Bill Clinton's $700,000 Stock Windfall; Company Linked to Felon, China

Byline: Jim McElhatton, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The spring before his wife began her White House campaign, former President Bill Clinton earned $700,000 for his foundation by selling stock that he had been given from an Internet search company that was co-founded by a convicted felon and backed by the Chinese government, public records show.

Mr. Clinton had gotten the nonpublicly traded stock from Accoona Corp. back in 2004 as a gift for giving a speech at a company event. He landed the windfall by selling the 200,000 shares to an undisclosed buyer in May 2006, commanding $3.50 a share at a time when the company was reporting millions of dollars of losses, according to interviews.

A spokesman for the William J. Clinton Foundation declined to identify the buyer who was willing to pay so much for a struggling company's stock, saying only that the transaction was handled by a securities broker. It occurred seven months before Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her bid to run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

The spokesman, Ben Yarrow, declined last week to say whether Mr. Clinton knew about the Chinese government's connection to Accoona or the felony fraud conviction of one of the company's founders.

"President Clinton gave a speech; he did not endorse a product," Mr. Yarrow said.

The $700,000 capital gains was listed on the tax returns of Mr. Clinton's foundation that …

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Publication information: Article title: Bill Clinton's $700,000 Stock Windfall; Company Linked to Felon, China. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: The Washington Times (Washington, DC). Publication date: March 7, 2008. Page number: A01. © 2009 The Washington Times LLC. COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale Group.

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