ONE MORE “WHOPPER” FROM THE MOUTH OF DONALD TRUMP

The “mouth” himself.

 

Checking everything coming out of Trump’s mouth has become a “Cottage Industry”.

 

We have all been having to deal with the many un-truths that are continually coming from Donald Trump’s mouth.

 

Well, here verbatim, is the latest example of another whopper (just one of many) that Trump is telling about Hillary Clinton, and it has received a full, Four Pinocchio “lie-rating” from The Fact Checkers.

 

“As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton laundered money to Bill Clinton through Laureate Education, while Bill Clinton was an honorary chairman of the group. Clinton’s State Department provided $55.2 million in grants to Laureate Education from 2010-2012. Laureate thanked Bill for providing unbelievable access to the Secretary of State by paying him off $16.5 million. This is yet another example of how Clinton treated the State Department as her own personal hedge fund, and sold out the American public to fund her lavish lifestyle.”

 

This was Donald Trump’s campaign email response to Hillary Clinton’s speech of June 21, 2016

 

The Trump campaign sent out a series of e-mails and Twitter responses during Hillary Clinton’s speech attacking his business record, and among them was the above claim.  As usual, the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for supporting information.

 

In his speech the next day attacking Clinton’s record as Secretary of State, Trump repeated the charge that Clinton treated the State Department as her “personal hedge fund” again without evidence to back it up, either.

 

This is a talking point that goes back to Peter Schweizer’s bogus book, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.”

 

In discussing Bill Clinton’s role with Laureate Education, Inc., Schweizer described a “Clinton blur” between the activities of Bill Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. But all the  critics, including Schweizer, have not been able to prove any part of this claim.

 

The short answer here is: Laureate Education Inc. did not receive $55.2 million in grants from the State Department while Bill Clinton was being paid by the company. This talking point is worth unraveling, so it has been fully explored.

 

Here are the Facts

 

Laureate Education Inc., is a for-profit, higher education company that owns 85 campus-based and online schools around the world. It mainly operates overseas and is known as the world’s largest for-profit education company — larger than University of Phoenix, which may be a more familiar name to Americans.

 

President Bill Clinton was an honorary chancellor of Laureate International Universities, which is a part of Laureate Education Inc.  This was from 2010 through 2014.

 

In a news release announcing his role, Clinton said he had visited Laureate’s schools the prior year and found that private universities “exemplify the same principles of innovation and social responsibility in education that we worked to advance during my Presidency and now through my [Clinton] Foundation.”

 

Clinton was paid $16.5 million between 2010 and 2015, according to his federal tax return.

 

Clinton’s main responsibility was to speak to students at Laureate campuses around the world, from Turkey to Peru to Malaysia and beyond, about the “importance of their lives as young people in the world today,” his spokesperson has said. He also advised Laureate on youth leadership and expanding access to higher education.

 

Trump still says Laureate received $55.2 million in grants from the State Department from 2010 to 2012. No evidence of direct grants from State Department to Laureate was found in those years, or any other point during Hillary Clinton’s term as Secretary of State. However, Laureate said the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development awarded less than $1.5 million in grants and scholarships for four of its schools in other countries between 2009 and 2016.

 

The scholarships were given to students attending those schools, and grants were given to “promote access to a free and open internet and integrate technology in teaching to enhance student learning,” Laureate’s spokesperson said. The bulk of the grants were awarded between 2013 and 2016, after Hillary Clinton’s term. Three scholarships worth less than $15,000 total were awarded between 2010 and 2014.

 

State Department Spokesman John Kirby said in a statement to The Fact Checker: “The State Department is not aware of any grants provided directly to Laureate Education since 2009, though we are aware of some grants to educational institutions within or affiliated with the Laureate Education network.” USAID directed the Fact Checkers to Kirby’s statement in lieu of its own response.

 

So, where does the $55.2 million figure come from?

 

It’s a reference to grants received by another organization: International Youth Foundation (IYF), a nonprofit that promotes education and employment opportunities for youth around the world. Since 1999, IYF has received grants from USAID, the State Department and the Department of Labor to support its various initiatives. IYF received 13 grants from USAID between 2009 and 2013, valued at $52 million. 

 

IYF also received a $30.2 million grant in March 2009 that was negotiated under the George W. Bush administration, according to the IYF president. It competed for and was awarded $1.9 million State Department grant in March 2012 for a workforce development project.

 

Critics of the Clintons have conflated IYF and Laureate because of Doug Becker, Laureate’s founder and chief executive. He also is the chairman of IYF’s 14-member volunteer board of directors — but Becker’s role is unpaid, and the two organizations are independent of each other. (Schweizer notes in his book that the two organizations once launched a youth program together that Bill Clinton supported.)

 

Did Laureate gain “unbelievable access” to the State Department thanks to Bill Clinton? We asked both Clinton’s staff and Laureate Education, Inc., if there were any arrangements made for his role as honorary chancellor regarding access Laureate may have to Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Both sides said there were none.

 

Laureate has partnered with Clinton Global Initiative, an arm of the Clinton Foundation, since 2008. But while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, Clinton Global Initiative spun off and incorporated as its own entity apart from the Clinton Foundation, under an ethics agreement between the foundation and the Obama administration.

 

There was a reference to Laureate in one of Hillary Clinton’s emails released by the State Department, as reported by Inside Higher Ed. She wrote to an aide that Laureate “should be represented” at a closed-door higher education policy dinner. She described it as “the fastest-growing college network in the world,” which was “started by Doug Becker, who is a friend of Bill.” That email was sent in 2009, before Bill Clinton’s official role began with Laureate.

 

So here’s the Pinocchio Test

 

Trump’s campaign wasn’t raising questions about Doug Becker’s role with IYF, or suggesting there was more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. Instead, Trump’s campaign flat-out said “Hillary Clinton laundered money to Bill Clinton through Laureate Education” and gave $55.2 million in grants to Laureate after Laureate hired Bill Clinton for the $16.5 million position.

 

As with so many claims by Trump and his campaign, the Fact Checkers have done their part to chase down any possible way that Laureate could have received $55.2 million from the State Department under Hillary Clinton, or any evidence of quid pro quo. They found none; this is a conflated and inaccurate talking point. If the campaign wants to stand by it, they need to offer some real information to back it up, rather than throw out a bombastic charge that is simply not credible.

 

Therefore, the Fact Checkers awarded Trump four full Pinocchio’s for his bogus claim.

Copyright G.Ater  2016