Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon today details how the Clintons pushed for a $10 million loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) to Clinton Foundation donor Claudio Osorio, who now sits in a federal penitentiary, serving a 12-year term for fraud.
The loan was rushed through and Osorio was never required to provide an audited financial statement. The loan was supposed to be for building houses in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, but Osorio instead used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle and to buy off politicians.
Documents uncovered by the National Legal and Policy Center show that Bill Clinton lined a up well-connected law firm to represent Osario with OPIC, and Hillary Clinton went to bat for the project within the State Department. OPIC is technically an independent agency but submits its budget through the State Department.
Whereas Osorio’s Ponzi-like schemes have generated headlines, and even an American Greed episode on CNBC, the role of the Clintons' involvement in the OPIC loan has not been previously reported.
From the article:
The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group that has spent months investigating the documents related to this case, told the Free Beacon that it was “a textbook example of a corrupt pay-to-play scheme” and called for an investigation of OPIC.
“This case represents a new low in the misuse of public funds by Clinton allies,” said NLPC chairman Ken Boehm. “There must be an investigation into why this Clinton donor was using a law firm recommended by Bill Clinton and one of Hillary Clinton’s top fund raisers to improperly obtain millions from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.”