A Clinton Goldmine

BILL'S BILLIONS

(Washington Prowler) - New York Times sources say that if Sen. Hillary Clinton loses the Democratic nomination or a general election for President, it will largely be due to the efforts of their investigative and political reporter Jo Becker, who yesterday reported on the ties between former President Bill Clinton and Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra, who has committed almost a quarter billion dollars to Clinton's foundation, largely after Clinton appeared to pave the way for Giustra's company to get a sweet uranium mining deal in Kazakhstan.

Becker, who formerly worked for the Washington Post, has been put on the Bill Clinton beat for the foreseeable future, and has been digging around the Clinton Foundation for months, according to Clinton campaign sources, one of whom has been assigned to track Becker's activities. "She's like a woman scorned," says the campaign source. "The foundation and the former President weren't honest with her early in her reporting, and now she's going to burn the house down if she gets her way. The size of the headache she is causing inside the campaign cannot be quantified."

The campaign has been trying to keep tabs on sources Becker has been talking to for several months now, attempting to figure out which lines of inquiry she is undertaking. As reported several months ago, the Clinton campaign attempted some time ago to "oppo" the former President's post-White House time, trying to anticipate potential thorny issues that might arise for Senator Clinton. "We don't know everything, because the Clinton Foundation is something we haven't been able to fully breach," says another campaign source. "We're just getting access to some of Senator Clinton's papers from her time in the White House, and we're her fricking campaign. It's unbelievable."

Becker's work has focused almost exclusively on the Clinton Foundation, and the ways in which Clinton has used the entity to further his own personal wealth, as well as those who support him and his philanthropic activities.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Clinton was negotiating terms to exit a partnerships and consulting deal with longtime supporter Ron Burkle. Clinton was able to attract large sums of investment money to Burkle's operation from several sources, the biggest being the royal family of Dubai. "Everyone assumes that if he separates from Burkle that the relationship with Dubai is severed, too," says a source with ties to the Clinton Foundation. "But the Dubai ties aren't the result of Burkle. That's a personal relationship with ties to the foundation, and those aren't going to end."