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Hillary, Bill Clinton Linked to Elder Scam - How Much Were They Paid?
Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Since he left office in 2001, former president Bill Clinton has been paid $3.3 million by InfoUSA, an Omaha, Nebraska company that has been identified as a key provider of specially designed databases that have been sold to criminals who use the detailed information to defraud the unsuspecting elderly.
The consulting fees to the former president were only part of the largess InfoUSA showered on the former president.
Vinod Gupta, the CEO of InfoUSA, lent the Clintons the company's jet which took them to places like Switzerland, Hawaii, Jamaica and Mexico.
The jet service was worth a staggering $900,000.
And Gupta gave the Clinton library a six-figure gift as well. Indeed, just months after he left the presidency, Bill Clinton was paid $200,000 for a speech given to InfoUSA in Omaha.
InfoUSA is not the kind of company with which a former president and the husband of a presidential candidate should associate.
According to the The New York Times, InfoUSA compiled and sold lists that disclosed the names of elderly men and women who would be likely to respond to unscrupulous scams.
The lists left no doubt about the vulnerability of the elderly targets.
The Times reported, for example, that InfoUSA advertised lists of "Elderly Opportunity Seekers," 3.3 million older people "looking for ways to make money," and "Suffering Seniors," 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer's disease. "Oldies but Goodies" contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list said: "These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change."
InfoUSA sold lists to companies that were under investigation or closed down by courts because of their criminal activity. The company's internal emails show that employees were aware that the investigation for elderly fraud involved their customers, but sold the lists anyway.
The Times profiled one unfortunate 92-year-old man who entered a sweepstakes sponsored by InfoUSA. The information that he innocently provided was then sold to the predator marketers. After responding to their telemarketing calls seeking financial information, his entire life savings was stolen from his bank account at Wachovia Bank. These practices, using lists supplied by InfoUSA, were repeated all over the country.
Last week, Hillary Clinton sought and obtained an extension of time to file her presidential candidate financial disclosure statement.
This connection between the Clintons and InfoUSA only underscores the necessity of full disclosure of income sources and amounts by all the presidential candidates and the release of their income tax returns, a step Mrs. Clinton has, thus far, refused to take.
Full story:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/5/28/203543.shtml
Gupta's InfoUSA Pays Pelosi's Son
Ronald Kessler
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
A database company that has showered money on Bill and Hillary Clinton – and is alleged to have aided scam artists – now appears to have close links to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's family as well.
The firm InfoUSA, headed by major Clinton backer Vinod Gupta, has placed Pelosi's son, Paul Pelosi Jr., on its payroll – even though he has no experience in the company's main business activities, NewsMax has learned.
As NewsMax previously reported, InfoUSA repeatedly rented marketing databases to unscrupulous persons who used the information to defraud the unsuspecting elderly, investigators found.
The company is also under fire in a shareholder lawsuit which alleges that Gupta is appropriating company funds for personal use and his political pet projects.
Shareholder critics are furious that
Gupta had InfoUsa pay former President Bill Clinton $2.1 million in "consulting fees" since he left the White House, with another $1.2 million promised.
Gupta has also spent roughly $1 million of InfoUsa funds to provide corporate jet flights for both President Clinton and his wife Hillary.
Pelosi's son Paul acknowledged he has also been taking trips on corporate jets provided by Info USA.
Paid $180,000 for Second Job
Just
four weeks after Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House this past January, Gupta and InfoUSA hired her son as a senior vice president. He told NewsMax InfoUsa pays him $180,000 a year.
Even though his job with InfoUSA is considered full-time,
Paul Pelosi continues another full-time job, as a home loan officer at Countrywide Home Loans, part of Countrywide Financial, in San Mateo, a suburb of San Francisco.
While InfoUSA is based in Omaha, Pelosi said he reports to a small InfoUSA office in San Mateo.
In two interviews, Paul Pelosi confirmed that Gupta hired him as senior vice president for strategic development starting Feb. 1, just after Pelosi's mother took the gavel as speaker on Jan. 4. He said his mother is aware of his new job.
A person familiar with the arrangement says Gupta treats Pelosi as a "trophy" and has the Speaker's son accompany him at high profile meetings around the country.
Pelosi denied the suggestion he is being used because of his family ties. "I don't think that's really what happens," he said.
Nor does he "think" his hiring was related to his mother becoming speaker, he said. But
he acknowledged the timing raises a "good question."
"It's interesting, timing-wise," Pelosi said. "I don't see it that way, but I could see why you'd ask the question ... I guess you always wonder why somebody hires you, right?"
Asked how he can hold two full-time jobs at once, Pelosi said Countrywide is satisfied as long as he fulfills his quotas.
Spokesmen for Nancy Pelosi and for InfoUSA did not respond to requests by NewsMax for comment.
Paul Pelosi said he met Gupta about three years ago when the businessman refinanced a $3 million Countrywide loan on one of his more than half a dozen homes. He said he decided to apply for a job with InfoUSA about six months ago.
Asked what a home mortgage loan officer would know about the business of InfoUsa which manages databases about consumers for direct mail and telemarketing, Pelosi said his experience in investment banking has been useful to the company in its acquisitions of other companies.
"Basically, the record's pretty clear that they buy about two or three companies a year and that is to continue," he said. "And so what you want to do is you want to take a look at the earnings of a company and you want to take a look at what they do ... You've got to do an analysis of the people and the strategic fit."
Pelosi said he "did the same thing" at Montgomery Securities and Bank of America, previous companies he worked for.
In 1995, Pelosi obtained a joint law degree and MBA from Georgetown University with a concentration in world economies and global sustainable development.
Before becoming a home loan officer at Countrywide, he was a sales manager at the company's San Mateo office.
"I'm very qualified at what I do," he said. "I work a lot of hours at it, and it's only been a couple months but in that short period of time, I've been able to really work on some material projects, which are coming forward."
Since starting with InfoUSA, Pelosi said he has looked into a possible acquisition of a company in Portland, Ore., with revenue of $8 million a year.
"For a company that does $650 million in [projected] revenue a year, $8 million is a small thing," Pelosi said. "I go in there and meet with the people, we look at the leases. We're trying to figure out what their cash flow is."
When he flies on the company jet, Pelosi said, it's always with Gupta on business. He said his relationship with Gupta is "nothing like the Clinton situation."
Full Story:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/6/4/210922.shtml?s=lh