{"id":5140,"date":"2008-04-15T16:50:27","date_gmt":"2008-04-15T21:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=5140"},"modified":"2008-04-16T06:47:15","modified_gmt":"2008-04-16T11:47:15","slug":"double_happines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/15\/double_happines\/","title":{"rendered":"Money for Nothing …"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, when the Clintons released their tax returns, it came out that one of the largest fees paid to Bill Clinton came from a charitable fundraising event organized by London socialite Renu Mehta. In 2006, Mehta organized the “Fortune Forum” to encourage Britain’s super-rich to give more to charity. The event was a success, drawing Lakshmi Mittal, Michael Douglas and others, but the overhead was very high, with a third of the money raised going to pay Clinton’s speaking fee:<\/a><\/p>\n\n

\n

The event raised about $1.5 million and brought together dozens of billionaires, celebrities and activists … But success came with a steep price. Fundraising costs consumed more than half of the proceeds, with $450,000 going to Clinton as a speaking fee, one of the largest he has collected as personal income. [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

What’s weird about this is that Bill charged this charitable event almost double what he charged other groups in the same period, even though one of the other groups was a for-profit partnership:<\/p>\n\n

\n

Clinton’s fee for his Fortune Forum appearance dwarfed the $280,000 the former president charged for a speech earlier in the day in London sponsored by a for-profit partnership and the $280,000 he received the next day for a speech in Dublin. [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

The outsized speaking fee makes me wonder if this was an indirect method of contributing to the Clinton campaign. While political donations are capped at $2,300, there is no limit on how much of one’s own money (or one’s spouse’s money) can be spent. So a payment to Bill Clinton, while taxable, is exempt from campaign finance regulation, although it may serve the same purpose. This suspicion is made a bit stronger by the fact that Clinton’s appearance was arranged by one of their key fundraisers, the controversial<\/a> hotelier and restauranteur Sant Singh Chatwal<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

This is one of the things that makes campaign finance regulation tricky – money finds a way to a candidate when people want to give it. However, with the FEC out of action this election (it has insufficient members<\/a> to constitute a quorum due to gridlock), the line between business deal and campaign gift is unlikely to be clarified any time soon.<\/p>\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, when the Clintons released their tax returns, it came out that one of the largest fees paid to Bill Clinton came from a charitable fundraising event organized by London socialite Renu Mehta. In 2006, Mehta organized the “Fortune … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5140"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}