Report: Clinton Foundation Helped Facilitate Backdoor US Arms Sales To Bahrain Following Donation

Newly released emails obtained by Judicial Watch confirm that the Prince of Bahrain gained access to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton through the Clinton Foundation in June of 2009 after unsuccessfully trying “normal channels.”

Bahrain Crown Prince Salman’s meeting with Clinton was arranged by her close aide Huma Abedin. Because of course.

“[He’s] asking to see her,” Doug Band, a senior executive at the Clinton Foundation told Abedin via email. “Good friend of ours.”

Abedin confessed that Salman had already placed a request for a meeting through “normal channels.”

“I asked and [Hillary] said she doesn’t want to commit to anything for thurs or fri until she knows how she will feel,” Abedin wrote, replying back to Band.

Shortly after in a follow-up email, Abedin told the high-ranking Clinton Foundation employee that “HRC” had decided to meet with Crown Prince Salman. The message was then presumably transmitted to Bahrain.

The Clinton Foundation’s own website confirms that Bahrain has donated $100,000 over the years to the foundation and Salman has directed tens of millions more to the organization.

According to the International Business (IB) Times, “Salman has directed $32 million to a Clinton Foundation program, and the Kingdom of Bahrain has donated up to $100,000 more.”

Clinton’s meeting with Salman directly preceded a massive surge in US arms exports to Bahrain.

IB Times reports:

As Bahrain money flowed into the Clinton Foundation, State Department documents showed that between 2010 and 2012 the Clinton-led State Department approved $630 million worth of direct commercial arms sales to Salman’s military forces in Bahrain. That was a 187 percent increase from the period 2006 to 2008, and the increase came as Bahrain was violently suppressing uprisings.

During those Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 — when Bahrain was accused of using tear gas on its own people — the Clinton-led State Department approved more than $70,000 worth of arms sales classified as “toxicological agents.” That compared to just $700 worth of such sales in the immediate prior period.

Despite overwhelming circumstantial evidence, the Clinton campaign is flatly denying that there’s any link between the sale of arms to Bahrain and Prince Salman’s donations to the Clinton Foundation.

“No matter how [Judicial Watch] tries to mischaracterize these documents, the fact remains that Hillary Clinton never took action as Secretary of State because of donations to the Clinton Foundation,” said campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin in a statement on Monday.