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Emails Show Close Ties Between Clinton and Boeing

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BRADENTON – Recently disclosed messages from former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server have given new insights into the presidential candidate's relationship with U.S. aerospace/defense giant Boeing and the often convoluted interaction between her state department work, family foundation interests and paid speeches to her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Under Clinton, the state department took a much more aggressive approach to advancing the interests of U.S. corporations abroad, often directly lobbying on their behalf, as Clinton did before Boeing received a contract with a Russian airline to purchase 50 jets at $3.7 billion in 2010. The FBI's most recent email dump shows that Clinton took a keen interest in many matters related to the corporation while Secretary of State.

While Clinton was lobbying for Boeing on foreign trade issues, the company donated more than $1 million to the Clinton family’s global foundation, while also paying her husband hundreds of thousands of dollars each for lucrative speeches the company sponsored. Clinton's State Department found no conflict of interest at the time.

Clinton's opponents have been critical of this circular relationship that has existed with several corporations. But as more emails are released as part of the ongoing FBI investigation into her use of a private email server for government business while Sec. of State, the pervasive extent to which corporations who had business before the State Department routinely donated to the family's foundation and paid her husband lucrative speaking fees is becoming more clear. It also raises questions as to whether any of the emails that Clinton and her staff deleted prior to turning the servers over to the FBI may have contained evidence of direct quid pro quo.

While the symbiotic relationship may not have violated existing laws, the benefits the Clintons have received raises questions about her potential loyalties to such entities should she be elected President. On the campaign trail, Clinton likes to brag that unlike most Presidential couples, she and Bill left the White House in 2001 with a negative balance sheet, and that as a result, she knows what it's like for families struggling with debt. However, the Clintons have since amassed a fortune worth as much as $150 million with their only non-governmental employment being paid speeches from large corporations.

In a recent Democratic debate in Miami, Clinton attacked her opponent in the Democratic primary, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, for being against the import-export bank, which she said helps to protect thousands of jobs in Florida. Sanders responded that the government bank, which provides financing and insurance for U.S. corporations doing business abroad, is known as the "Bank of Boeing," because the company receives the largest share of the government subsidy, 40 percent, which he called "corporate welfare."

Clinton countered that the bank helps companies of all sizes, but when pressed by CNN moderator Anderson Cooper, who noted that Boeing does indeed get the largest share and asked whether the hundred-billion dollar company really needed government support to do such business, she said she believed it did.

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