The Clintons led the rebuilding of Haiti after the earthquake: supporters call them “saviors.” Critics allege dirty deals

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Haiti's crime crisis has prompted earlier allegations about the roles former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton played in the country's recovery after the 2010 earthquake.

“I had the opportunity to watch a lot of things that happened on the ground,” Jack Brewer, a former NFL player and philanthropist who has pursued initiatives to help rebuild Haiti, told Fox News Digital last week.

“After the 2010 earthquake, I worked with the NFL Players Association, and we partnered with the Clinton-Bush Fund for Haiti…. It was called the Clinton Fund for Haiti… and we raised a lot of money through that, and it started to take off.” . He explained.

“Then other countries came and started allocating a lot of money. You would think the long-term goal would be to rebuild Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas that were affected by the earthquake, but I was there and it's been a few years and we're still working.”

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Former President Clinton, center right, and his wife US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, center left, stand with workers at the grand opening ceremony of the new Caracol industrial complex in Caracol, Haiti, October 22, 2012. (Larry Downing/AFP via Getty Images)

Brewer said he feels many Haitians “believe America is one of the roots of the problem,” going back to the Clintons and their rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake.

When asked about their role in Haiti's recovery, spokesmen for the former president and secretary told Fox News Digital: “The Clintons worked tirelessly to meet the needs of the Haitian people in the wake of the devastating earthquake.”

“Even as their critics distorted and obscured the facts, they never hesitated to do everything in their power to uplift people. It is easy to point fingers from afar for political gain, but it hinders progress, and that is tragic.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton made Haiti their cause famous after visiting the island for their honeymoon. The island holds a special place in the couple's life.

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The former president had considered giving up on seeking public office altogether before visiting Haiti, but after seeing the culture and the people — “the way different cultures try to understand life and nature and actually universal belief” in the spirit — Clinton decided to run for attorney general, which prompted On the path to the presidency, according to his memoirs titled “My Life.”

Hillary Clinton has remained fascinated by Haiti, visiting the island four times during her tenure at the State Department, as many times as she has visited Japan, Afghanistan or Russia, according to Jonathan M. Katz.

Earthquake victims, residents of a makeshift camp, demonstrate on October 6, 2010, in Port-au-Prince to demand better living conditions. (Thony Belisaire/AFP via Getty Images)

Katz covered Haiti for The Associated Press for three and a half years during and after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the island. The quake killed more than 222,500 people, injured at least 300,000 and displaced more than 1.3 million of the country's population of about 9.8 million at the time, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.

The earthquake also destroyed more than 97,000 homes and damaged more than 188,000 others, according to World Health Organization estimates after the disaster.

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All of this created a perfect storm of personal and international interest. The Clintons assumed responsibility for helping rebuild Haiti in the years following the earthquake, with Bill Clinton joining then-Prime Minister of Haiti Jean-Max Bellerive as co-chair of the Interim Commission for Haiti's Recovery.

The Clinton Foundation, along with a new foundation established by Bill Clinton and former President George W. Bush, has raised about $90 million to support the cause, including $36 million from the Clinton Foundation and $54 million from the Clinton Bush Fund for Haiti.

On March 22, 2010, in Port-au-Prince, Rene Preval, President of Haiti, walks with George Bush and Bill Clinton, former US presidents, as they receive earthquake survivors at a camp located on Place Mussoli. (Charles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Charities, governments and other groups were able to donate more than $13.5 billion to Haiti to help with its recovery, a major step in supporting a country with a GDP of about $11 billion at the time of the earthquake.

That the Clintons would play such a central role in Haiti's recovery is not surprising, according to Katz, who wrote a review of their involvement in rebuilding in a 2015 Politico article, “The King and Queen of Haiti.”

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The Clintons “repeatedly played a key role in Haiti's politics, helping select its national leaders and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars in private aid, investments, and American taxpayer money toward its development,” Katz wrote.

“They brought with them a network of friends and global companies that would not have been here otherwise,” Katz continued. “Together, this web of power and money has left indelible marks on almost every aspect of the Haitian economy. In many respects, this island nation represents ground zero for the confusing and often conflict-ridden intersection between its State Department and the Clinton family. The foundation and both of their foreign policies “

A woman looks up at a hillside covered in homes that were severely damaged by the devastating earthquake that occurred on January 15, 2010, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The article coincidentally preceded an in-depth look at the Clinton family's financial dealings since Bill Clinton left the White House, and political advisor Peter Schweitzer's “Clinton Cash.” The best-selling book, published by Broadside Books and researched with the help of the Government Accounting Institute, a conservative think tank, claimed that the State Department “designed and created a path that would direct the aid and relief funds that would soon flow into the country.”

“Hillary would control her money, and Bill would have tremendous control over where the money was spent. He was the money man in Haiti,” Schweitzer wrote.

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Despite Bill Clinton's “romantic” ambitions for the island, five years after the earthquake, the island saw “billions of dollars… flow into the country, and the tap was controlled by Hillary and Bill, and the money ended up in worthless projects – and in the pockets of friends and allies.” Clinton.”

Schweitzer cited audits conducted by the federal government in saying that “a lot of taxpayer money intended for practical rebuilding has been wasted.”

A man and a boy sit amid rubble caused by the January 15, 2010 earthquake, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

ABC News in 2016 would follow up Schweitzer's book with a bombshell report that discussed a series of emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the Republican National Committee that allegedly showed the State Department turning its attention to offers from companies and individuals flagged “FOB” on them. (Friends of Bill Clinton) or “WJC VIPs” (William Jefferson Clinton VIPs).

Bill Clinton refuted these allegations during an interview with Charlie Rose on CBS News that year, insisting that “nothing was ever done to anyone because they were shareholders in the foundation. Nothing.”

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Clinton family supporters claim the emails showed no effort to direct contracts or money to those companies, but merely to “identify and assist friends of former President Bill Clinton who were offering assistance or requesting assistance” in Haiti.

Katz described the couple's efforts in Haiti as “crucially mixed, a murky story full of big promises and smaller results.” But, in a subsequent article for Slate magazine the following year, he felt the need to clarify some of what he had written in the wake of mounting allegations and claims of misconduct regarding their work in Haiti.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, center, tours a housing development near the Caracol Industrial Park with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Va., and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis on October 22, 2012, in Caracol, Haiti. (Karl Jost/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

“I thought it was funny when my name and article (“King and Queen of Haiti”) appeared in the documentary version of “Clinton Cash,” given that the article in question debunked some of Peter Schweitzer’s most sensational claims,” Katz said. Fox News Digital. “I remain a vocal critic of US policy in Haiti, and I stand by the many criticisms I have made of both Hillary and Bill Clinton in their official and personal roles over the years.”

“But as I also wrote, it is a deliberate mistake to hide legitimate criticism of more than a hundred years of American interventions in Haiti — from the brutal occupation of 1915 to 1934 to the mass deportations and political interference taking place today — behind “a myth about a married couple,” Katz explained. Strong Americans.”

He added: “Every American president, Democrat or Republican, including both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, played their direct and destructive roles in causing the current crisis.” “The sooner we come to terms with that, the better for everyone involved.”

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Kim Eves, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Haiti Liberty, told the BBC in 2016 that “a lot of Haitians are not big fans of the Clintons” and that they “did a very poor job” during the recovery efforts in the wake of the earthquake, leaving many in a state of despair. . A “bleak outlook” for the couple.

One example of a project that appeared to be slipping through the cracks includes a $2 million housing fair for thousands of new housing units, as well as a $170 million power plant and port for the Karakol industrial complex, The Washington Post reported.

Former President Clinton and Haitian President Rene Preval greet heavy equipment operators at the National Equipment Center on July 17, 2010, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

The Haitian Parliament in 2011 did not renew the mandate of the Recovery Commission, and only half of the $10 billion raised in the first year of rebuilding remained by the time the Commission collapsed.

A report by the US Government Accountability Office concluded that the committee's decisions “were not necessarily consistent with Haitian priorities,” but stopped short of declaring any wrongdoing on the committee's part.

The bulk of the money went to UN agencies, international relief groups, private contractors, and civilian and military agencies of donor countries, according to the BBC. Brewer separately noted the need to pay money to organizations like the Red Cross, which was already on the ground managing recovery efforts by the time the committee began distributing funds, but lamented that more money ended up in the “wrong” hands.

“The actual money left on the ground, a lot of it fell into the hands of the wrong people or people in power,” Brewer told Fox News Digital.

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“It is very disappointing to see the level of corruption, especially regarding matters involving children and young people, and trying to get medical supplies in and out of the country… It has been very difficult,” Brewer added.

A spokesman for former President Bush did not provide “any comment” in response to Fox News Digital's request for comment regarding recovery efforts in Haiti.

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