UPDATE, April 4: Yesterday, Hillary Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters on a conference call that the campaign would release Clinton’s tax returns by the end of this week (though the campaign is now saying that it can’t confirm whether the records will actually be released today). With the long-awaited moment possibly at hand, we here at Stumper headquarters thought it’d be useful to revisit last week’s conversation with NEWSWEEK investigative reporter Mark Hosenball about what–and what not–to expect from the data dump.
ORIGINAL ITEM, March 28: Over the past few months, you’ve probably heard about Hillary and Bill Clinton’s tax returns–but you definitely haven’t seen them. Pressed by the Obama campaign to release their full filings from 2000 to 2007–the Illinois senator released his 2006 tax returns last April and posted the rest on his website Tuesday–the Clinton camp has proven recalcitrant. In recent years, candidates have released tax returns during primary season. But in February, Clinton said she wouldn’t release hers until after she was the nominee, telling MSNBC that she was “a little busy right now.” And although her campaign agreed earlier this month to unveil the information “on or around April 15,” it has continued to be circumspect; for example, spokesman Howard Wolfson recently revised the release date to “at least three days before the Pennsylvania primary,” which falls on April 22, and is now saying that they’ll be out next week.
All the shuffling and stalling has led independent observers to wonder: what are the Clinton’s hiding? The answer, according to NEWSWEEK investigative reporter Mark Hosenball: they’re not necessarily hiding anything. “The fact that they have been reluctant to release them on the one hand raises an eyebrow and makes you wonder if there’s something in there they don’t want us to know,” he says. “On the other hand, this is the Clintons normal modus operandi with everything. You have to pry disclosures out of them.” While you wait to learn how they Clintons have managed the multi-million-dollar fortune they have amassed since leaving the White House, Stumper talked with Hosenball about what–and what not–to expect. Excerpts:
What do we already know about the Clintons’ finances? The only real disclosures that we have presently are financial disclosure statements that Mrs. Clinton is required to file with the Senate, and I believe with the Federal Election Commission (because she’s running for president). Every year, she’s been required by law and has indeed filed and subsequently made public financial disclosure statements with the Secretary of the Senate’s office.
But those financial disclosure statements are not particularly explicit, right? In some ways they are, and some ways they aren’t. For example, they show very detailed records of Bill Clinton’s speaking engagements. Where he gives a speech, who hires him to give the speech and how much money he got for the speeches. It’s day-by-day and there are pages and pages of this. And it’s clear that the guy gets tons of money from speeches, sometimes literally millions of dollars a year. In the financial disclosure statement for calendar year 2005, just the first page: Paradise Island, Bahamas, $150,000; Jewish Federation of Greater L.A., $125,000; CLSA in Hong Kong, that’s $100,000; Savage-Rothenberg Productions in Los Angeles, Calif., $250,000 for two speeches. There are pages that list millions of dollars in speeches.
What don’t the disclosure statements tell us? As regards other sources of income–Hillary is required to disclose other sources of income from Bill that they jointly own–she hasn’t been particularly forthcoming. For example, she has disclosed over several years on his behalf that he has an interest in one or more investment partnerships under the name of Yucaipa Companies, LLC. Yucaipa is a group of companies headed by one their big pals, a big fundraiser and benefactor for both of them for many years, a California guy by the name of Ron Burkle. The Senate financial disclosure statements says only that Bill’s income and the value of his partnerships that he has there is “over $1,000.” That’s perfectly within the Clintons’ legal rights to limit the disclosure to that. In fact, that’s all it asks. But it doesn’t tell you a lot. Anything over $1,000? That could be a billion dollars–or $1,001.
And when it comes to Bill’s income, there are other examples like Yucaipa. I’m looking at Hillary’s current Congressional financial disclosures here. Under earned and non-investment income for 2005, it says “Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund One LLC” and in brackets “spouse,” based in Los Angeles, Calif. The type of income is “guaranteed payments to partner” and it says amount “over $1,000.” That’s pretty opaque. You’ve got another company in the same category here. It says, “Source of income: infoUSA.” Income for spouse, Omaha, Nebraska. Non-employee compensation, which means Bill’s some sort of consultant to them: about “over $1,000.” Again, it could be billions. There’s Random House, presumably for his memoirs. It says “book royalties,” and then the amount: “over $1,000.” It doesn’t tell you very much.
So some income is spelled out in full, and other income is listed as “over $1,000.” Which means that when you see the “over $1,000” thing, it’s a red flag. You certainly raise your eyebrow a little bit.
Do you expect the Clintons’ tax returns, which come out in mid-April, to be more specific about Bill’s income? The Clintons released their returns when they were in the White House, but they weren’t that interesting because it was mainly Bill’s presidential salary. So we don’t really know.
They could conceivably block out some information? Absolutely. Look at her White House schedules. [They were recently released with curious deletions.] Almost certainly we’ll see figures that indicate what money is salary money, what money is outside money, what money is investment money. But conceivably they could block out the actual identity of the source of money. Even if the IRS requires them to list it, they could conceivably block it out and say we’re not going to tell the public that. So besides wanting to know how much money they’re getting outside their salaries, I want to know who’s giving it to them. When we see that we’ll have a much better idea of what this is all about.
Assuming those sources are listed, where do you go next? The juiciest thing to find would be that, say, Burkle is giving Clinton money on such-and-such day, and then Clinton turns around and does some favor for him. Of course, this is just pure speculation. Bill’s partnerships are somewhat opaque in terms of what they hold. [NEWSWEEK reporter] Michal Isikoff and I learned, and in fact reported, that at least one of the partnerships includes information or assests held in partnership with or somehow in connection with an investment vehicle from Dubai which is controlled by the governing family there. As it stands, we don’t know what proportion that is, or if Clinton dealt with Dubai. So if there’s explicit information in the tax returns that says he got X amount of money in return for dealings with Dubai, that might interesting. And then you go back and match that with what he might or might not have said about Dubai at the time.
Ultimately, you’re looking for connections between money received and Bill’s behavior. Exactly. The things that we’ll focus on immediately are how much money did the Clintons get and where did the money come from. And then there’s fodder there for doing additional investigation as to whether these things match up with some possible favors that they did.
For example, the Clintons have disclosed that Bill has had a business relationship with another controversial individual named Vinod Gupta, who’s the CEO and chairman of that company called infoUSA and a longtime donor. Bill’s been a “consultant” to Gupta since 2001. How much money came from Gupta? Where did it go? I also want to look at how much money they’re spending. Are they living beyond their means? We know that Bill swans around the world. Is all that paid for by his foundation? If he takes a trip on one of his friends’ planes–Burkle has a plane, for example–is that counted as income? In some circumstances it could be. There are all kinds of questions that you can look at and start to take this stuff apart. It could be very interesting, or it could very difficult to decipher.
Will there be political consequences for Hillary? We don’t know. If it turns out that they have a lot more money than anybody has any idea that they have, both in terms of annual income and investment income, if they’re getting huge amounts of money from Burkle and other investments, if it turns out that they’re getting money from sources that are not in any way disclosed on her Congressional statements–that has the potential to be very serious business. Although I’d imagine they’re smart enough not to let it happen. And if there’s some sort of breakout, which I wouldn’t necessarily count on, as to what Bill is actually doing in return for this money from Burkle and Gupta and what kind of investments and partnerships that came from–and, again, I’m not sure they’re required to disclose any of that on their tax returns–then this might be very interesting. But we probably won’t see that much.
The Obama campaign wants to make an issue of Clinton’s transparency–or lack thereof. Has she been less transparent than politicians usually are? I don’t think that that’s the case. Take the “over $1,000” price tag. She’s at least as transparent as the average senator. To be absolutely fair here, she’s reporting what she’s required to report in these Senate statements. Most of the other Senate statements I’ve seen deal with these issues in exactly the same way. And certainly in disclosing all of these speeches, she’s telling you something–how easy it is for Bill to go places, speak and make money.
So the Obama campaign is essentially upping their own transparency as a form of brinkmanship. He’s MORE transparent than the typical pol, and she’s normal. That’s right. They’re trying to dare the Clintons into doing something that might expose them. And frankly, that’s what the Clintons do. This is all absolutely fair tactics. Whether it’s really going to ultimately enlighten us hugely and cause some big scandal, I wouldn’t count on that at all. What have we learned, if anything, from Obama’s tax returns? Nothing that we didn’t already know. We knew that he got a bunch of money from a book at one point that he put into a house deal, and the tax returns indicate that.
Are all you investigative reporters going to be disappointed? No, I think we’re going to learn a little bit more about these business dealings–Burkle particularly, the size of Bill’s income–than we knew before. Whether that will be stunning or whether it leads anywhere other than people scratching their heads and saying, “Oh, he got a lot of money from Burkle,” I wouldn’t place an awfully big bet on that. And then who knows if it would have an actually political impact on voters in Pennsylvania. Exactly. It’s kind of a stretch. I wouldn’t bet on that happening at all. On the other hand, though, you never know. The fact that they have been reluctant to release them, on the one hand raises an eyebrow and makes you wonder if there’s something in there they don’t want us to know. On the other hand, this is the Clintons normal modus operandi with everything. You have to pry disclosures out of them.
