It Pays To Donate To Obama
The global consulting firm that just won a one-year government contract to continue fixing HealthCare.gov is a big political donor to President Obama, KleinOnline has learned.
On Friday it was reported that Accenture, a global consulting firm, obtained the $45-million contract to run the Obamacare health insurance website. The company is taking over from CGI Federal, one of two contractors that originally built the problematic HealthCare.gov portal. CGI’s contract is set to expire on Feb. 28.
Unmentioned in the scores of news articles covering the successful Accenture bid is that Obama is the top all-time recipient of the firm’s many financial contributions, with the president taking in a total of $286,168 from Accenture employees, family members and its political action committee.
No. 2 for Accenture’s donations is former Republican New Jersey State Sen. Bob Martin, and No. 3 is former President George W. Bush at $164,250. Mitt Romney received $73,085 from Accenture. Hillary Clinton raked in $50,515 in contributions from the firm, with John Kerry accepting $45,853.
Obama has a further connection to Accenture. The chief scientist for Obama’s 2012 campaign’s data analytics team, Rayid Ghani, worked at Accenture for 10 years before leaving the firm to take up the position with the president’s reelection team.
The Obamacare website is not the first public contract awarded to Accenture. In 2011, the firm won a $85-million contract for Kansas’s healthcare database, the funding for which came mostly from the federal government.
Accenture previously was incorporated in America but then reportedly moved to the tax haven of Bermuda. The firm is currently incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, even though its operational headquarters are in Chicago.
Former Gitmo Prisoner Had Hand In Benghazi Attack
The State Department suspects former Guantanamo Bay detainee Abu Sufian bin Qumu was involved in the assault at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, according to reports released last week.
Now this column has learned that one month before the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, a Library of Congress report that received almost no media attention warned Qumu was setting up shop in Libya and that his activities increasingly embodied Al Qaeda’s presence in the country.
The report revealed that Qumu had a vendetta against the U.S., claiming he was tortured in the prison.
The document further noted that from June 7-8, 2012, there was a gathering of groups supporting Islamic law held at Liberation Square in Benghazi. The event was hosted by Ansar al-Sharia, for which Qumu served as a leader, and reportedly was attended by members of at least 15 militias, including Al Qaeda-affiliated organizations.
Despite the growing Al Qaeda activity, including Qumu’s noted presence, the U.S. facilities in Benghazi remained poorly protected.
The Martyrs of 17 February Brigade, which was hired by the State Department to protect the U.S. facility in Benghazi, operates under the Ansar-Al-Sharia banner.
The Washington Post reported that gunmen under the command of Qumu participated in the Benghazi attack, according to a U.S. official.
The Post identified Qumu as “leader of Ansar al-Sharia in the Libyan city of Darnah,” while the extensive, 54-page Library of Congress document said Qumu in 2012 was “the leader of Ansar Al-Sharia” in Libya and not just in Darnah.
The Post reported that witnesses told American officials that Qumu’s militia arrived in Benghazi before the attack and that the State Department was set to implicate him in the deadly assault.
That information will be used in part to designate Qumu’s branch of Ansar al-Sharia as a terrorist group, along with two other al-Sharia branches, reported the Post.
Qumu, formerly a driver for Osama bin Laden, was released by the U.S. from Guantanamo Bay in 2007 and was transferred to a Libyan prison where he remained until he was freed in a 2010 amnesty deal.
Qumu’s name was mentioned in an August 2012 document prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under an inter-agency agreement with the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office’s Irregular Warfare Support Program.
The congressional report documented that Al Qaeda and affiliated organizations were establishing terrorist training camps and pushing Taliban-style Islamic law in Libya while the new, Western-backed Libyan government incorporated jihadists into its militias.
The report said Qumu became “the leader of the al Qaeda-affiliate Ansar Al-Sharia in Libya,” which espoused anti-Western ideology. The document noted Qumu had increasingly embodied Al Qaeda’s presence in Libya.
The report warned that Qumu’s group was particularly dangerous “as indicated by its active social-media propaganda, extremist discourse, and hatred of the West, especially the United States.”
The document cited an Arabic interview in which Qumu was said to have “discoursed at length about his resentment of the United States, which he accused of torturing him during his Guantanamo detention, an experience that he said will not go away.”
The document warned Qumu’s views were so extreme that “Darnah’s residents have accused [him] of carrying out attacks, especially targeting former Libyan officials but also people who disagree with al-Qaeda.”
Obama Nominee Wants U.S. Bound By International Law
Debo Adegbile, President Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wants U.S. judges to ensure “customary international law” is “the law of the land.” Adegbile also was party to an effort funded by billionaire George Soros to push for a new, “progressive” U.S. Constitution.
Adegbile was an advisory board member to a group that produced an extensive blueprint for Obama to push “human rights” domestically, including using executive orders to ensure against racial profiling.
The 44-page paper, “Human Rights at Home: A Domestic Policy Blueprint for the New Administration,” was drafted by the Soros-funded American Constitution Society.
The paper recommends Obama join multiple UN and international human rights groups.
The paper said Obama should “nominate judges who will follow the rule of law, which includes recognition that ratified treaties and customary international law are the law of the land.”
Adegbile has been involved in controversial race movements. The Daily Caller reported he led the group that represents convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Meanwhile, KleinOnline found Adegbile has a deeper connection to the American Constitution Society, or ACS.
He participated as a panelist in the ACS’s April 2005 conference at Yale Law School titled “The Constitution in 2020,” which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.
The event was sponsored by Soros’s Open Society Institute and the Center for American Progress, which is led by John Podesta, who served as co-chairman of Obama’s presidential transition team. Podesta’s center is said to be highly influential in helping to craft White House policy. Podesta is now the incoming White House counselor.