Major Hillary Donor Personally Lobbying on Behalf of Saudi Government

The links between presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and the Saudi royal family go back many years.  Republicans and Democrats alike have long expressed concern over Clinton’s ties with the wealthy monarchy after Saudi Arabia — along with other Clinton Foundation donor countries — received major arms deals from her State Department.

Now the Daily Caller reports that one of Clinton’s chief campaign donors and fundraisers, Anthony Podesta is actually a lobbyist on behalf of the Saudi royal family.

It’s been known for months that the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, an arm of the Saudi regime, has been paying the Podesta Group to lobby lawmakers and federal agencies on its behalf. The Intercept reported the relationship last year. And The Hill reported on Tuesday that the Saudi government was paying the Beltway lobbyist $140,000 a month for its services.

But documents recently published by the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act show that Clinton campaign financier Anthony Podesta is one of the several lobbyists at his firm personally handling the Saudi account.

The 72-year-old is one of the Clinton campaign’s most prolific bundlers, though it would be hard to tell just from the lobbyist disclosure report he’s required to file. The document, filed on March 11, shows Podesta gave $10,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $2,700 to New York Rep. Gregory Meeks .

But the lobbyist-rainmaker has bundled a much larger sum of cash from among his circle of wealthy friends and business associates. Campaign finance disclosures show he raised $35,560 for Clinton in the first quarter of 2016. That’s on top of the $130,900 he raised for the campaign last year.

Podesta also has family ties to the Clinton campaign. His brother John is Clinton’s campaign chairman. He served as Bill Clinton’s chief of staff for a time in the 1990s and as an adviser to President Obama. The Podesta brothers started their eponymous lobbying outfit in 1988.

The report goes on to discuss claims that the still-classified documents in the 9/11 Commission report contain damaging information to the Saudi government — information that shows ties between Saudi government officials and several of the 9/11 hijackers.  Hillary Clinton has remained largely silent on whether she would support a bill that would allow victims of terrorist attacks to sue governments who aided and abetted the perpetrators.  Now, it would appear, we know why she has kept her mouth shut.

Source: The Daily Caller