Free Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer Page A

City restaurant, the Bombay Palace. 9 But, as we will see, some savory financial transfers helped, too.
    Chatwal has always been exceedingly blunt about how and why he steered money in an effort to influence events in Washington. “I used to spend money on senators and congressmen,” said Chatwal. While in 1988 that “investment” had been in Michael Dukakis, Chatwal “next started betting on various presidents” and “happened to click with Clinton.” 10 The former governor of Arkansas was exceedingly thankful. Chatwal says Clinton offered him whatever post he wanted once he was elected president, but Chatwal said he simply wanted closer US-Indianrelations. When Hillary ran for the Senate in 2000, Chatwal became one of her largest soft-money donors. 11
    By the time Bill left the Oval Office in 2001, Chatwal was firmly in the Clintons’ inner circle. Bill appointed him a trustee of the Clinton Foundation, an appointment reserved only for longtime friends and large financial benefactors. Chatwal had lavished money on the Clintons, including hundreds of thousands in soft-money donations and millions in campaign funds raised, and he continued his largesse once Bill was a private citizen. Chatwal helped arrange for millions of dollars in lucrative speaking fees and steered additional millions to the Clinton Foundation. 12 When Hillary ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2007, he was cochair of her presidential exploratory committee. He even received that most prized of gifts in the Clinton universe: an invitation to attend Chelsea’s wedding.
    Sant Chatwal’s son Vikram also became a Clinton benefactor. Widely known for his partying ways, Vikram became Hillary’s 2008 campaign bundler. 13 Tooling around New York in an Aston Martin, he was known to run up large bar tabs and date everyone from Lindsay Lohan to various supermodels. Like his father a committed Sikh, he was known around town as the “Turban Cowboy.”
    Vikram considers the Clintons close friends. According to the New York Observer , “‘I know him [Bill Clinton] very well,’ he said of the former President. He added that the two men have often sat down and talked about books and Gandhi, as well as, he said, ‘women and models I’ve dated. He, like any man in the world, appreciates beauty.’” 14
    When Vikram got married in India in 2006, Bill Clinton attended the wedding. Guests “were welcomed by dancing eunuchs, elephants painted entirely white and whitewashed men wearing angel wings on white horses.” 15 The Clintons alsoattended Sant Chatwal’s other son’s wedding, a more calm affair at Tavern on the Green in New York in 2002.
    Perhaps not surprisingly, Sant Chatwal has a history of legal trouble involving financial transactions and has declared bankruptcy on at least one occasion. In 1995 he came under a cloud of legal suspicion concerning the bilking of millions from Indian banks. In the United States he was chased by the IRS and the New York State government for $30 million in unpaid taxes. 16 In a visit to India with Clinton in May 2001, Chatwal was arrested and charged with defrauding the New York City branch of the Bank of India out of $9 million he borrowed in 1994. “He posted bail equivalent to $32,000, then fled India, boarding a flight to Vienna, despite an attempt by authorities to detain him” reported the New York Daily News . 17
    In 1997 the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) “sued Chatwal over his role as a director and a guarantor of unpaid loans at the failed First New York Bank for Business,” the Washington Post reported. Regulators were frustrated that Chatwal claimed he couldn’t repay the money (reported to be “in excess of $12 million”), despite the fact that he continued to live in a New York penthouse worth millions of dollars. 18
    Three years later, with no settlement on the horizon, Chatwal entertained guests in his lavish penthouse for Hillary’s Senate campaign, raising