Nikki Schwab of the Daily Mail reviews the new documentary film “Clinton Cash,” based on Peter Schweizer’s bestselling book of the same name. The film, Schwab writes, “links money given to Bill Clinton for paid speeches to decisions Hillary Clinton made at State,” thus showing that “all those contributions to the Clinton Foundation weren’t pure altruism,” but rather influence-peddling to get the Clintons “to overlook human rights violations by unsavory world leaders.”
Audiences in Cannes are getting a taste of the searing new documentary ‘Clinton Cash,’ which offers a harsh indictment of the paid speeches, personal favors, and personal enrichment that have accompanied Bill and Hillary Clinton through their decades in politics.
And if the movie-maker’s wishes come true, so will Americans – the night before Clinton is formally named her party’s White House candidate
The hour-long movie attempts to follow the money that has flowed toward Bill and Hillary Clinton since the former president left the White House, and suggests that much of it came from a cast of companies and countries seeking favorable treatment from the powerful pair.
Among the more damaging revelations in the film: out of 13 speeches ex-president Bill Clinton gave that earned more than $500,000 on the speaking circuit, 11 of them were during his wife’s reign as secretary of state.
The film also probes the $1.4 million Bill Clinton got from a Nigerian newspaper to deliver two speeches in 2011 and 212, notwithstanding Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s human rights record.
It also also lays out unsavory dealings in South Sudan, the Democratic of the Congo, and Haiti, as it constructs at thesis that regimes and companies ingratiated themselves with the Clintons through charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation and by offering hefty speaking fees to the Clintons.
Then it looks at who among the Clintons’ employers had something to gain, like TD Bank, a company that backed the Keystone XL pipeline and payed $2 million for Bill Clinton speeches.
The film doesn’t present hard evidence of an illegal quid pro quo, but it lays out a torrent of information for viewers to consider, and throws in images of blood-stained cash to drive the point home.
As if on cue, Hillary Clinton released a personal financial disclosure form this week that reveals she got $5 million in royalties from her 2014 book and $1.5 million in speaking fees in 2015 as she was gearing up to run for president.
Based on the book by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer, the film connects the dots between donations to the Clinton Foundation or given to the ex-president for paid speeches and decisions Hillary Clinton made while being secretary of state.
‘Cronyism and self-enrichment are a bipartisan affair, and Hillary and Bill Clinton have perfected them on a global scale,’ Schweizer says in the film.
Read the rest here.
Watch the Clinton Cash trailer below:
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