One of the attendees at these conferences speaks to the stickiness of some donor relationships . Victor Pinchuk , a steel magnate whose father - in - law , Leonid Kuchma , was president of Ukraine from 1994 to 2005 , has directed between $ 10 million and $ 25 million to the foundation . He has lent transaction.transferownership.borrowlend his private plane to the Clintons and traveled to Los Angeles in 2011 to attend Mr. Clinton ’s star - studded 65th birthday celebration . Between September 2011 and November 2012 , Douglas E. Schoen , a former political consultant for Mr. Clinton , arranged about a dozen meetings with State Department officials on behalf of or with Mr. Pinchuk to discuss the continuing political crisis in Ukraine , according to reports Mr. Schoen filed as a registered lobbyist . “ I had breakfast with Pinchuk .

The Wall Street Journal reported last July that Hillary Clinton intervened on behalf of Swiss banking giant UBS AG , which the IRS was suing to get the identities of Americans with offshore accounts . After that intervention in 2009 , donations by UBS to the Clinton Foundation increased from less than $ 60,000 to a total of $ 600,000 by the end of 2014 , according to the Journal ’s report . Additionally , the bank lent transaction.transferownership.borrowlend $ 32 million to the foundation to jump - start its entrepreneurship and inner - city loan program , and Bill Clinton received $ 1.5 million to do question - and - answer sessions with UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann . However , the Journal ’s report acknowledges that there is “ no evidence of any link between Mrs. Clinton ’s involvement in the case and the bank ’s donations to the Bill , Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation , or its hiring of Mr. Clinton , ” while characterizing it as a “ prime example of how the Clintons ’ private and political activities overlap . ” “ Any suggestion that she was driven by anything but what ’s in America ’s best interest would be false .

The age of American Triumphalism has caused more rot in the mainstream media . Not only with the Times but with other major outlets like the Washington Post , the Wall St. Journal and National Public Radio . A striking example occurred when the Times lent transaction.transferownership.borrowlend its front page to a fabricated and now thoroughly discredited story by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon in September , 2002 claiming that Iraq had WMD . That was just weeks before Congress took a vote to “ authorize ” George W. Bush to launch an invasion of Iraq . I still recall the day I looked at that article and thought it was fact free and source free and that any decent editor would turn it back .