Clinton Colombia Ties Don't Stop With Former Chief Strategist

Politico:

Mark Penn isn't the only Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter on the wrong side of the Colombia trade agreement.

The Democratic-leaning advocacy firm the Glover Park Group, former home to Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson, signed a $40,000 per month contract with the government of Colombia in April of 2007 to promote the very agreement that Clinton now rails against on the presidential campaign trail.

That means Glover Park Group was arguing the same position on the free trade agreement as has Penn, the contentious Clinton strategist and Burson-Marsteller chief executive who lost his campaign job over the weekend after The Wall Street Journal revealed that he'd met with Colombian officials to plot strategy on the pact.

Several other Glover Park employees have deep connections with the Clintons, including founding partner Joe Lockhart, who served as the White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Joel Johnson, who was a senior communications adviser in the Clinton White House.

Six employees of Glover Park Group contributed a total of nearly $20,000 to Clinton's campaign in 2007, according to data kept by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Wolfson, who is set to take over many responsibilities from the departing Penn, resigned from Glover Park last year to avoid conflicts of interest but retains an equity interest in the firm.

Keep reading.

Read the whole story: Politico

Comments

[OmahaDon]

WOW!

[HumeSkeptic]

What did Hillary know about ths, and when did she know it? That's what is most important.

[Pennyweight]

Why did I immediately think that Mark Penn pushed out this story. After all, he would know all the dteails. And it does distract from his own problems. Maybe I am a cynic, or maybe he is even slimer than we think.

[Prophesy]

Why, oh why, am I NOT surprised? I think it's time we put this NAFTA stuff to rest with Hillary's resignation. There's just too much...TOO­O MUCH working against her. It's nearly every day we catch her in another lie, or find negative tactics on her part, or uncover more corruption and conflict of interest with her very own staff.

Hillbots wont even talk about this things. Their forums even ban you if you speak bad about her hillaryclintonforums.comm, for example). If you scan through the forums, you'll see NO mention of bosniagate, hospitalgate, whitewater, nixongate.­...any of it. EXCEPT for the Mark Penn scandal. They agree on that. In fact, they hope it's an opening for Carville to step in.

It's time to put this all to bed....so that we can not only go after McSame, but so we can help these delusional people come around to doing what needs to be done....su­pporting the candidate that has obviously outperformed all the others....­.Obama.

[jsinclair]

Thanks for this story. I wish the media and public would get more interested in the ties of corporate lobbyists with the Clinton campaign. It's extensive--and troubling.

It is very possible that she has many other positions tailored for public and private communication--not just NAFTA>

[carolh11]

Thank you for following up on this story, HuffPo! Now talk about the Jake Tapper report from ABC News back on March 1 "- Bill Clinton and Frank Giustra -- Together Again"
The Wall Street Journal has also reported that Bill Clinton arranged for Giustra to meet Alvaro Uribe, the president of Colombia. And, lo and behold, a company Giustra's investment firm was advising acquired Colombian oil fields.

"And per Bloomberg News: "On June 21, 2005, Bill Clinton flew to Mexico City aboard a private jet that belonged to a Canadian investment banker he was meeting for the first time. The introduction paid off for both men. Clinton was borrowing the jetliner to begin a four-day speaking tour of Latin America that would pay him $800,000. Frank Giustra of Vancouver was forming a friendship that would make him part of the former president's inner circle and gain him introductions to presidents of Kazakhstan and Colombia, where he bought mineral rights. Giustra, 50, has since put his plane at Clinton's disposal at least a dozen times to raise money for charity, his wife's presidential campaign or himself, according to U.S. flight records and spokesmen for Clinton and Giustra...­"