Clintons’ Affair With Wall Street Grows With Son-in-Law’s Hedge Fund Hookup

Marc Mezvinsky, a money manager at the hedge fund firm Eaglevale, married Chelsea Clinton in July 2010 and seems to have reaped benefits from the Clintons’ wide web of financial supporters. As The New York Times reported this week, Mezvinsky has gained access to various powerful associations through his closeness to the Clintons.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out Eaglevale relies heavily on Goldman Sachs investors, including the financial powerhouse’s chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein. Another worrying connection explored in the article is Goldman’s tight link to the Clintons — including a detail about the Clinton Foundation leasing office space in a Goldman-owned building.

There are several examples of Eaglevale investors with relationships with the Clintons. Rock Creek Group, a Washington-based investment advisory firm, placed $13 million from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and another public pension fund with Eaglevale in late 2011 and early 2012. Rock Creek’s chairwoman, Afsaneh Beschloss, attended state dinners at the Clinton White House in the late 1990s and was a panelist in the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in September in New York.

[…] The investors include hedge fund managers like Marc Lasry and James Leitner; an overseas money management firm connected to the Rothschild family; and people from Goldman Sachs, including the chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein. Some of the investors in Eaglevale have contributed campaign money to the former president and Mrs. Clinton, who is widely expected to run for president again in 2016. Some have also contributed to the family’s foundation.

Identifying who put money into Eaglevale, a roughly $400 million fund that has had underwhelming returns for much of its brief history, is difficult because hedge funds do not publicly disclose their investors. Still, the overlap between at least some of Eaglevale’s investors and backers of the Clintons illustrates how politics and finance can intersect and shows the fine line the Clinton family must navigate as their charitable and business endeavors come under scrutiny in an election cycle.

— Posted by Donald Kaufman.