Hillary Clinton 'unaware' of Bill's Dubai ties; but her senatorial financial disclosure says different!

Senator Hillary Clinton (d-NY) is a leading opponent of the UAE owned DP World's takeover of US port management at 21 different locations.

This week, she stated that she wasn't aware that her husband had advised Dubai leaders on how to handle the growing dispute.Hillary Clinton 'unaware' of Bill's Dubai ties - Financial Times - MSNBC.com

But former President Bill Clinton's ties to Dubai and the United Arab Emirates should not have come as a surprise to his US senator wife.

Mrs Clinton's own senatorial financial disclosure forms reveal that her husband earned $450,000 giving speeches in Dubai in 2002.

Officials from the UAE also donated between $500,000 and $1m to fund Mr Clinton's presidential library in Arkansas!

According to the Financial Times article, this was part of an effort by the emirates, said a person close to UAE officials, to forge a close relationship with a former US president who is influential and highly regarded in the region.

Is that another way of saying `let's bribe us an ex-President and hire hime as a lobbyist?'. I think so. Mr. Bill joins an impressive list of UAE paid lobbyists hammering congress on their behalf,including ex Senate majority Leader Tom Daschele, Clinton's ex-Secretary of State Madeline Albright and ex Republican Senate Minority Leader and presidential candidate Bob Dole.

None of these people work cheap, which leads me to question why the UAE is willing to spread this kind of money around on this deal to get it through.

Mrs Clinton is widely regarded as the leading Democratic candidate for the 2008 presidential elections, and she has used her opposition to the ports deal to attack the Bush administration on national security, an issue that has been a weak point for Democrats.

Some would regard this as classic Clinton-having it both ways.

Needless to say, Mrs. Clinton's selective amnesia may cause some of her proponents to think twice about whether they really want Mrs. Clinton and her husband back in the White House.