the provision of aid; there must be trade and investment like we have seen here today.”
Today, Sae-A employs about 4,500 people. Company spokesman Lon Garwood said the operation has been steadily growing and will open a new facility next month. Henri-Claude Müller-Poitevien, a Haitian government official who works the apparel industry, said the Caracol project is on schedule and continues to expand.
A power plant was built, but plans for a new port at the industrial park to carry finished goods to the United States have been shelved. Residents of the plant’s housing project say their land floods when it rains, and few said they think <http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/10/a-glittering-industrialparkfallsshortinhaiti.html> the plant will ever create the number of jobs originally promised.
“I believe that the momentum to attract people there in a massive way is past,” said Bellerive, the former prime minister. “You can do interesting things with Caracol, but you have to reinvent the concept. Today, it has failed.”
Each morning, crowds line up outside the park’s big front gate, which is guarded by four men in crisp, khaki uniforms carrying shotguns. They wait in a sliver of shade next to a cinder-block wall, many holding résumés in envelopes. Most said they have been coming every day for months, waiting for jobs that pay about $5 a day.
From his envelope, Jean Mito Palvetus, 27, pulled out a diploma attesting that he had completed 200 hours of USAID training on an industrial sewing machine.
“I have three kids and a wife, and I can’t support them,” he said, sweating in the hot morning sun. “I have a diploma, but I still can’t get a job here. I still have nothing.”
Tom Hamburger in Washington contributed to this report.
From: NSM <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: Saturday, March 14, 2015 at 7:59 PM
To: Jim Margolis <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Mandy Grunwald <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Joel Benenson <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, John Podesta <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Cheryl Mills <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Huma Abedin <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Robby Mook <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Dennis Cheng <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Dan Schwerin <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Jacob Sullivan <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, John Anzalone <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Cc: Jennifer Palmieri <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Kristina Schake <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Stories Update
Hi Everyone,
Now that we’re hopefully reaching a place of relative sanity again, I wanted to take a minute to send everyone a quick update on what’s brewing in the press. We’ll institutionalize a system going forward, but for the moment let me just run through a few things.
First, Amy Chozick at the NYT is writing a piece on Robby. He didn’t talk to her for the piece but we sent some people her way. Looks like it will trace his life a little, have some colorful factoids in it (apparently Robby loves polo shirts), and based on the intel we have, the more irritating parts will be a look at how the wide web of Clintonland will be kept at bay, including WJC’s office. To help on that last point Amy talked to Tina Flournoy last night who was fantastic.
Second, the Washington Post is working on a Haiti story about the Clintons’ work there, either via the Department of State or the Clinton Foundation. It could run as early as Monday, and will be a look at the progress (or in their view the lack thereof) and what the Clintons’ role in it has been. I’m working closely with the Foundation on the response.
Related, there are some other Foundation-related stories in the offing, so I will keep people posted on that front.
Finally, we’ve been going back and forth with TIME about a particular component of their piece on Thursday that claimed no one read many of the emails, implication being that the search parameters outlined in the Q&A were applied and anything that didn’t show up in them was discarded as “personal.” We’ve pushed back pretty hard and gone on the record telling them that they are wrong. We are also hoping to put the counter-narrrative out there with the help of Laura Meckler at the WSJ, which I’ll send when it posts. Will keep everyone posted on this front as well.
Nick
As a postscript, please enjoy this courtesy of John A:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/hillary-releases-twenty-thousand-spam-e-mails-from-old-navy
Hillary Releases Twenty Thousand Spam E-Mails from Old Navy
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report<http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report>)—Hoping to quell the controversy over e-mails missing from her private account, the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday released twenty thousand spam e-mails she received from Old Navy.
“In an effort to be transparent, I have gone above and beyond what is required of me by law and released every last e-mail I received from this retailer,” she told reporters. “Now I think we can all consider this case closed.”
The e-mails reveal an extensive one-way correspondence between Clinton and Old Navy, as the retailer sometimes contacted her up to a dozen times in a single day to inform her of sales and other offers.
“This is one of the main reasons I set up a private e-mail account,” she said. “I did not want spam from Old Navy clogging up the State Department servers.”
But if the former Secretary of State thought that she could end the controversy swirling around her e-mail account by releasing the Old Navy spam, she may have miscalculated.
Representative Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Benghazi select committee, questioned why Clinton would let twenty thousand spam e-mails from Old Navy accumulate rather than simply unsubscribe. “It doesn’t pass the smell test,” he said.
Responding to that allegation, Clinton said, “I want the American people to know that, on multiple occasions, I tried to unsubscribe from Old Navy, and my requests were ignored. The most frustrating part of this whole affair is that I’ve never even bought anything from Old Navy.”
Get news satire from The Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox.<https://www.newyorker.com/services/newsletters>
ℹ️ Document Details
SHA-256
d88368519438995654bddb3af4b7ee8d6de9337c0b5deff7a9e3b32d208afb0c
Dataset
podesta-emails
Document Type
email
Comments 0