The Washington Examiner interviewed the person in charge nearly 19 years after the fact. It’s a Lori Loughlin case with people in power trying to assert their “privilege.”
Trina Vargo, a veteran U.S. adviser on Ireland, founded the George J. Mitchell Scholarship in 2000. It was named after the former senator who brokered the talks that led to the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.
Vargo said that Bill Clinton intervened in the first year of the scholarship, when Kane, whose 3.19 grade-point average proved too weak to make the final selection round. If they gave in, they would have been forced to drop a worthier student.
According to Vargo in her new book Shenanigans: The U.S.-Ireland Relationship in Uncertain Times, Bill was in the last weeks of his presidency and he called to express his displeasure. He had submitted a letter of recommendation for Kane.
Vargo told the Washington Examiner that the timing of Clinton’s call, which came while the program was choosing its 12 scholarship awardees from a group of 20 finalists, was a blatant attempt to game the selection process.
“There’s no way to see that as anything other than an attempt to influence a situation that hadn’t been finalized yet,” she said.
“In light of the college admissions scandal [Lori Loughlin et al case], I don’t think it’s very unusual for people who have money or influence to use what means they have, whether it’s for their children or friends.”
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THE REVENGE
It wasn’t money, but it was Bill trying to use his position of power to place Kane in a program he didn’t earn. If Vargo had caved, she would have received future benefits from the largesse of the former first couple and their influential network of Irish American fundraisers.
Bill Clinton’s press secretary, Angel Urena, called accusations of nepotism “baseless and patently false.”
Under Hillary Clinton, the State Department cut the Mitchell Scholarship’s $500,000 annual budget.
Vargo wrote: “In 2011, Mary Lou Hartman, former director of the Mitchell Scholarship program, bumped into [Clinton adviser Melanne] Verveer, who made clear that I was persona non grata … Just months later, the State Department informed us they were totally eliminating all funding for the Mitchell Scholarship program in the next State Department budget.”
Why would anyone want these two back in the White House? They were scandalous from day one until the day they left.
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