Briefly Noted: June 2015

At least four board members of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, a public charity, have either been charged with or convicted of serious crimes, including bribery and fraud, according to Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer. They are tech magnate Vinod Gupta, hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal, billionaire Victor Dahdaleh, and energy tycoon Rolando Gonzalez Bunster, Breitbart News reported. Gupta paid out millions of dollars after he settled civil charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which had accused him of vigorously padding his expense account. Chatwal was convicted last year of illegal campaign financing and fined $1 million. The British government failed to win a bribery conviction against Dahdaleh when “a key witness … pleaded guilty to conspiracy to corrupt but refused to testify.” The Dominican Republic accuses Bunster of charging it “ballooned” fees.

Meanwhile, Internet and Nexis searches suggest that two of Gupta’s projects in India that were to be named after Hillary Clinton failed to materialize. Registered as a charity in 1997 in India, the Vinod Gupta Charitable Foundation pledged $6 million in 2007 to create the “Hillary Clinton School of Journalism,” according to the Clinton Foundation’s website. The school does not appear to have been built. Gupta’s foundation’s website boasts of a “Hillary Rodham Clinton Nursing School,” to be established in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The link on the website to the school’s website leads to a placeholder page of an Internet domain name broker.

After it was discovered that IRS agents have been dressing as members of the clergy in order to infiltrate churches, a religious leader denounced the practice, which is allowed under IRS rules. The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, told the Christian Post it is an “absolute disgrace” that the tax-collection agency is allowed to use undercover agents posing as clergy. “It is the role of government to protect religious freedom and the First Amendment, and not to use it to gather information and spy on American citizens,” Mahoney said. Faith leaders he talked to said, “it would seem to have to do with healthcare and the Affordable Care Act, and churches complying with that,” Mahoney said.

Alex Soros, son of the radical financier George Soros who infamously called living in Nazi-occupied Hungary “the most exciting time of my life,” is starting what critics consider an anti-Israel political action committee. Bend the Arc PAC doesn’t have its own website yet. The PAC is an arm of the 501(c)(4) nonprofit Bend the Arc Jewish Action Inc., which advocates for “progressive domestic values” and claims to affirm “the Jewish tradition of building a just society, and our belief that those who are blessed by opportunity have a responsibility to further the common good.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is using last month’s race riots in Baltimore to push its radical agenda. Instead of trying to help cool things down, the left-wing group is turning up the heat in Baltimore and other cities across America. On Twitter the ACLU announced that the “Black Spring has begun” and urged protesters to learn their legal rights. The group did not elaborate. Black Spring appears to be analogous to the Arab Spring of 2011 in which popular, sometimes bloody, revolts ousted various governments in the Middle East and cleared the way for Islamic totalitarians like the Muslim Brotherhood to take over.