A book questioning foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation, against the backdrop of Hillary Clinton’s renewed presidential bid, says that former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh donated as much as $1 million to $5 million in 2008, wondering if he may have been a “conduit” for powerful interests in India pushing for approval of the India-US nuclear deal.
Peter Schweizer’s book, Clinton Cash, due to come out on May 6, has already grabbed media attention with a host of stinging accusations against Bill and Hillary Clinton for the diverse sources from which substantial funds have been raised for the foundation’s global charitable activities.
Citing the book, The New York Post reports that the Clinton Foundation had in 2008 received “a contribution of between $1 million and $5 million from Amar Singh, a member of India’s Parliament and a pal of Bill Clinton”.
Author Schweizer went on to comment that the size of the donation relative to Singh’s net worth has “raised questions about whether Singh was the true source of the cash”.
Hillary Clinton, a Senator at the time who eventually supported the deal, held a meeting with Singh in Washington in September 2008 to discuss the legislation on the nuke deal, he notes.
Stating that Singh’s own financial disclosure statement filed with the Indian government reported his total net worth was around $5 million, Schweizer comments in the book: “If true, that meant Singh had given between 20 and 100 percent of his entire net worth to the Clinton Foundation!”
The Post report said that Singh, for his part, gave cryptic and conflicting answers about the donation, telling an Indian newspaper that “the payment could have been made by someone else” on his behalf.
The book goes on to say that Singh told Indian ministers his name was listed by the Clinton Foundation because he had “facilitated the payment and, therefore, it ‘erroneously’ appeared in the records”.
Stating that Bill Clinton had first met Singh in 2005 through Indian-American businessman Sant Chatal, the book says the two “hit it off so well off during their first meeting in India that the former president invited Singh to be his guest at the Clinton Global Intitiative held in New York days later, granting him a seat at the head table”.