SEC Probes Sleazy Clinton Pal

The Clintons and their dubious friends never take a holiday. On this Thanksgiving Day, we get news of yet another oily Clinton donor who's being investigated.

Naturally, The Pantsuit had no comment.

SEC EYE ON HILL $$ MAN

Federal investigators are probing a company run by a wheeler-dealer pal of Hillary and Bill Clinton that has already been accused by stockholders of wasting millions on the former first couple, it was revealed yesterday.

InfoUSA, a database marketing company founded and headed by Clinton friend and megadonor Vin Gupta, filed papers with the Securities and Exchanges Commission. The filing said that the company would comply with the SEC's efforts to obtain records related to its corporate spending and trades of some company stock.

Those SEC requests would suggest that the pending investigation parallels two lawsuits already filed against Gupta for sinking company dollars into lavish purchases - like a 80-foot yacht and real estate in vacation spots.

The lawsuits, filed by two hedge funds, revealed that Gupta sprung for almost $900,000 in jet rides on the company dime for both Clintons since 2001, and a $3.3 million consulting contract for the former president.

Additional allegations against Gupta include one that he improperly awarded 100,000 share options to Bill Clinton without board approval.

The company has denied those allegations.

The company did not respond to requests for comment on the investigation.

The Clintons have a well-documented relationship with Gupta, who reportedly named schools after both Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband in India.

Bill Clinton lavished praise on InfoUSA for its nondiscriminatory hiring policies in his book on charity, called "Giving."

An employee of a subsidiary of InfoUSA told ABC News that the firm had put up for sale portions of a secret list of donors who helped Bill Clinton build his $165 million presidential library. Clinton had previously protected the identity of those donors, saying that many of them wished to remain anonymous.

Hmmm. I wonder who's on that secret list?

More here.

I wonder if Gupta is still scamming the elderly?

Another Sleazy Friend of The Clintons

Dick Morris has a curious column today detailing an incredibly sleazy guy named Vinod Gupta and a company called InfoUSA, which just so happens to have Bill Clinton on the payroll.

As The New York Times reported on Sunday, InfoUSA compiled and sold lists of elderly men and women who would be likely to respond to unscrupulous scams. The company advertised lists such as: "Elderly Opportunity Seekers" - 3.3 million older people "looking for ways to make money "Suffering Seniors" - 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer's disease; "Oldies but Goodies" - 500,000 gamblers over age 55. It described one list: "These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change."

Internal e-mails show that InfoUSA employees were aware that they were selling this data to firms under investigation for fraud - but kept on selling the information, even as the scammers used the lists to bilk millions from the elderly.

Read the whole thing.

More on Gupta at the New York Sun.