Apparently the State Department vetoed what has to have been one of the most lucrative offers Bill Clinton received while Hillary was the secretary of state. Along with a paid speech in North Korea, the Congo offer was more than the Foggy Bottom bureaucrats could stomach. Richard Miniter reports, and wonders exactly what was being purchased.
Congo, one of the poorest nations on Earth, offered former President Bill Clinton a speaking fee of $650,000–a sum equal to annual per-capita income of 2,813 Congolese. (snip)
What could Congo President Joseph Kabila want? While the possibilities are endless, two seem most likely: he sought U.S. permission to ignore Congo’s constitution and stay in power beyond his two-term limit, which expires in 2016, and he wanted to shield his overseas assets from international investigators.
Bill and Hillary, especially when she was secretary of state, could be helpful on each count, if they wanted to be. Staying in power and keeping billions in shadowy gains would certainly be worth $650,000, if that was the deal that Kabila had in mind.
Kabila is now known to be stashing money overseas:
The twin sister of Congo President Joseph Kabila also appears in the “Panama papers” owning a shell company whose value may exceed $100 million. Kabila’s sister, Jaynet Kyungu, opened the company soon after her brother came to power. The initial directors were listed as Kalume Nyembwe Feruzi and “Ursula Kyungu,” which is a name Jaynet Kyungu sometimes uses in corporate records. Feruzi’s family reportedly have been close to the Kabila family since Laurent Desire Kabila, Joseph Kabila’s and Jaynet Kyungu’s father, was president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The shell company, Keratsu Holding Limited, was incorporated in the tiny South Pacific island country of Niue on June 19, 2001, five months after Joseph Kabila became president.
Nothing at all shady here.
And this does not even consider the other part of the offer. It was actually sponsored jointly by two nations with Congo in their name: Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, across the Congo River. Lord only knows what they wanted for their half of the bill.
Of course, the money was to paid to the family foundation, which pays the salaries for political aides, charters private jets for travel and five-star hotels for the family, and, cough, does “wonderful work.”