Clintons Love Cash
Millions in Stock Converted to Cash to Avoid Campaign Conflicts
Bill and Hillary Clinton have dissolved the blind trust that has managed their investments since they entered the White House in 1993, converting all stocks to cash to avoid financial conflicts as she runs for president, according to documents to be filed today with federal ethics officials. The documents reviewed by The Washington Post provide the most complete accounting of how the Clintons accrued the $5 million to $25 million in the trust — nearly all since leaving the White House — through investments in foreign companies, oil giants and drugmakers without their input or knowledge and without public disclosure.
The Clintons were told earlier this year by federal ethics officials that they would need to reorganize their blind trust to comply with laws for presidential candidates, which differ from those for senators. The couple chose instead to dissolve the trust on April 27 and to convert all their stocks to cash to avoid any questions about possible conflicts of interests. The former president has also derived substantial income from speeches to companies and interest groups as his wife runs for the White House, earning nearly $6 million in the first five months of this year on top of the $40 million he earned over the previous five years, the documents show.
Presidential candidates frequently must answer questions about their investments — especially those involving companies whose records might conflict with the candidates’ positions or policies. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), for instance, promptly divested stocks this spring in companies that do business in the Darfur region of Sudan after those stocks attracted attention. Likewise, former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) has fielded questions about his consulting work and $1 million-plus stake in a hedge fund whose overseas tax breaks and investments in subprime lenders raised questions of conflicts with Edwards’s positions on those issues.
