I wonder if they declared the profits from their offshore deal with Ron Burkle. Hmmm?

Hoping to insulate his wife’s presidential campaign from potential conflicts of interest, Bill Clinton is negotiating to untangle himself from a business relationship with billionaire Ron Burkle that includes a potentially sensitive link to Dubai, the Wall Street Journal reports. In the process, Clinton could earn a $20 million payout. Clinton was an adviser to Burkle’s company, Yucaipa, from 2002 to 2007. His substantial paycheck helped pay legal bills left over from his presidency. A profit-sharing provision in the deal kicked in when two domestic funds exceeded earnings thresholds recently, earning Clinton millions. He also wants out of Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund, in which he and Burkle are partners along with an entity linked to Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

Hmm. On that note–

In each of Senator Clinton’s past four disclosure statements - 2003-2006 — there is a line item that reveals only that Bill Clinton received “guaranteed payments to partner” of “over $1,000″ from Burkle’s Yucaipa.The disclosure forms do not explain what the guarantee is, and they leave to the imagination how much over $1,000 the annual amounts are. President Clinton, according to news accounts, has helped Burkle in his business dealings.

In her financial disclosure statements, Hillary Clinton lists two seemingly modest investments in Burkle companies, under the category of “Non-Publicly Traded Assets and Unearned Income Sources.” One investment in Yucaipa Global Holding is described as worth less than $1,000, while producing interest income of $200 to $1,000 annually. The other, in the Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund, is also listed as being worth less than $1,000, while producing interest payments of $1,000 to $2,500 a year.

OK. So what?

There are a number of reasons the Yucaipa ties could prove embarrassing to the Clintons.

Bloomberg News on December 17 reported that three of the Yucaipa funds are registered in the Cayman Islands. Senator Clinton, in 2004, declared that she intended to close tax loopholes for “people who create a mailbox, or a drop, or send one person to sit on the beach in some island paradise and claim that it is their offshore headquarters.”

The WSJ’s January 22 story pointed out that Clinton has an interest in Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund, making him a partner with the Dubai Investment Group, “an entity connected to the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.” Senator Clinton, according to the WSJ, had separately raised questions about investment funds controlled by foreign governments, because the funds “could be used by foreign governments as ‘instruments of foreign policy.”

–The Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post