BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 22, 2004
LITTLE ROCK, ARK. - President Clinton's new $165 million library here was funded in part by gifts of $1 million or more each from the Saudi royal family and three Saudi businessmen.
The governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar and the deputy prime minister of Lebanon all also appear to have donated $1 million or more for the archive and museum that opened last week.
Democrats spent much of the presidential campaign this year accusing President Bush of improperly close ties to Saudi Arabia. The case was made in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," in a bestselling book by Craig Unger titled "House of Bush, House of Saud," and by the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Kerry."This administration delayed pressuring the Saudis," Mr. Kerry said on October 20. "I will insist that the Saudis crack down on charities that funnel funds to terrorists... and on anti-American and anti-Israel hate speech."The Media Fund, a Democratic group whose president is a former Clinton White House aide, Harold Ickes, spent millions airing television commercials in swing states with scripts such as, "The Saudi royal family...wealthy...powerful...corrupt. And close Bush family friends."
Perhaps as a result, the Saudi donations to the Clinton library are raising some eyebrows. Mr. Unger said he suspects that the Saudi support may have something to do with a possible presidential bid by Senator Clinton in 2008.
"They want to keep their options open no matter who's in power and whether that's four years from now or whatever," the author said. "Just a few million is nothing to them to keep their options open."
The chief financial officer for the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, Andrew Kessel, said that the vast majority of the roughly 113,000 donors to the foundation are ordinary Americans who made small gifts.
"We have 91,000 who gave $100 or less," he said in an interview Friday. "It's not all Saudi princes."
Information about the donors is available to the public on a single touch-screen computer mounted on a wall on the third floor of the recently opened library. Eventually, most who have contributed $100,000 or more will be listed on a wall in the museum's lobby, Mr. Kessel said.
However, some donors have asked that their names not be released. "We don't have many," Mr. Kessel said, adding, "It doesn't involve anyone controversial."
The computer lists donors by categories that correspond to the size of the gift. But there are no dollar figures provided for each of the funding levels.
Asked why the donor categories were not publicly defined, Mr. Kessel said,"It was a decision we made.We really don't need to at this point."
As a charitable organization, the Clinton Foundation is not required to make the names of its donors or the amounts of their gifts public. However, some of the other foundations that contributed to the library have disclosed their gifts on financial reports that are available from the Internal Revenue Service. By comparing those reports with the donor categories on the third-floor computer screen in the library, The New York Sun was able to match donor categories with approximate dollar amounts.
November 22, 2004
LITTLE ROCK, ARK. - President Clinton's new $165 million library here was funded in part by gifts of $1 million or more each from the Saudi royal family and three Saudi businessmen.
The governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar and the deputy prime minister of Lebanon all also appear to have donated $1 million or more for the archive and museum that opened last week.
Democrats spent much of the presidential campaign this year accusing President Bush of improperly close ties to Saudi Arabia. The case was made in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," in a bestselling book by Craig Unger titled "House of Bush, House of Saud," and by the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Kerry."This administration delayed pressuring the Saudis," Mr. Kerry said on October 20. "I will insist that the Saudis crack down on charities that funnel funds to terrorists... and on anti-American and anti-Israel hate speech."The Media Fund, a Democratic group whose president is a former Clinton White House aide, Harold Ickes, spent millions airing television commercials in swing states with scripts such as, "The Saudi royal family...wealthy...powerful...corrupt. And close Bush family friends."
Perhaps as a result, the Saudi donations to the Clinton library are raising some eyebrows. Mr. Unger said he suspects that the Saudi support may have something to do with a possible presidential bid by Senator Clinton in 2008.
"They want to keep their options open no matter who's in power and whether that's four years from now or whatever," the author said. "Just a few million is nothing to them to keep their options open."
The chief financial officer for the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, Andrew Kessel, said that the vast majority of the roughly 113,000 donors to the foundation are ordinary Americans who made small gifts.
"We have 91,000 who gave $100 or less," he said in an interview Friday. "It's not all Saudi princes."
Information about the donors is available to the public on a single touch-screen computer mounted on a wall on the third floor of the recently opened library. Eventually, most who have contributed $100,000 or more will be listed on a wall in the museum's lobby, Mr. Kessel said.
However, some donors have asked that their names not be released. "We don't have many," Mr. Kessel said, adding, "It doesn't involve anyone controversial."
The computer lists donors by categories that correspond to the size of the gift. But there are no dollar figures provided for each of the funding levels.
Asked why the donor categories were not publicly defined, Mr. Kessel said,"It was a decision we made.We really don't need to at this point."
As a charitable organization, the Clinton Foundation is not required to make the names of its donors or the amounts of their gifts public. However, some of the other foundations that contributed to the library have disclosed their gifts on financial reports that are available from the Internal Revenue Service. By comparing those reports with the donor categories on the third-floor computer screen in the library, The New York Sun was able to match donor categories with approximate dollar amounts.
