A lengthy report in the Wall Street Journal Thursday details Hillary Clinton’s actions while US secretary of state,on behalf of the Swiss banking giant UBS. The bank reciprocated by means of large contributions to the Clinton Foundation and a fat paycheck for Bill Clinton to participate in a question-and-answer session with UBS executives.
The article examines the type of exchange of services for cash payment that is standard operating procedure for capitalist politicians and their corporate masters worldwide. The only unusual aspect of the transactions is the detailed record, supplied in part thanks to the publication of US State Department cables from Switzerland by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
In 2008, an American employee of the bank, working in Switzerland, revealed that UBS had thousands of US customers who had opened accounts to avoid paying US taxes. The bank signed a consent agreement in 2009, agreeing to pay a $780 million fine and give the names of 250 account holders. But the IRS was pressing for a broader disclosure—the names of US citizens who held 52,000 numbered accounts worth an estimated $18 billion.
At Clinton’s first meeting with her Swiss counterpart, Micheline Calmy-Rey, there was a list of pressing issues, several relating to Iran, where the Swiss embassy has represented US interests since 1979. The Obama administration wanted Switzerland to accept some Guantanamo detainees, to curtail business by a Swiss-based energy company in Iran, and to intervene on behalf of a US journalist detained in Iran. The Swiss government, serving as the political agent of the Swiss banks, wanted to curb the forced disclosure of information by UBS.
