CLINTON AIDS CHARITY WAS SHUT DOWN IN MASSACHUSETTS
Operated for years without IRS authorization as 'tax exempt' non-profit
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NEW YORK – Why does the Clinton Health Access Initiative Inc., registered as an Arkansas non-profit corporation, continue to list its principal business address in Massachusetts, where its registration was revoked under a previous name, the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative?
While the foundation has provided no explanation, after meticulous examination, Wall Street financial analyst and investor Charles Ortel believes he can demonstrate material irregularities in the state registrations and federal filings of what today is known as the Clinton Health Access Initiative Inc., or CHAI.
“These irregularities are of sufficient magnitude that if any of the 50 state attorneys general should present the evidence to a federal district judge, I believe an injunction would be ordered, shutting down the Clinton Foundation and placing the organization in receivership,” he said.
Ortel has documented the Clinton Foundation used the initial IRS tax-exempt determination letter that was limited to raising funds for the Clinton presidential library to actively solicit tax-exempt charitable donations to combat HIV/AIDS for some eight years before applying for and receiving authorization for the new purpose.
Ortel says: “The public record of state and federal registrations are sufficient to justify a federal judge firing the current board of directors in order to prevent additional donors from being defrauded in what appears to an inurement scheme designed to divert charitable funds to personal financial gain.”
Inurement is the crime of personally enriching oneself from a non-profit organization, or taking more from it than is contributed.
Ortel found that the HIV/AIDS Initiative conducted “substantial and significant activities in numerous countries, operating from a headquarters in Massachusetts in close cooperation with at least one for-profit enterprise before it was officially approved by the IRS as a tax-exempt organization.”
Tom Fitton, president of Washington-based Judicial Watch told WND that Ortel is “raising questions that scream out for further investigation.”
“What Ortel is revealing has all the hallmarks of a shell game in which criminals structure financial transactions to shield assets and confuse both regulators and the general public regarding how they are getting money for charitable purposes but keeping it for themselves personally,” Fitton said.
Attorney Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the Washington-based law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, concurred.
“The research that Charles Ortel has conducted is extremely disturbing,” Mitchell told WND. “The irregularities and false statements he has documented evidence a consistent pattern of failure to comply with the laws that govern charitable organizations.”
Mitchell is well-known for representing several prominent tea party groups in their litigation against the IRS for denying or delaying their applications for tax-exempt status.
She said the problems with the Clinton Foundation raised by Ortel “are matters of black letter state and federal law.”
“I believe that one or more state attorneys general should actively review whether or not the Clinton Foundation in its various incarnations and filings has violated the laws of their state,” Mitchell said.
Ortel writes in his second report on the Clinton Foundation, an advance copy of which was shared with WND, that a preliminary review of the pre-2010 Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS activities – before an application was filed with the IRS to create the Clinton Health Access Initiative as a corporate entity separate from the Clinton Foundation – indicates that for approximately 90 months Bill Clinton, Ira Magaziner, and other individuals associated with the Clintons were “engaged in numerous foreign countries soliciting charitable contributions and grants whose proceeds were supposed to flow into destitute nations ravaged by HIV/AIDS and by other structural as well as local afflictions.”
Ortel said activities of these individuals “under the mantle of the Clinton Foundation never were fully, fairly, and comprehensively disclosed in the public domain as was, and is, required by domestic and foreign laws.”
WND reported Monday that before Hillary Clinton completed her first year as President Obama’s secretary of state in 2010, Ortel calculates $17 million went missing from Clinton Foundation financial reports.
WND reported May 14 Ortel has concluded that while Hillary Clinton was appointed to the board of directors of the Clinton Foundation in 2013, after she had resigned as secretary of state, she is complicit in what he has described as systematic financial fraud warranting a criminal investigation. WND reported May 13 that Ortel found the Clinton Foundation’s explanation for why it was divided into three, legally separate tax-exempt organizations to be “misleading and false.” As WND reported May 12, based on Ortel’s findings, a prominent lawyer and a top government watchdog in the nation’s capital are calling for the Clinton Foundation to be shut down. In his first report, Ortel found what he characterizes as an elaborate system devised by the Clintons to enrich themselves through schemes such as skimming tens of millions of dollars from U.N. levies imposed on airline travelers.
‘Tax exempt’ HIV/AIDS donations solicited in 2002
As WND reported, the Clinton Foundation’s IRS determination letter dating back to the foundation’s creation in 2001 is not archived on the Clinton Foundation website. The Clinton Foundation’s 2002 IRS Form 990, Part III filing lists the organization’s “primary exempt purpose” in narrowly defined terms. It specifies the Clinton Foundation was created “to design, construct, and initially endow a presidential archival depository to house and preserve the books, correspondence, documents, papers, pictures, and other memorability of President Clinton.”
The Clinton Foundation website clearly documents that the HIV/AIDS charity began in 2002, noting: “When the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) was founded in 2002, only 200,000 people were receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS in low and middle income countries, with medicines that cost over $10,000 per person per year.”
The Clinton Foundation’s 2004 IRS Form 990, Part III expanded the organization’s “primary exempt purpose” to include HIV/AIDS fundraising:
President Clinton established the William J. Clinton Foundation (the foundation’s original name in 2001) with the dual missions of constructing and endowing the Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas and continuing the work of his presidency to strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence. To advance the mission the foundation has developed programs and partnerships in the following areas: economic empowerment; health security with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS; racial, ethnic and religious reconciliation; leadership development and citizen service.
Ortel traced the origin of the idea to create CHAI to a conversation Bill Clinton had with Nelson Mandela that Clinton relates in his 2007 bestselling book, “Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World.”
There, Clinton wrote:
After Nelson Mandela and I closed the World AIDS conference in Barcelona in [July] 2002, Prime Minister Denzil Douglas of St. Kitts and Nevis asked me to help the Caribbean nations establish and fund systems for the prevention, care, and treatment of HIV/AIDS. I agreed to do what I could, but with limited staffing in Harlem and Little Rock and an already crowded list of commitments, I needed some help. I called Ira Magaziner, who had spearheaded our efforts in healthcare and e-commerce in the White House, and asked him to organize and lead the project.
In his second report, Ortel concluded the AIDS work wasn’t tax exempt.
“While clearly a laudable proposition, arresting lethal devastation of the scourge of HIV/AIDS was certainly not a legally authorized tax-exempt purpose of the Clinton Foundation by July 2002, according to public records that should tell the complete story regarding a public charity.”
Ortel was able to document that on Dec. 31, 2009, the Clinton Foundation filed with the IRS an application to form a new tax-exempt organization called Clinton Health Access Initiative Inc. that he terms “New CHAI” to distinguish it from the initiative formed within the Clinton Foundation in 2002, which he terms “Old CHAI.”
Ortel reported, however, that after extensive research on the Clinton Foundation website and various government websites, he was able only to find for the document dated Dec. 31, 2009, “an incomplete version of the application lacking attachments that should have amplified answers to key questions.”
In March 2010, the IRS apparently issued a new determination letter approving the New CHAI as a separate tax-exempt organization, giving for the first time the Clinton Foundation the authorization to extend tax-exempt status to donors to the charity to combat HIV/AIDS.
What appears clear is that the Clinton Foundation, despite lacking IRS authorization, told the public from July 2002 through March 2010 that donations to the charity to combat HIV/AIDS would be tax-exempt, in apparent disregard of IRS rules and regulations.
No documentation of flow of AIDS money
The first filing to incorporate the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative, as it was then known, occurred in 2004, at least two years after the Clinton Foundation began soliciting and potentially receiving donations and grants in the United States and from foreign sources for HIV/AIDS charitable work.
The documentation can be found in a registration for a foreign corporation certificate that the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative filed with Massachusetts on March 25, 2004, noting that the corporation was organized under the laws of Arkansas, two days earlier, on March 23, 2004.
The document said the resident Massachusetts agent for the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative was Ira Magaziner, listed as the corporation’s chairman, with his residence at 200 Dudley Lane in Milton, Massachusetts, and the corporation’s office at 225 Water Street in Quincy, Massachusetts.
In his second report, Ortel said that while there are “numerous press releases and other accounts of extensive global activity by the Clinton Foundation fighting HIV/AIDS from July 2002 onward, companion financial disclosures filed for 2002 and 2003 do not explicitly document related inflows and outflows of the HIV/AIDS initiatives.”
“Filings from 2004 through 2009 start to disclose some aspects of these activities but certainly do not constitute complete, full, and fair disclosure,” Ortel said. “Moreover, Clinton Foundation filings from 2002 through 2009 do not explain how Ira Magaziner and his for-profit business interests may have been compensated, or precisely how Magaziner and the Clinton Foundation may have collaborated anywhere in the world, at any time.”
From 1993 through 1998, Magaziner served as a senior advisor to President Clinton for policy development at the White House, where he worked with Hillary Clinton on the development of the President’s Health Reform Initiative that became popularly known as “HillaryCare.”
The address at 225 Water Street that Magaziner used as the principal business address of the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative when filing in Massachusetts in March 2004 as a foreign corporation is the same address he used as the principal office of Massachusetts-registered consulting firm, SJS Privacy Inc., which was registered in Massachusetts as a foreign corporation on Nov. 15, 2000.
In other words, the Clinton Foundation did not establish a separate corporate structure, CHAI, to solicit tax-exempt donations to combat HIV/AIDS until 2004, some two years after the Clinton Foundation launched the HIV/AIDS initiative.
Massachusetts shuts down Clinton non-profit
On March 31, 2008, Massachusetts issued an “involuntary revocation” of both the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative and Magaziner’s SJS Privacy Inc., effectively shutting down both corporations from doing business in Massachusetts.
Screen shots from the Massachusetts Corporate Division’s registry document the involuntary revocation of each corporation’s authorization to do business in the state.
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Revocation of Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative
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Revocation of SJS Inc.
The Massachusetts filing documentation explaining why the involuntary revocations were put in place is not available for download on the Massachusetts Corporation Division Registry website.
SJS Inc., Magaziner’s other consulting firm registered on Nov. 5, 2001, as a foreign corporation, was withdrawn on Jan. 11, 2008, from doing business in Massachusetts.
Again, documentation explaining why Magaziner withdrew SJS Inc. from doing business in Massachusetts on Jan. 11, 2008, is not available for download on the Massachusetts Corporation Division Registry website.
Magaziner apparently named his consulting firms “SJS” using the initials of the first names of his three children – Seth, Jonathan and Sarah.
Additional documentation
Further documentation that the original Clinton HIV/AIDS charity was shut down by Massachusetts can be found on an undated renewal United Registration Statement (URS) for Charitable Organizations that the Clinton Foundation filed on a 2006 standard form for the year ending Dec. 31, 2005.
There, in answer to question 7A, the Clinton Foundation answers “yes” to the question whether the organization, or any of its officers, directors, employees or fund raisers have ever been enjoined or otherwise prohibited by a government agency/court from soliciting.
But then, in response to 7B, the Clinton Foundation answers “no” to the question “whether the organization, or any of its officers, directors, employees or fund raisers had its registration denied or revoked.”
Ortel terms the response “a blatant lie,” given the documentation on the Massachusetts Secretary of State website of the 2008 involuntary revocation of registration.
In subsequent questions, the Clinton Foundation goes on to admit the charity has been “the subject of a proceeding regarding any solicitation or registry” and that it has “entered into a voluntary agreement of compliance with any government agency or in a case before a court or administrative agency.”
Exhibit A, a form designed to explain affirmative answers to any of the questions from 7A through 7E, is missing from the relevant Clinton Foundation-filed URS that WND was able to locate, despite the fact the Clinton Foundation admitted it had encountered various unspecified legal problems that included revocation of operating licenses and suspensions of state authority to solicit donations.
The URS document references an IRS determination letter May 21, 2002, that appears to be the initial IRS approval to raise money for the Clinton Foundation, not for HIV/AIDS charitable purposes.
Strangely, the URS for the Clinton Foundation filed for the year ending Dec. 31, 2005 does not evidence the required notary public seal or signature, casting doubt on the acceptability of the document as a legal statement sworn to be true under penalty of perjury, as the printed form demands.
New CHAI formed
The Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative incorporated in the state of Arkansas in 2004 to do business in Arkansas as a non-profit corporation is no longer found on the Arkansas secretary of state’s corporation registry website.
In its place is a registration for the newly named entity, the Clinton Health Access Initiative Inc., filed in Arkansas on Sept. 29, 2009. It’s registered as a nonprofit corporation domiciled in Arkansas, with Magaziner as the corporation’s principal officer and as a director. The corporation’s principal address is listed as 383 Dorchester Avenue, Suite 400, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/clinton-aids-charity-was-shut-down-in-massachusetts/#hDsBQ4L5pyZJtUIC.99
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