Hillary Clinton Pitches Boeing to Russians

Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Vladimir Putin and Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Scott Carson (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

Acting more like a corporate shill than the nation’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent part of her recent visit to Moscow encouraging Russia’s new airline, Rosavia, to buy planes from Boeing. As part of her self-described “shameless pitch,” Clinton said the Export-Import Bank of the United States “would welcome an application for financing from Rosavia to support its purchase of Boeing Aircraft, and I hope that on a future visit I’ll see a lot of new Rosavia-Boeing planes when I land in Moscow.”

 
Rebel Reports noted that Boeing has paid $1.5 billion in fines since 1995 to settle more than 30 instances of misconduct, based on data collected by the Project on Government Oversight. Some of the fines were for multiple violations of the Arms Export Control Act, in which Boeing ignored directives from the State Department not to sell certain kinds of defense technology to Russia and China.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Hilary Clinton Pitches Boeing to Russians (by Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports)

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