WASHINGTON, June 15, 2007
Clintons Liquidate Controversial Stocks
Hoping To Avoid Conflict Of Interest, Blind Trust With Investments In Oil, Drug Companies Sold
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Sen. Hillary Clinton, left, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton liquidated a blind trust valued at $5 million to $25 million in April. (AP)
"As a presidential candidate, Senator Clinton was required to make her assets public. As a result, she had to dissolve her blind trust," Howard Wolfson, a senior Clinton adviser, said late Thursday. "Upon its dissolution, she and the president chose to go above and beyond what was required of them and liquidate their assets in order to avoid even the hint of a conflict of interest."
Those investments included several pharmaceutical companies, including Abbott Labs, Amgen, Genentech, Novartis, Pfizer and Wyeth, with assets in each company ranging from $100,001 to $250,000, The New York Times reported in Friday editions. Other assets included BP Amoco, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Raytheon and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
The Clintons sold the stock in April as they prepared to disclose their holdings under government ethics rules for presidential candidates, the Times said, adding that until getting ready to release the holdings in the blind trust, the Clintons did not know what stocks and other financial assets it contained.
They were to publicly disclose the assets on Friday, The Washington Post reported.
Other presidential candidates have been adjusting their financial portfolios during the 2008 campaign. Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republicans Sam Brownback and Rudy Giuliani have taken steps to divest their personal finances of Sudan-related holdings out of concern for the genocide taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Filings made public by the Federal Elections Commission Thursday showed that former President Clinton upped his speechmaking money from the previous year, garnering some $10.2 million in payments, compared with about $7.5 million the year before.
The Clintons had a much more pedestrian income when he ran for president in 1992. If Sen. Clinton's 2008 presidential bid is successful, they will enter the White House a very rich couple.
Six years out of power, Bill Clinton can still raise huge sums with a personal appearance. He made a staggering $450,000 for a single September speech in London, at a Fortune Forum event, as well as $200,000 for an April appearance in the Bahamas to speak to IBM, and another $200,000 for a New York speech to General Motors.
The former president's earnings must be reported as the spouse of a senator. Disclosure rules do not require him to reveal everything. He received an advance from Random House for an unpublished manuscript, but is only required to say that it was greater than $1,000.
He also did not have to say how much he earns as a partner with Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund, a Los Angeles-based investment firm.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- Aristocracy-
a government or state ruled by an elite, or privileged upper class.
Oligarchy-
a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
Plutocracy-
a government or state in which the wealthy class rules.
The Land of the Free..... - Reply to this comment
- This selloff merely shows the public how they SELL US OUT and whom they ACTUALLY SUPPORT until they change "faces" and want to be elected. Big oil, China-Mart, and the major druggies.... imagine that
- Reply to this comment
- Even Mr Powell 2004 blamed the government of Sudan and pro-government ARAB Janjaweed militias for the rapes, torture and killings, so surely Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republicans Sam Brownback and Rudy Giuliani would have known about it.
And guess what, Just about everybody in Sudan is Muslim and who are they killing, the Christians and non muslims, just another Muslim country killing the people...
Twenty years of systematic persecution and killing of non-Muslim Blacks:
Forced conversion to Islam: Non-Muslim children are often forcibly placed in madrassas (Islamic schools). Slavery: The Arabian slave trade of non-Muslim blacks in Sudan is centuries old; today's slave raids into Christian regions serve the purpose of supplying cheap labor to the north, terrorizing the local population and waging jihad on the infidels. Often adult men are slaughtered, while women and children (both boys and girls) are abducted, sometimes gang raped, and taken north to be used as concubines and laborers. and Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republicans Sam Brownback and Rudy Giuliani are only just doing something about their interestes in sudan, has to be because of the elections, NOT because of their concerns for the people???? hmmmm.. - Reply to this comment
- Above it says...Other presidential candidates have been adjusting their financial portfolios during the 2008 campaign. Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republicans Sam Brownback and Rudy Giuliani have taken steps to divest their personal finances of Sudan-related holdings out of concern for the genocide taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan.
You have to be joking, the genocide in Sudan has been going on for many years. The Sudanese people have been crying out for help for years and no one took any notice up until now when the elections are on the way, hmmmm
60 minutes documented it in 2005 where they said that there are at least 180,000 dead and more than 2 million on the run, and this had been going on since at least 2003, and these people above are only just doing something about their their personal finances of Sudan-related holdings, just before an election, come on hmmm. - Reply to this comment
- sjc- said...Right wingers do not care about fairness, justice and truth, they just repeat the same distortions and misleading comments...
sjc, I think that the right are just learning from what the left have done for 100 years and learnt that it works so they should put aside trying to do it morally and copy the lefts example...
I used to be a swinging voter but became disgusted with the lies and hypocrisy of the left..the left will make a statement about the right which they know isn't true simply because they know that when it is proved to be incorrect that some if it will stick in the minds of the people.. Where I am from the left is in government and they have even made it legal for them to be able to lie in parliament..hmmm
The left will tell everyone that the right is only there for the business and that the right doesnt care about the people, and that the left is the only one who cares about the people.. Well tell me Mr. left how do the people keep working when the left has destroyed the business????. So the right knows that if they keep business operational then the people will have work, isn't that caring about the people????, but if you destroy business as the left do then where are the poor people going to get jobs from eh????
And Oh, we have just had the same thing happen here, where the oppositions wife had a business in something which compromised her husbands position... hmmm - Reply to this comment
- People, it is a BLIND trust. That means that she does NOT get to pick and choose what stocks get purchased at all...hence the name Blind Trust.
To try and claim hypocrisy because there may have been some oil stocks in there that she never directed purchasing, is just off the mark.
Right wingers do not care about fairness, justice and truth, they just repeat the same distortions and misleading comments to try to ruin an opponent's image. - Reply to this comment
- also find it interesting that Hilary wants to tax and punish big oil, but doesn't mind investing in and benefiting from their profits.
Typical democrat, do what I say, not what I do. Sounds like Al Gore.
Posted by setumstrt9 at 04:43 PM : Jun 15, 2007
That's true of any of them!! - Reply to this comment
- Did I forget to mention she is ugly?
- Reply to this comment
- Posted by sparks224 at 03:18 PM : Jun 15, 2007
"The Republicans openly support Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance (and these companies openly support the Republicans), the companies that are driving the middle class into bankruptcy."
Wanna bring some facts to the table to back up your claims, a$$wipe?
Lousy, eaten-up inside hypocrite! The Liberals accept money from all the BIG companies all the time, but then have to 'hide' it in 'blind' trusts so they can con votes out of 'the little, downtrodden, poverty-stricked' lower class they claim to support. The same lower class that will lower the boom on Billary for their two-faced lies and deceipt.
And if Billary, for all her vaunted prowess as a presidential candidate, couldn't see her own husband *** other women under her own nose IN THEIR OWN HOUSE, and hadn't a clue, even though she knows the law, as to what was in a trust fund SHE registered under HER name, WHY THE FRIGGIN HELL DO YOU WANT HER AS PRESIDENT THEN? SHE IS A CLUE-LESS, BLIND, UGLY, SMELLY, RIDING-ON-HER-HUSBANDS-SPERM-COVERED-COAT-TAILS LOSER! - Reply to this comment
- Posted by sparks224 at 03:18 PM : Jun 15, 2007
"The Republicans openly support Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance (and these companies openly support the Republicans), the companies that are driving the middle class into bankruptcy."
Wanna bring some facts to the table to back up your claims, a$$wipe?
Lousy, eaten-up inside hypocrite! The Liberals accept money from all the BIG companies all the time, but then have to 'hide' it in 'blind' trusts so they can con votes out of 'the little, downtrodden, poverty-stricked' lower class they claim to support. The same lower class that will lower the boom on Billary for their two-faced lies and deceipt.
And if Billary, for all her vaunted prowess as a presidential candidate, couldn't see her own husband *** other women under her own nose IN THEIR OWN HOUSE, and hadn't a clue, even though she knows the law, as to what was in a trust fund SHE registered under HER name, WHY THE FRIGGIN HELL DO YOU WANT HER AS PRESIDENT THEN? SHE IS A CLUE-LESS, BLIND, UGLY, SMELLY, RIDING-ON-HER-HUSBANDS-SPERM-COVERED-COAT-TAILS LOSER! - Reply to this comment
- Posted by sparks224 at 03:18 PM : Jun 15, 2007
"The Republicans openly support Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance (and these companies openly support the Republicans), the companies that are driving the middle class into bankruptcy."
Wanna bring some facts to the table to back up your claims, a$$wipe?
Lousy, eaten-up inside hypocrite! The Liberals accept money from all the BIG companies all the time, but then have to 'hide' it in 'blind' trusts so they can con votes out of 'the little, downtrodden, poverty-stricked' lower class they claim to support. The same lower class that will lower the boom on Billary for their two-faced lies and deceipt.
And if Billary, for all her vaunted prowess as a presidential candidate, couldn't see her own husband *** other women under her own nose IN THEIR OWN HOUSE, and hadn't a clue, even though she knows the law, as to what was in a trust fund SHE registered under HER name, WHY THE FRIGGIN HELL DO YOU WANT HER AS PRESIDENT THEN? SHE IS A CLUE-LESS, BLIND, UGLY, SMELLY, RIDING-ON-HER-HUSBANDS-SPERM-COVERED-COAT-TAILS LOSER! - Reply to this comment
- Posted by sparks224 at 03:18 PM : Jun 15, 2007
"The Republicans openly support Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance (and these companies openly support the Republicans), the companies that are driving the middle class into bankruptcy."
Wanna bring some facts to the table to back up your claims, a$$wipe?
Lousy, eaten-up inside hypocrite! The Liberals accept money from all the BIG companies all the time, but then have to 'hide' it in 'blind' trusts so they can con votes out of 'the little, downtrodden, poverty-stricked' lower class they claim to support. The same lower class that will lower the boom on Billary for their two-faced lies and deceipt.
And if Billary, for all her vaunted prowess as a presidential candidate, couldn't see her own husband *** other women under her own nose IN THEIR OWN HOUSE, and hadn't a clue, even though she knows the law, as to what was in a trust fund SHE registered under HER name, WHY THE FRIGGIN HELL DO YOU WANT HER AS PRESIDENT THEN? SHE IS A CLUE-LESS, BLIND, UGLY, SMELLY, RIDING-ON-HER-HUSBANDS-SPERM-COVERED-COAT-TAILS LOSER! - Reply to this comment
- Posted by sparks224 at 03:18 PM : Jun 15, 2007
"The Republicans openly support Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance (and these companies openly support the Republicans), the companies that are driving the middle class into bankruptcy."
Wanna bring some facts to the table to back up your claims, a$$wipe?
Lousy, eaten-up inside hypocrite! The Liberals accept money from all the BIG companies all the time, but then have to 'hide' it in 'blind' trusts so they can con votes out of 'the little, downtrodden, poverty-stricked' lower class they claim to support. The same lower class that will lower the boom on Billary for their two-faced lies and deceipt.
And if Billary, for all her vaunted prowess as a presidential candidate, couldn't see her own husband *** other women under her own nose IN THEIR OWN HOUSE, and hadn't a clue, even though she knows the law, as to what was in a trust fund SHE registered under HER name, WHY THE FRIGGIN HELL DO YOU WANT HER AS PRESIDENT THEN? SHE IS A CLUE-LESS, BLIND, UGLY, SMELLY, RIDING-ON-HER-HUSBANDS-SPERM-COVERED-COAT-TAILS LOSER! - Reply to this comment
- This story didn't spend much time on the website's main page. If it would have been a controversial story about a republican Presidential candidate it would've been the lead story for 3 days.
I also find it interesting that Hilary wants to tax and punish big oil, but doesn't mind investing in and benefiting from their profits.
Typical democrat, do what I say, not what I do. Sounds like Al Gore. - Reply to this comment
- It was a "blind trust" and they didn't know what the investments were. Yet, the headline says, "Hoping To Avoid Conflict Of Interest, Blind Trust With Investments In Oil, Drug Companies Sold."
Sounds to me like they knew what was in it. They probably made a fortune by bad mouthing "Big Oil" and selling short. There ought to be an investigation. I guarantee, if they were republicans, there would be.
Two faced crooked democrats. - Reply to this comment
- how much money have they all made with the murders of our troops..
how much money???????????????????
million and millions. but they didn't know right go ahead and say it again bill and misery i never had *** oh i mean never made money on our troops - Reply to this comment
- infidel_us,
Would that be the fact flavored Kool-Aid? - Reply to this comment
- Here's another Clinton story I find hard to swallow (!)
- Reply to this comment
- sparks224,
Enjoy your Kool-Aid! - Reply to this comment
- "Sure. If "W" was running around shooting his moouth off about "BIG OIL"..."
Posted by infidel_us
You actually have a point there infidel_us.
The Republicans openly support Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance (and these companies openly support the Republicans), the companies that are driving the middle class into bankruptcy.
Congratulations on making a point. - Reply to this comment
