How to get an award from the U.S. State Dept: Donate to the Clinton Foundation!

(NaturalNews) Life after being president has been pretty good for Bill Clinton. Since leaving office, he has amassed a fortune of an estimated $80 million -- this, after taking office in 1993 with one of the lowest net worth's of any 20th century president.

Not bad for a guy from Hope, Arkansas.

Of course, his wife, Hillary Clinton, has had a hand in building the Clinton family nest egg. She was a lawyer, an author (who was paid an advance of $14 million for her last book, Hard Choices, which few people are buying), a U.S. senator and secretary of state, though it was her last gig that seemed to really generate income for the family.

According to a report from the Washington Examiner (WE), 22 of 37 corporations nominated for a prestigious State Department award -- including six of the eight ultimate winners -- while Hillary Clinton was the nation's top diplomat were also donors to the Clinton family foundation.

Favorable policy decisions

The WE reported further:

The published donor records of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation don't give exact dates or amounts of its contributors, but it is possible to create a general timeline for when many of the corporations donated and when they were either nominated or selected for the award.

Cisco, a Silicon Valley tech behemoth, was the biggest foundation contributor nominated in 2009, handing the Clinton charity between $1 million and $5 million. Cisco then won the prestigious award in 2010 when eight of 12 finalists, and two of three eventual winners, had also donated.

In addition, it should be noted, Cisco Systems -- which had invested $16 billion in China -- was under scrutiny by Congress in 2008, according to the International Business Times. At issue: The company's technology was being used by the Chinese government in repressive censorship and other human rights abuses.

Clinton's nomination of Cisco and the company's eventual win allowed the company to change the subject, so to speak. Also, as IB Times reported, Clinton just happened to leave out the part that Cisco was donating to the family foundation when she presented the award for "outstanding corporate citizenship, innovation and democratic principles."

As the WE further noted, the other Clinton contributor that won in 2009 was candy giant Mars, Inc., which had given between $25,000 and $50,000 to the foundation. Coca-Cola was the foundation's most generous donor, making a contribution worth between $5 million and $10 million.

In 2009, seven of the 10 finalists were Clinton donors. Another 2009 winner was TOM's Shoes for its work in Argentina; that company donated between $100,000 and $250,000, records indicate.

Pay to play

In 2011, seven of the 12 finalists for the award also gave to the foundation. Proctor & Gamble, one of the winners, had given between $1 million and $5 million.

"Intel, another Silicon Valley giant, was nominated for an award each year of Clinton's time in office, winning the award in 2012. The technology company donated between $250,000 and $500,000," the Washington Examiner reported.

In recent weeks, Clinton announced her second bid for presidency, but her campaign thus far has been riddled with questions surrounding questionable donations to the foundation by both corporations and foreign governments, the latter of which were made when she was secretary of state -- which would seem a clear conflict of interest and possibly a violation of the Constitution. Also, she is being viewed with suspicion over her potentially illegal use of a private email server to conduct business as secretary of state. Since the discovery of the secret server, which was in her home at Chappaqua, N.Y., she said she unilaterally destroyed about 30,000 emails she claimed were personal.

A new, forthcoming book by Peter Schweizer, called Clinton Cash, claims to reveal "...a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds." Check it out now at Amazon.com.

Sources:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com

http://nymag.com

http://www.state.gov

http://www.ibtimes.com