Opinion

Trump U Is Nothing Compared To Laureate Education

Roger Stone Political Consultant
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Hillary Clinton is excoriating Donald Trump over Trump University? The Clinton scandal at Laureate Education, a for- profit education chain of schools and colleges operating world-wide, including the United States is much worse. That New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is pursuing Trump University while ignoring CGI-University, a shady joint venture of Laureate and the Clinton Global Initiative adds insult to injury.

The Laureate Education went private in August 2007, in a multi billion dollar, risky, hugely leveraged transaction, closed in the last gasp of the bubble. The leveraged buyout was completed around August 2007 for approximately $3 billion in debt plus equity. The driving force behind the deal is of Friend of Bill (FOB) hedge fund king Steven Cohen, a poster child for bad hedge fund behavior. Henry Kravis and his KKR, Goldman Sachs and many others are in.

After the deal closed, the schools had great financial difficulties and these capital suppliers grew concerned. Bill Clinton’s pals were feeling squeezed as a profitable exit seemed less and less likely.

To dress the deal up in 2010, Bill Clinton was brought in to serve as “Chancellor,” a part-time position for which he was collecting $16 million through early 2015. This extraordinary compensation was never properly disclosed until 2015. Many of those on the hook paid Bill and Hillary big fees for speeches as well. Bill Clinton was thus collecting from both Laureate equity and debt suppliers. The Laureate CEO, Doug Becker, is involved as a Clinton backer, Clinton Global Initiative and Clinton Foundation donor and involved in the International Youth Foundation, a recipient of favors and money from the Clinton-led Department of State

Incredibly, in 2013 the International Finance Corporation announced a record setting $150 million investment in Laureate at a time when its financial condition was rocky at best. Clinton’s involvement sealed the deal. Then the Clinton Global Initiative and Clinton Foundation entered into a joint venture with Laureate to create CGI-University. Yet none of these related party disclosures are included in any of the Clinton Foundation or Clinton Global Initiative filings for relevant periods (starting in 2008 or so).

New York State law requires specific approvals for an entity to hold itself out as being a university. In this case CGI (a fraud) created CGI University (a fraud) in league with Laureate, a fraud. Laureate is a highly leveraged failing investment whose principal beneficiaries are Wall Street fat cats and billionaires, and William Jefferson Clinton.