When the Heck did the MSM do this type of reporting on Bush?

[brettdale]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bill and Hillary Clinton liquidated the contents of their blind trust upon learning it contained investments of $5 million to $25 million that could pose conflicts of interest or prove to be embarrassing to her presidential campaign.

The blind trust and a bank account valued in the same range place the Clintons' total wealth at between $10 million and $50 million.

The Clintons looked at the contents of the blind trust in April under instructions from the Office of Government Ethics and sold the assets in May, according to a disclosure form filed Friday. The Clintons had the blind trust since former President Clinton was governor of Arkansas in 1983 and had no control over its transactions.

Once they peered inside it, they discovered it included investments in oil and drug companies, military contractors and Wal-Mart, campaign spokesman Phil Singer said.

The report, filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission and the Office of Government Ethics, provides the most detailed look at the Clintons' holdings as their wealth has expanded since the former president left the White House in 2001.

The new report also shows that the former president made $16 million in speaking fees between January 2006 and Wednesday. So far this year, Bill Clinton has given 34 paid speeches for a total of $5.9 million. (Full story)
Trust included oil, drug companies

The blind trust held stock in pharmaceutical companies, including $250,000-$500,000 in Biogen Idec and Johnson & Johnson and $100,000-$250,000 in Amgen, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. It also invested in General Electric and Raytheon, two leading defense contractors. The trust had a varied portfolio, with investments in numerous other companies, including Exxon Mobil, BP Amoco, Walt Disney and eBay.

The report said all the proceeds of the sales are being placed in a cash account. The massive unloading of stock means the Clintons face large capital gains taxes.

Though all the blind trust transactions were handled over the years by a trustee without the Clintons' knowledge, some of the holdings could have been awkward for Hillary Clinton as she pursues the Democratic presidential nomination.

The blind trust held stock worth $100,000-$250,000 in NewsCorp, the parent company of Fox News, which many Democrats have denounced as biased against them. The trust also held stock in Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart de Mexico.

The senator served on the Wal-Mart board from 1986 to 1992, and was close with the Walton family that created the nation's largest retailer. But she has recently called on the company to provide better worker benefits and last year her Senate campaign returned $5,000 to Wal-Mart's political action committee. At the time, Clinton campaign spokeswoman Ann Lewis said the money was returned "because of serious differences with current company practices."

Friday's report comes on the heels of Hillary Clinton's Senate disclosure report, made public Thursday, which only covered activity in 2006 and did not reflect this year's liquidation of the blind trust.

Clinton and other presidential candidates were required to file financial disclosure documents with the Office of Government Ethics by May 15. But Clinton and Republican candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain asked for 45-day extensions because they all had blind trusts that the ethics office demanded be opened.
Campaign: Reporting goes 'above and beyond' requirements

"As a presidential candidate, Sen. Clinton was required to make her assets public," campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said. "As a result, she had to dissolve her blind trust. Upon its dissolution, she and the president chose to go above and beyond what was required of them and liquidate their assets in order to avoid even the hint of a conflict of interest."

When it comes to family affluence, the reports show that the New York senator is the wealthiest of all members of Congress seeking the presidency. Among all presidential candidates, however, Republican Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, stands alone with assets of between $190 million and $250 million. Republican Rudy Giuliani and Democrat John Edwards have each reported assets of about $30 million.

Last year and this year, Bill Clinton earned fees from $100,000 to $450,000 speaking to such corporations as IBM, General Motors, and Cisco Systems, finance giants such as Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, and trade groups such as the National Association of Realtors and the Mortgage Bankers Association. He also has been paid to speak to nonprofit or charity groups, including the TJ Martell Foundation, which finances leukemia research, Nelson Mandela's Children's Fund and, last March, to the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles.

[ixion]

1. The MSM never 'reports' on any rethug, until way after the fact

the double standard is both glaring and pathetic, IMO.

[wakeme2008]

2. First they do report (in the same matter) Bush's Net worth BUT

Somehow I do not believe Bush reports all his secret accounts. :shrug:

[Mojorabbit]

3. Still

I have a small portfolio and keep an eye on it. It is difficult to believe that they have not known what is in theirs for so many years. But then again I am not wealthy and don't know much about blind trusts. If you are going to own stocks they should be those that make you money and I don't have a problem with that.

[dsc]

7. That is why it is called a blind trust

The whole point is so President Clinton wouldn't make decisions benefitting himself. I think it would be better to have them know about their investments and disclose but even that has the problem of public knowledge of a President's investments could lead to speculation that the investments were more valueable.

[glowing]

4. The whole idea of this blind trust thing is b.s. in my opinion.

Handing money to a firm to do your dirty work, and then once making the money, saying oh, I just didn't know. Those assets in blind trusts perpetuate the very things we want to change or disagree with.

And another thing, why not know. I want to know these things. I want to know how she's made so much money. And sure enough its on investment in oil, pharm, and walmart. And then the famous line, "but I didn't know"... just like the war, hmmm.. I knew.

[Bitwit1234]

5. I thought blind trusts were used because of the ethics thing.

When Frist had trouble with the blind trust someone had an article about it. They said that most congressional members put their investments into a blind trust. The person handling the trust invested the money for them. That way they could not know which corporations or business or whatever they had and could not be influenced. That was supposed to be the only function. Frist violated his. He found out the stock he had and sold it off before the company's stock dropped. And by the way we never heard anything about that did we.

Also cheney does not have a blind trust. He knows he has Halliburton. He approved the no-bid contracts for Halliburton, a company on the verge of going under until they got the contracts and is now one of the richest in the world.

You are correct tho...it seems the media is all over a democrat in a financial transaction, and leave the republicans alone.

[Warpy]

6. Blind trust is right. Any manager worth his cut would have dumped

that WalMart stock years ago. It's done NOTHING since Sam died.