As noted in today’s Morning Jolt, we learn today that back in 2012, North Korea invited President Clinton to give a paid speech, and he wanted to do it:
A second email thread in May 2012 shows another potentially thorny event — subject line: “North Korea invitation.”
“Is it safe to assume [the U.S. Government] would have concerns about WJC accepting the attached invitation related to North Korea?” [Amitabh Desai, a foreign policy director at the Clinton Foundation] wrote in an e-mail to [Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl] Mills and two other State Department officials.
They needed to ask? Really? There wasn’t anyone around the Clinton Foundation who could say, “no, the former President of the United States is not accepting an invitation to speak to an audience at an event controlled by one of the world’s most despotic regimes”?
Mills two-word response? “Decline it.”
But the Clinton Foundation followed up three weeks later, saying the invite came via Hillary Clinton’s brother Tony Rodham.
As our Brendan Bordelon wrote, “Tony is the unvarnished embodiment of the Clintons’ decades-long dance with crony capitalism.” It’s not that surprising that he would eagerly play deal-maker between the Clintons and the North Koreans.
“We would be grateful for any specific concerns that we could share,” Desai wrote. “Tony is seeing WJC in a couple hours.”
Mills wrote back to tell Bill Clinton, “If he needs more let him know his wife knows and I am happy to call him secure when he is near a secure line.”
There is no further explanation of what the North Korea related event entailed in the documents provided to Citizens United by the State Department.
Just how much money was North Korean hosts offering to get everyone involved to take leave of their senses? Both Bill Clinton and Hugh Rodham are wealthy men; they can’t need the money that badly. That ABC News report notes, “Bill Clinton delivered 215 speeches totaling over $48 million in the four years Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.”
This morning’s news reminded me of a long-lost chapter of history, when Clinton’s half-brother Roger Clinton visited North Korea to perform in a concert.
What kind of morally topsy-turvy world is it within the halls of the Clinton Foundation when an invitation to speak in North Korea is given serious consideration?