Hillary, Raytheon, Qatar, and $26 Billion

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Oct 2016

What do Hillary Clinton, defense contractor Raytheon, the Emirate of Qatar, and $26 Billion have in common?

The name Podesta.

As in Heather Podesta and John Podesta.

Heather Podesta is John Podesta’s sister-in-law, and she works as a lobbyist.  Raytheon hired her to lobby on its behalf at the State Department where her brother-in-law John worked as a “Senior Advisor.”  In 2012, Raytheon was looking to increase its share of lucrative foreign sales of high tech weapons systems, such as missile defenses and helicopters.

In addition to Heather Podesta, who was hired in July 2012, Raytheon hired John Merrigan and Matt Bernstein of the D.C. law firm DLA Piper.  Podesta, Merrigan, and Bernstein were major donors and fund raisers for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 and 2016 campaigns, raising money in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  They also earned hundreds of thousands lobbying the State Department on behalf of clients.  Raytheon in particular paid the three of them roughly half a million dollars in 2012.

Their lobbying efforts worked for Raytheon.  The company was granted the contract to supply Qatar with $19 billion worth of equipment, and a further $7 billion in sales elsewhere.

WikiLeaks revealed that in 2011, Qatar offered $1 million to Bill Clinton as a birthday gift, but wanted “five minutes of his time” in exchange.  The Qatari government desperately wanted U.S. military equipment for the prestige it would confer, and also to suppress a rebellion if necessary.  Hence, Raytheon and Qatar worked towards the same goal from different ends: the willing seller and the willing buyer, with the State Department standing between them.

The particular individual standing between Raytheon and Qatar at the time was Andrew Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs under Hillary Clinton.  Before that, he was Hillary’s national security advisor when she was Senator from New York.  Today, Shapiro is partner with Phillipe Raines, another close Clinton aide, in a Washington “consulting” firm.

After Hillary stepped down as Secretary of State in February, 2013, Raytheon ended its relationship with Heather Podesta and DLA Piper as lobbyists at the State Department.  Their job was done, and their further effectiveness was questionable in view of the change of Secretary of State.

For her part, Heather Podesta specifically denied having lobbied either Hillary Clinton or John Podesta in the Raytheon matter.  Significantly, the name Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin were not on the list of people Heather Podesta denied lobbying.  DLA Piper have replied to no inquiries on this matter.

Thus we have a defense contractor hiring lobbyists closely connected to Hillary Clinton in order to sell many billions of dollars of equipment to foreign buyers, and those foreign buyers offering baksheesh to the Clinton family on the other side.  Hillary’s circle getting their cut, the deal was allowed to proceed.  Then the contractor ends its relationship with the lobbyists, the deal done.  Raytheon pays lobbyists half a mill for six month’s work, and gets $26 billion is foreign sales.  A good deal for Raytheon.

Hillary can say that she was only looking to advance the interests of the United States, and supplying Qatar with$19 billion worth of equipment can be said to be in the foreign policy interests of the United States.  But the question of which U.S. contractor gets to profit from the sale in this case strangely turned on the Clinton circle getting its wheels greased.  This may not be pay to play, but it sure looks like a clever version of it.  Make the game complex enough, and you lose sight of the hidden ball.

James Rosen of Fox News broke this story.

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