Hillary Clinton's Blind Trust Revisited

Among the files pulled from the White House office of 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton’s former law firm and business partner, Vince Foster, following his death in July 1993 was apparently a file titled “Clintons’ Blind Trust.” As Blood Sport by James Stewart noted in 1996:

“[Former White House Counsel] Nussbaum called Maggie Williams, the first lady’s chief of staff, and asked her to remove the Clintons’ personal papers…Among the materials were files on `Whitewater Development’; the Clintons’ income taxes, including materials on how to treat the sale of the Clintons’ interest in Whitewater; the `CLINTONS’ BLIND TRUST’; `HRC: Personal And Confidential’; `HRC: Financial’; and a file labelled `Clintons financial statement.’”

Prior to being named by the Clintons to invest their Blind Trust stock portfolio, Essex Investment Management Chairman Joseph McNay revealed his investment philosophy in a chart that was published in the June 25, 1990 issue of Barron’s, titled “McNay’s Picks,” which indicated the specific stocks which the Clintons’ stock portfolio would likely contain. The stocks McNay “picked” in June 1990 were: 1. Amgen; 2. Chiron; 3. Cosillium; 4. Geraghty & Miller; 5. Harding Associates; 6. Intel; 7. Knowledgeware; 8. Motorola; 9. Sage Software; 10. Schlumberger; 11. Structural Dynamics; 12. Synooptics; 13. Waste Management [WAX]; and 14. Weatherford I.G.P..

McNay again revealed his investment philosophy in an article which appeared in the August 1993 issue of Forbes magazine, titled “The Long And The Short Of It.” In this article, McNay indicated that he liked Motorola, L.M. Ericsson, General Instruments, McCaw, MCI, TCI, Time Warner, Associated Natural Gas, Tejas Gas, Seagull Energy, Enron Oil & Gas, Apache, Noble Affiliates, Parker & Parsley Petroleum, Western Co. of North America, BJ Services and Weatherford International; but remained `short’ on “stocks that shone during most of the 1980s and early 1990s: Philip Morris, WalMart, Nike” and “on Dell, Apple Compaq and Structural Dynamics.”

A U.S. government official apparently called Essex to warn McNay not to talk to the press about his “investment philosophy.” But the Clinton Administration’s Office of Government Ethics didn’t order the Clintons’ Blind Trust trustee, Boston Harbor Trust, to pick a new money manager; so that Bill and Hillary would actually be “blind” as to how their portfolio was being invested while Hillary’s husband made White House decisions affecting its profitability. (Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 11/6/96)

According to CDA/Spectrum, a Rockville, Maryland research firm, Essex Investment Management’s stock holdings at the end of June 1996 included $1.7 million in Amoco, $10 million in Belco Oil & Gas, $2.5 million in Benton Oil & Gas, $613,000 in Chevron, $1.3 million in Exxon, $770,000 in Mobil, $12.6 million in Ranger Oil, $661,000 in Royal Dutch Petroleum, $1 million in Rutherford-Moran Oil and $816,000 in Texaco stocks. In July 1993, Bill and Hillary picked Essex to invest their blind trust stock portfolio after a May 1993 consultation in the White House between Hillary and Essex honcho Joe McNay in which McNay discussed his “investment philosophy.” (Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 12/25/96)

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