By DICK MORRIS &
EILEEN MCGANN
This is a more detailed version of a column
that was published in The New York Post on May 24,
2007.
Since he left office in 2001, former president Bill
Clinton has been paid by InfoUSA, an Omaha, Nebraska company that has been
identified as a key provider of specially designed databases that are sold to
criminals who use the detailed information to defraud the unsuspecting elderly.
Because Senate financial disclosure rules do not
require Hillary Clinton to reveal exactly how much -- or for what -- the company
has paid her husband over the past five years, we don't know all the
details. But we do know this: former presidents - especially Bill Clinton -
don't come cheap. And, just months after he left the presidency, Bill Clinton
was paid $200,000 for a speech given to InfoUSA in Omaha. Since then, he has
been paid an undisclosed amount each year, listed only as "more than $1000" for
'non-employee compensation" on Senator Clinton's Senate financial disclosure
form.
According to the The New York Times, InfoUSA
compiled and sold lists that disclosed the names of elderly men and women who
would be likely to respond to unscrupulous scams. The lists left no doubt about
the vulnerability of the elderly targets. The Times reported, for example, that
InfoUSA advertised lists of "Elderly Opportunity Seekers," 3.3 million
older people "looking for ways to make money," and "Suffering Seniors," 4.7
million people with cancer or Alzheimer's disease. "Oldies but Goodies"
contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list
said: "These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can
change."
InfoUSA sold lists to companies that were under
investigation or closed down by courts because of their criminal activity. The
company's internal emails show that employees were aware that the investigation
for elderly fraud involved their customers, but sold the lists
anyway.
The Times profiled one unfortunate 92 year old man
who entered a sweepstake sponsored by InfoUSA. The information that he
innocently provided was then sold to the predator marketers. After responding to
their telemarketing calls seeking financial information, his entire life savings
was stolen from his bank account at Wachovia Bank. These practices, using lists
supplied by InfoUSA were repeated all over the country.
Last week, Hillary Clinton sought and obtained an
extension of time to file her presidential candidate financial disclosure
statement. Unlike the information required of Senators, this filing
requires her to list not just the sources of Bill's income but exactly how much
they paid him. While Senator Clinton offered no reason for the
postponement, one cannot help wondering if a desire to conceal InfoUSA's
payments to her husband while the company is under fire.
The
relationship between Bill Clinton and Vinod "Vin" Gupta, the CEO and Chairman of
InfoUSA is both long-standing and deep. A frequent Clinton donor, he has
stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom, admitted to donating $1,000,000 to the Clinton
Library and told the press that he'd consider an additional donation. Again,
since the Clintons refuse to disclose who donated money to the
library, we don't know the total that he actually gave. In late 1999,
Gupta gave $2,000,000 for Hillary Clinton's Millennium New Year's Eve bash.
(They party cost $16 million and was closed to the press!)
The links between Gupta and the Clintons are
extensive:
* Gutpa raised over
$200,000 for Hillary's Senate campaigns and contributed thousands to the DNC and
Democratic House and Senate campaigns.
* InfoUSA was one of the
sponsors of the Aspen Festival of Ideas last summer where Bill and Hillary
Clinton both spoke.
* Gupta built the Bill
Clinton Science & Technology Center and the Hillary Clinton Mass
Communications Center in his hometown of Rampur, India
* Bill and Gutpa traveled
to India together
* Gupta reportedly paid for
a golf outing for Bill at a legendary Scottish course
* InfoUSA appointed Terry
McAuliffe, the Clinton's longtime money man to the Board of Directors of
its subsidiary company videoyellowpagesusa.com
* Clinton appointed Gupta
to the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees only a few days before he left
office
* Clinton also nominated
Gupta as Consul General of Bermuda and U.S. Ambassador to Fiji, but Gupta was
never confirmed
* Gupta's company
co-sponsored the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative
* Gupta sent a $7000
treadmill to Chappaqua days after the Clintons left the White House. After the
NY Post disclosed the gift, the Clintons returned the gift.
Gupta's generosity to the Clintons is only matched
by his generosity to himself. InfoUSA has lately been attacked by some of
its shareholders, particularly by the Greenwich, Connecticut company
Cardinal Capital that went after Conrad Black. Lord Black is now on trial in
Chicago for corporate fraud.
Cardinal Capital objected to Gupta's purchase of a
$600,000 skybox at the University of Nebraska, his family's charges of $13.5
million in private jet charges, and $2.5 million for the long term lease of a
yacht - all with corporate funds.
In addition to his 2001 visit to the company's
headquarters, Bill Clinton was back there to speak at a conference on privacy
issues in September 2006. Senator Clinton's disclosure statement for that period
has not been publicly released, so we don't know how much he was
paid.
This connection between the Clintons and InfoUSA
only underscores the necessity of full disclosure of income sources and amounts
by all the presidential candidates and the release of their income tax returns,
a step Mrs. Clinton has, thus far, refused to take.
***Copyright Eileen McGann and Dick Morris
2007. Reprints with permission only***