Will Bill Clinton sink Hillary's SoS hopes?

by Frank James

If you're President-elect Barack Obama and you're looking for a good excuse not to appoint Sen. Hillary Clinton to your cabinet, former President Bill Clinton is a godsend.

The Obama campaign has reportedly been spending time vetting the New York senator before any offer of a cabinet post, presumably Secretary of State, is made.

As part of the vet, Obama's transition team is attempting a full scrub of the former president's business dealings. But evidently, it's rough going.

As the Politico reports:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is President-elect Obama's first choice for secretary of State but his aides are becoming exasperated by the Clinton camp's pokey response to demands for extensive information about former President Bill Clinton's finances, according to numerous Democrats involved in the process.

"The sense among the no-drama Obama world is: This is well on its way to winning best Oscar for drama," said one well-connected Democratic official.

There are signs, however, that the Clintons may move decisively to satisfy the vetting requests in coming days, clearing the way for a "Team of Rivals" cabinet that would bring the president-elect's opponent for the Democratic nomination into his historic administration.

Obama isn't likely to formally offer the post to Clinton unless he's given assurances Bill Clinton's global charitable foundation won't create future conflicts of interest with foreign governments, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Maybe Obama can get past that hurdle if he really wants to appoint the senator from New York to be the nation's top diplomat.

But it would seem to be a very challenging problem for Obama, especially based on the little we know about the former president's post White House activities.

The New York Times, for instance, earlier this year had a revealing story about a large donation the former president's foundation received from a Canadian businessman.

Frank Giustra, the Canadian, won a uranium deal from Kazakhstan after he visited, with the former president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, the president and strongman ruler of that south Asian country who, ironically, wanted Clinton's support for the leadership of "an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy," according to the NY TImes.

On the surface, these are the kind of dealings that raise red flags, despite the former president's spokesman's explanation contained in this excerpt.

A spokesman for Mr. Clinton said the former president knew that Mr. Giustra had mining interests in Kazakhstan but was unaware of "any particular efforts" and did nothing to help. Mr. Giustra said he was there as an "observer only" and there was "no discussion" of the deal with Mr. Nazarbayev or Mr. Clinton.

After The Times told Mr. Giustra that others said he had discussed the deal with Mr. Nazarbayev, Mr. Giustra responded that he "may well have mentioned my general interest in the Kazakhstan mining business to him, but I did not discuss the ongoing" efforts.

If the senator from New York were to become secretary of state and wound up making a favorable policy recommendation involving Kazakhstan, how could her husband's relationship with Nazarbayev and Giustra not raise conflict-of-interest questions? And how many more of these situations are there?

These are the kinds of questions the Obama people will have to answer to their satisfaction before she gets the nod. Of course, if they really don't want her to have it, these questions give them the out they need.