India-US nuke deal: Indian politician gave between $ 1m and $5m to Clinton Foundation

[LahoreEstate]

MONITORING DESK
KARACHI (January 23 2009): Republican Senator John Cornyn, who had held up a voice vote on Hillary Clinton's confirmation Tuesday, cited a huge donation by an Indian politician to the Clinton Foundation when the India-US civil nuclear deal was before the Congress for its final approval as "just one example of the perception of conflict of interest".

The politician from India is presumably Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh whose name figured among the Clinton Foundation donors. Support from the Samajwadi Party played a major role in bailing out the Congress-led UPA government during the July 22 trust vote in parliament over the India-US nuclear deal.

This party is also known for maintaining a very hostile attitude towards Pakistan. Soon after Mumbai attacks, Amar Singh, party's general secretary, demanded of the US to allow India carry out attacks on Pakistan. He is reported to have said: "Why can't the US allow India to take steps against Pakistan to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism there the way it has justified Israel's bombing of Gaza in the name of self-defence."

In his speech, Senator Cornyn said: "Now, last year, last Congress, we voted to support a civilian technology arrangement with the country of India and I voted for it. But one of the problems is, for example, one of the individuals who was lobbying for that, a politician in India who gave between $1 million and $5million to the foundation, was actually lobbying Congress to pass this very same deal at the time he was making a significant contribution to the foundation...".

Cornyn, who also voted for her, however, suggested that he only wanted to air his concerns about the danger of perceived conflicts of interest caused by the foundation's solicitation of "hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign and some domestic sources".

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