It gives me no pleasure to report this. Sen. Clinton has some serious questions to answer.
Investigative journalist Greg Palast has posted a deeply disturbing article here. He documents Hillary Clinton's apparent long-term links with energy company Entergy.
Palast is known for meticulous research and letting the chips fall where they may. He ends his article with the question whether Entergy's "investment in Hillary's jail-bird partner" [Hubbell] is continuing to pay dividends:
Code Pink and New York environmentalists have been pulling out their hair over Senator Clinton’s backing of the operation of the creaky old Indian Point nuclear plant just above - and within irradiating distance of - New York City. The owner of the Indian Point nuke? Hillary’s old buck buddies, Entergy.
Am I saying Hillary would arrange for a payoff to keep witnesses silent, to poison US foreign policy for the profit of corporate cronies, to vote in Washington loaded down with conflicts of interest? I would never say so. Even if the evidence will.
Join me for more below.
Palast painstakingly connects Hillary Clinton's connections to a number of interconnected incidents. To put it lightly, it does not look good for Clinton. Palast warns from the start,
The story’s a little complicated, involving a New Orleans power company, Indonesian billionaires, a New York nuclear plant and plain old influence peddling. But if we follow the money, we’ll get the picture. And it ain’t pretty.
Some of the issues raised:
- Cash-for-access while H. Clinton's husband was President
- Entergy International (based in Little Rock and previously represented by a legal firm on which H. Clinton worked) was one of the pay-for-access payers to get access to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown
- Tony Blair's allowing Entergy to violate British policy on coal plants--after phone calls from Hillary Clinton (then First Lady)
- Riady's payments to Associate AG Webster Hubbell (later convicted and imprisoned), and H. Clinton's involvement which looks pretty bad (too many tapes or videos that malfunction at crucial moments; logs that go missing; etc.)
- Riady's payments apparently giving him access to the First Lady, and Riady's abiity to install a key staff member inside the Commerce Department
The impact on public policy purportedly included Riady's influencing then-President Clinton "to meet Indonesian dictator Suharto and to kill negative reports on East Timor and working conditions in Indonesia. Timorese and Indonesians paid for these policy flips with blood."
And, as mentioned above, there is the appearance of influence on a controversial nuclear energy installation in New York state--a current hot topic.
The web of connections is convincing. There are too many coincidences here, too many signposts of cover-ups, too much evidence disappearing under too-convenient circumstances, too many questions that cry out for answers.
Greg Palast is a hero of mine, largely because his investigations are both thorough and non-partisan. He follows a trail wherever it leads.
Hillary Clinton has some serious explaining to do.
Read Palast's full article and see what you think.
Better yet, Palast is speaking in Montpelier, VT at 7pm tonight. If anyone can ask him about this and bring more facts to light it would be useful.
If any candidate has ongoing corporate links that might impact their political decision-making, at the very least we have the right to know. That's the only way we can make informed decisions. Unless I learn more to change my mind, Palast's revelations would make it impossible for me to support Clinton if she gets the Democratic nomination.