The Republicans are trotting out her longtime ties to Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk as evidence of her unfitness for office.
Pinchuk has given generously – just how generously only he knows – to the Clinton Foundation. In return, he has bought himself a measure of legitimacy, evidently in hopes that Ukrainians will forget how he grew rich under the patronage of his father-in-law, former President Leonid Kuchma, who presided like a mafia boss over a gangster state during his decade of misrule. We will believe that President Petro Poroshenko is serious about fighting corruption when we see Kuchma stand trial on accusations that he ordered the Sept. 16, 2000, murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze. Kuchma has always denied involvement, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
The author of a forthcoming book called “Clinton Cash” dragged the Clintons and Pinchuk further into the mud by alleging that Pinchuk’s EastOne company violated an international trade ban by selling energy equipment to Iran. Pinchuk’s spokespeople deny that he did anything of the kind and he, like his father-in-law, deserve the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Then The New York Times did their own story on how ex-U.S. President Bill Clinton got paid $500,000 for a single speech at a time Russia’s atomic energy agency, Rosatom, was trying to acquire the Urainium One firm in Canada in the Kremlin’s bid to control the global supply of the heavy metal. The newspaper wrote that backers of Bill Clinton owned the mining firm that became Uranium One and eventually sold to Russia.
One sentence in the April 23 report by the The New York Times cuts to the chase: “Shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.”
Meanwhile, getting less attention worldwide, Ukrainian politicians recently filed their often fishy and funny reports that reveal a great mismatch between their stated incomes and assets.
As Katya Gorchinskaya wrote on April 23 for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “the gaps between officials’ incomes and their assets are a painful reminder of the deep-rooted corruption and insider deals that continue to plague Ukrainian politics, despite being the main cause of two revolutions.”
Two examples cited by Gorchinskaya: ex-President Victor Yanukovych’s former presidential chief of staff Serhiy Lyovochkin made more than $430,000 last year, but the origin of this money is unclear. RFE/RL also wrote that another opposition politician, Ihor Yeremeev, made more than $1 million in dividends, but wouldn’t name the companies.
At the least, these disclosures show that big money still infects big politics, usually to the detriment of the public interest. The sordid reality makes a strong argument for public financing of election campaigns and strict bans on private donations. But for that to happen, the “little” people among us will have to band together as never before.
