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<\/a>Committee chairman U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) delivers an opening statement as retired U.S. Marine Corps General James Mattis sits before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to serve as defense secretary in Washington, U.S. January 12, 2017. REUTERS\/Jonathan Ernst<\/p><\/div>\n
RICHARD POLLOCK
\nThe Daily Caller<\/p>\n
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in 2012 turned over nearly $9 million in unspent funds from his failed 2008 presidential campaign to a new foundation bearing his name, the McCain Institute for International Leadership.<\/p>\n
The institute is intended to serve as a \u201clegacy\u201d for McCain and \u201cis dedicated to advancing human rights, dignity, democracy and freedom.\u201d It is a tax-exempt non-profit foundation with assets valued at $8.1 million and associated with Arizona State University.<\/p>\n
Conservative and liberal critics, however, believe the institute constitutes a major conflict of interest for McCain, The Daily Caller News Foundation\u2019s Investigative Group has learned.<\/p>\n
McCain, a former Navy pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and was then a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton until 1973, is a major political force in Washington, D.C. He is presently chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.<\/p>\n
Critics worry that the institute\u2019s donors and McCain\u2019s personal leadership in the organization\u2019s exclusive \u201cSedona Forum\u201d bear an uncanny resemblance to the glitzy Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) that annually co-mingled special interests and powerful political players in alleged pay-to-play schemes.<\/p>\n
The institute has accepted contributions of as much as $100,000 from billionaire liberal activist-funder George Soros and from Teneo, a for-profit company co-founded by Doug Band, former President Bill Clinton\u2019s \u201cbag man.\u201d Teneo has long helped enrich Clinton through lucrative speaking and business deals.<\/p>\n
And Bloomberg\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0in 2016 on a $1 million Saudi Arabian donation to the institute, a contribution the McCain group has refused to explain publicly.<\/p>\n Completing this poll entitles you to Daily Caller news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our\u00a0Privacy Policy<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n In addition, the institute has taken at least $100,000 from a Moroccan state-run company tied to repeated charges of worker abuse and exploitation. The McCain group has also accepted at least $100,000 from the Pivotal Foundation, which was\u00a0created by Francis Najafi who owns the Pivotal Group, a private equity and real estate firm.<\/p>\n The Pivotal Foundation has in the last three years given $205,000 to the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), which has been a vocal advocate for the Iranian nuclear deal the Obama administration negotiated.<\/p>\n The NIAC web site claims the group \u201cis a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the voice of Iranian Americans and promoting greater understanding between the American and Iranian people.\u201d<\/p>\n But NIAC President Trita Parsi has long been an advocate for Iran, including demanding in May 2017 that President Donald Trump and officials in his administration \u201ccease questioning the integrity of a (nuclear) deal.\u201d<\/p>\n The NIAC is \u201cIran\u2019s lobbyists in Washington,\u201d charged Aresh Salih, the Washington representative of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. \u201cPeople inside of Iran know them as their lobbyists in Washington, D.C.,\u201d Salih told TheDCNF.<\/p>\n The NIAC does not file as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, nor does it register as a lobbyist with Congress.<\/p>\n Yet in May 2013, Parsi\u00a0spoke<\/a>\u00a0to a packed Capitol Hill meeting sponsored by Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison to argue in favor of the nuclear deal. Ellison was the first Muslim elected to Congress and is also deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very real conflict of interest,\u201d Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, told TheDCNF. \u201cThis is the similar type of pattern we received with the Clinton Foundation in which foreign governments and foreign interests were throwing a lot of money in the hopes of trying to buy influence.\u201d<\/p>\n Liberal consumer advocate Ralph Nader founded Public Citizen.<\/p>\n Lawrence Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, told the DCNF that accepting contributions in the name of a sitting senator like McCain raises troubling issues.<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of the ethics of it, it does raise a broad question of people trying to get good will with the elected official,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom a personal standpoint, I\u2019d rather not see these entities exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Charles Ortel, a retired Wall Street investment banker and philanthropy law expert, told TheDCNF that \u201chigh government officials such as John McCain, [former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama should not get involved with vehicles like these where substantial sums can be funneled over time in ways that at best, reeks of impropriety and at worse are public corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n The institute\u2019s donations not only suggest special pleading before the senator, but also in some instances appear to contradict McCain\u2019s vision of human rights and national security.<\/p>\n It accepted more than $100,000 from OCP, S.A., a Moroccan state-owned phosphate company operating in the Western Sahara, territory which Morocco seized in 1975. The North African country has since occupied the region by force in defiance of U.N. resolutions and legal declarations by other international bodies.<\/p>\n Morocco has come under criticism from human rights groups that the government violates basic human rights and that its state-owned companies subject its workforce to gruesome conditions while exploiting the disputed territory\u2019s natural resources.<\/p>\n The Western Sahara holds half of the world\u2019s phosphate reserves. Used to make fertilizer, phosphate is called Morocco\u2019s \u201cwhite gold.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week, a South African court\u00a0ruled<\/a>\u00a0in favor of the seizure of an OCP ship charged with illegally carrying 50,000 tons of phosphate from the Western Sahara. The country\u2019s independence movement, which calls the territory the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, succeeded in convincing the court to keep the ship in port until the case is resolved.<\/p>\n The King of Morocco was a major donor to the Clinton Foundation. Hillary Clinton\u00a0personally accepted\u00a0<\/a>$12 million from the King in return for holding a CGI regional meeting in the country.<\/p>\n OCP also was a\u00a0major sponsor<\/a>\u00a0of the CGI meeting, and Bill Clinton was the featured speaker.<\/p>\n The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice has\u00a0charged<\/a>OCP with \u201cserious human rights violations,\u201d including exploitation of workers by not \u201cadequately compensating the impoverished people who live there.\u201d<\/p>\n