Clinton and Giustra

IT ain't goin' away. Recently Bloomberg reports on Clinton's role in acquiring mineral rights for Giustra in both Columbia and Khazakstan. I don't think he can claim 'Right Wing Conspiracy' on this one.

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.

Here is the problem:

`If former President Clinton is making decisions about where to put the charitable efforts of the Clinton Foundation based even partly on where he's likely to benefit personally, or see his friends benefit, then that clearly is a classic conflict of interest,'' says Aaron Dorfman, executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in Washington.