As mentioned on Monday, Judicial Watch released another 725 pages of Hilary Clinton State Dept. emails many of which demonstrated Huma Abedin’s role as the point State Dept. person in the Hillary Clinton/Clinton Foundation pay for play racket.
On Tuesday, Judicial Watch added to the pressure by bringing up that the Hillary Clinton State Dept. pulled strings so that Miami businessman/Clinton Foundation Donor Claudio Osorio could get a $10 million loan from the federal government which he never intended to repay. Mr. Osorio is now serving a 12-year prison sentence for scamming the federal government and others out of millions.
According to Judicial Watch:
Osorio got the money from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a federal agency that operates under the guidance of the State Department, to build houses in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. The OPIC supposedly promotes U.S. government investments abroad to foster the development and growth of free markets. Osorio’s “Haiti project” was supposed to build 500 homes for displaced families in the aftermath of the earthquake. The project never broke ground and Osorio used the money to finance his lavish lifestyle and fund his illicit business ventures. He also ran a fraudulent international company with facilities in the U.S., United Arab Emirates, Germany, Angola and Tanzania that stole millions from investors. Some of the OPIC Haiti money was used to repay investors of his fraudulent company (Innovida), according to federal prosecutors. In September 2013, Osorio was sentenced to 150 months imprisonment and three years of supervised release.
A strange part of the charges and conviction is the Department of Justice (DOJ) never mentioned Osorio’s Clinton connections and seemed to downplay the $10 million scam of taxpayer funds by focusing on the “victims” that invested in his bogus company, no mention of who pulled the strings to get him the loan:
According to statements made in court, the second conspiracy to commit wire fraud related to a $10,000,000 loan that Osorio and another applied for and obtained a from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (“OPIC”), a U.S. government agency that promotes U.S. government investments abroad to foster the development and growth of free markets. The purported purpose of the loan was to build a manufacturing facility and 500 homes in Haiti (“the Haiti project”) for displaced families in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake. Osorio and others made materially false representations and omissions concerning, among other things, the profitability of Innovida, the purported use of the loan proceeds, an equity contribution to be made by Innovida, and contracts that Innovida purportedly had obtained with third-party vendors. Osorio used the OPIC loan proceeds to repay investors and for his and his co-conspirators’ personal benefit and to further the fraud scheme.
Among them was a beloved professional basketball star. “Osorio offered and sold shareholder interests and joint-venture partnerships in Innovida to select individuals and groups, raising more than $40,000,000 from approximately ten (10) investors and investment groups in the United States and abroad,” the DOJ statement also explains:
“Osorio solicited and recruited investors by making materially false representations and concealing and omitting material facts regarding, among other things, the profitability of the company, the rates of return on investment funds, the use of investors’ funds and the existence of a pending lucrative contract with a third-party entity. Osorio received moneys from investors based on these misrepresentations. Osorio used investor monies for his and his co-conspirators’ personal benefit and to maintain and further the fraud scheme.”
Apparently the Clinton State Department helped him get $10 million because he was a Clinton Foundation donor. No one realized this until years after Osorio got sentenced.
After his 2013 sentencing in Miami, the area’s largest newspaper tied him to the Clintons and President Obama as a campaign donor who held fundraisers at his waterfront home, but the foundation was not mentioned. The Free Beacon eventually connected the dots after obtaining a document that shows an OPIC official recommending funding for Osorio’s Haiti project.
In the document, the OPIC official writes that Osorio’s company had “U.S. persons of political influence that are able to assist in advancing the company’s plans.” It continues: “For instance, former President Bill Clinton is personally in contact with the Company to organize its logistical and support needs,” the document states. “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made available State Department resources to assist with logistical arrangements.” Additionally, the Clinton Global Initiative had “indicated that it would be willing to contract to purchase 6,500 homes in Haiti from InnoVida within the next year.”
According to the OPIC proposal (embedded below) Miami businessman Claudio Osorio and his company InnoVida would build homes on the island using low-cost proprietary panels. Lynn Tabernacki, OPIC’s renewable energy director, noted in the report that InnoVida had “U.S. persons of political influence that are able to assist in advancing the company’s plans.”
“For instance, former President Bill Clinton is personally in contact with the Company to organize its logistical and support needs,” wrote Tabernacki. “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made available State Department resources to assist with logistical arrangements.”
Additionally, the Clinton Global Initiative had “indicated that it would be willing to contract to purchase 6,500 homes in Haiti from InnoVida within the next year.”
What was not explicitly stated in the memo, but known to OPIC officials at the time, was that Osorio had a prior relationship with the Clintons. Days earlier, the businessman had shown Tabernacki a video of Bill Clinton speaking at his home in 2007. The speech took place during a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign that Osorio hosted at his Star Island mansion.
Osorio was also a Clinton Foundation donor, contributing between $10,000 and $50,000 to the organization. Additionally, he had hired Clinton’s 2008 finance director Jonathan Mantz to lobby OPIC for the loan request.
According to the Beacon, less than 24 hours after the OPIC official submitted the recommendation, the news report says, OPIC approved Osorio’s $10 million loan to build homes in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Not one was ever built and no one has been held accountable for giving the crooked businessman millions of taxpayer dollars.
Documents uncovered by the National Legal and Policy Center show that Bill Clinton lined a up well-connected law firm to represent Osario with OPIC, and Hillary Clinton went to bat for the project within the State Department. OPIC is technically an independent agency but submits its budget through the State Department.
Unlike yesterday’s revelation there is no smoking gun in this case, but there’s a heck of a lot of circumstantial evidence.
Taxpayerdollars by Jeffrey Dunetz on Scribd
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