Hillary, Iran, and The Clinton Foundation by Rachel Ehrenfeld
Until on November 20, 2008, then Senator Hillary Clinton ardently opposed direct talks with the terrorist Republic of Iran, favored increased sanctions and stated that any attempt of direct talks with Iran, is “irresponsible and frankly naïve.”
However, to become Obama’s Secretary of State she changed her tune and agreed to “low level talks” with Iran.
On January 1, 2009, Forbes was first to publish my Clinton’s Iranian Connection, reporting that on Dec. 19, 2008, at 2pm, the New York based Iranian government’s Alavi Foundation, which “reported directly” to the Supreme Leader, contributed between $25,000 and $50,000 to the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Earlier that very same day, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted the president of the Alavi Foundation, Farshid Jahedi, “on a charge of obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying documents required to be produced under a grand jury subpoena concerning the Alavi Foundation’s relationship with Bank Melli Iran and the ownership of a Manhattan office building.”
Two days before Alavi’s contribution to Clinton, the Treasury Department designated Alavi’s partner, the New York-based ASSA Corp., as a terrorist entity, and the New York Southern District’s attorney forfeited 40% of its assets. According to the Treasury Department, “Assa … continued to provide services to Bank Melli by maintaining Melli’s interest in 650 Fifth Avenue Co. and transferring income from 650 Fifth Avenue Co. to Bank Melli.” Thus, the Iranian government through ASSA and the Alavi Foundation owned 650 Fifth Avenue Co.
According to the U.S. Attorney, “The Alavi Foundation has been providing numerous services to the Iranian Government, including managing the [650 Fifth Ave.] building for the Iranian Government, running a charitable organization for the Iranian Government, and transferring funds from 650 Fifth Avenue Company to Bank Melli Iran (“Bank Melli”), a bank wholly owned and controlled by the Government of Iran”, which was designated as terrorist on June 29, 2005.
However, the December 18, 2008 was not the first time the Clinton Foundation accepted contributions from this Iranian front organization. According to Alavi’s 2006 tax returns (page 65), it gave the Clinton Foundation $30,000.
Moreover, the very same Alavi Foundation was also known for contributing at least $1.4 million to Blind Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman’s Brooklyn mosque between 1987 to 1989.
Shortly after Forbes exposed the December 2008 Alavi contribution to the Clinton Foundation, Matt McKenna, a spokesman for both the former president and the William J. Clinton Foundation called me angrily to protest the expose, but did not deny the contribution.
When the Justice Department moved to seize the Alavi properties in September 2009, McKenna, said “the Alavi Foundation donated the money to a tsunami relief fund set up by Clinton in 2005 and that the Clinton Foundation had no plans to return it.”
While the Alavi Foundation contributions to the Clinton Foundation were probably legal when they were given, they were certainly malodorous. Apparently, not malodorous enough for the faint-hearted Clintons.
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