Money for Arms: SecState Clinton Approved Weapons Deals to Foundation Donors

Saudi Arabia was the beneficiary of an "enormous one."

Hillary Clinton's State Department approved $165 billion (double the amount of the State Department under President G.W. Bush's second term) in arms sales to 20 nations who donated to the Clinton Foundation, according to a 2015 IBTimes analysis of Clinton Foundation and State Department data. 

Of the total arms sales, led by Boeing, Hillary Clinton's State Department bestowed $29 billion worth of high-tech fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. The IBTimes article from 2015 reminds us that, "even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous": 

Israeli officials were agitated, reportedly complaining to the Obama administration that this substantial enhancement to Saudi air power risked disrupting the region's fragile balance of power. The deal appeared to collide with the State Department’s documented concerns about the repressive policies of the Saudi royal family.

But now, in late 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was formally clearing the sale, asserting that it was in the national interest. [...] In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing -- the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 -- contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.

According to the analysis, the Clinton's Saudi arms deal was "one of dozens of arms sales approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department that placed weapons in the hands of governments that had also donated money to the Clinton family philanthropic empire."

While the Left and even some Republicans keep insisting that revelations about the Clinton Foundation, the FBI's investigation into her mishandling of classified information, and Wikileaks offer "no smoking gun" implicating Clinton of corruption, we beg to differ. With proof and specific examples of systemic corruption continuing to mount, we ask: What, then, would constitute a smoking gun to most people? 

 

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