After Assassination Of Haiti's President, Conspiracy Theorists Focus On The Clinton Foundation Photo: In this Nov. 8, 2016, file photo, then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and her husband former President Bill Clinton, greet supporters after voting in Chappaqua, N.Y. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)/Photo: Haiti's President Jovenel Moise at the national palace during a ceremony marking the 216th anniversary of Battle of Vertieres in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Nov. 18, 2019. The battle was the last major battle of Haitian independence from France. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)
The shocking assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse at his residence on July 7 has stirred up conspiracy theories including one on the fringes of the internet that former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation were somehow involved.
It has been more than 100 years since a Haitian president died by violence and Haitian authorities have rounded up 28 foreign mercenaries, including retired Colombian soldiers and two Haitian Americans, The BBC reported. Haitian police killed four of the suspects involved but a motive for the killing has yet to be reported and a name of who orchestrated it is not forthcoming.
Conservatives, particularly those who adhere to the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon, are pointing the finger at the Clintons. Conspiracy theories seem to stem from legitimate complaints involving the Clintons’ work in the Caribbean country. Specifically, questions have been raised about how the Clinton Foundation spent aid money designed to help Haiti.
Since Clinton left the White House in 2001, his foundation has been heavily involved in Haiti, becoming a major economic power on the island, The Atlantic reported. The foundation announced major initiatives such as a new port complex and developed dozens of smaller projects with its own fundraising. While Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State for President Barack Obama, she pushed Haiti toward market-opening reforms, with a focus to energize economic development and job creation.
But all of the Clintons’ plans in Haiti have not panned out, especially after the devastating January 2010 earthquake. Still, the Clintons played a major role in recovery efforts in Haiti after the earthquake.
Bill Clinton became the public face of U.S. efforts in Haiti and he was the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, co-leader of the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund (with former president George W. Bush), and co-chairman of an Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, The Washington Post reported.
The Clinton Foundation also raised more than $30 million for Haiti relief projects but struggled to deliver some of the initiatives it promoted. Some Clinton-backed projects didn’t come through, such as a $2 million housing expo for thousands of new housing units, The Washington Post reported. According to the Government Accountability Office found, planning and unsustainable outcomes for taxpayer-funded projects through USAID, such as a $170 million power plant and port for the Caracol Industrial Park, stalled several projects.
This didn’t make the Clintons look good, and led many in Haiti and the US. to question their motives. Conservatives seized on the failures.
Add to this the fact that Hillary Clinton’s younger brother had connections to a mining project in Haiti, raising suspicions among Haitians, The Washington Post reported.
Conservatives began to spread the rumor that the Clinton family had extracted an immense fortune out of Haiti. By 1986, there was a strong anti-Clinton sentiment in the Haitian-American community. Now, the rumors are popping up again.
Socialist Boomer @SocialistBoomer tweeted, “Clinton Foundation’s actions in Haiti are suspect af and deserve a ton of criticism and investigation. Claiming that’s why the president of Haiti got assassinated is like a batshit crazy assertion by the Q-stans.”
It doesn’t help that the Clinton Foundation has had a shaky past. In 2018, federal authorities investigated allegations of corruption related to it, CNN reported.
The FBI and federal prosecutors looked into whether donors to the charitable foundation were improperly promised policy favors or special access to Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state in exchange for donations to the charity’s coffers. Feds also investigated whether tax-exempt funds were misused.
The foundation’s work in Haiti was scrutinized. It had built “hurricane-proof” classroom trailers that were believed to be structurally unsafe and possibly laced with the deadly toxic formaldehyde. Air samples collected from 12 of the Haiti trailers detected troubling levels of formaldehyde in one, according to lab results obtained as part of a joint investigation by The Nation and The Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund.
There are also questions about a hospital that the Clinton Foundation was supposed to build and outrage over money allegedly raised for its construction. Problem is, the hospital was a rumor. “The Clinton Foundation never committed to building a hospital, nor did it accept, raise, or spend funds for that purpose,” Craig Minassian, a Clinton Foundation spokesman, told the Washington Post in 2016.
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