Lawsuit says friend of Clintons misused firm’s funds

A longtime Clinton benefactor used corporate jets to fly the former president and Hillary Rodham Clinton on business, personal and campaign trips that a lawsuit says was wasteful company spending.

The benefactor, InfoUSA Chief Executive Vinod Gupta, also agreed to pay Bill Clinton more than $3 million to provide consulting services to Gupta’s Nebraska-based company from 2003 through 2008, according to the shareholder suit.

From 2002 till last year, Gupta spent almost $900,000 flying the former president to international locations on presidential foundation business and flying Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to political events.

The suit, filed by InfoUSA shareholders last year, claims that those expenses as well as others unrelated to the Clintons were a “serial misuse of corporate assets and resources.” The Clintons are not a party to the suit.

Details of the suit were first reported in February by the Deal, a business publication. Accounts also appeared in Saturday’s New York Times and Washington Post.

The suit names only a “former high-ranking official” and his wife. But campaign aides and company officials confirmed for the publications that the reference was to the Clintons.

Messages left Saturday with lawyers for InfoUSA and for Dolphin Limited Partnership, a hedge fund that brought the suit, were not immediately returned Saturday. Stamford, Conn.-based Dolphin owns 3.6% of InfoUSA stock.

Phil Singer, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, said that “all flights were reimbursed and disclosed” according to Federal Election Commission and Senate ethics rules.

Gupta has been a major donor to Democrats over the years, and has been especially prominent as a Clinton fundraiser. He was rewarded with a night in the White House’s Lincoln bedroom during Clinton’s presidency. He has also donated at least $1 million to Clinton’s presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.

According to FEC records, Gupta-controlled entities have provided jets for Hillary Clinton at least seven times since 2002. Clinton’s campaigns or other political committees paid the equivalent of first-class airfare for those trips, a fee required by law but a significant discount compared with the cost of charter jet service.

It is unclear whether Gupta has provided jets for Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign.

Aides to Clinton have said she paid about $450,000 for flights during the first three months of her campaign and that she paid full charter fare.

Those expenses are to be detailed in her next financial report, due July 15.

Gupta also has donated $19,500 to her Senate campaign, her presidential campaign and her political action committee since 2001, according to FEC records.

Before suing, Dolphin tried unsuccessfully to place three directors on the InfoUSA board.

In its suit and in its quest to alter the board, Dolphin has maintained that Gupta squandered company money not only on the Clintons but also on a stadium skybox and on a private yacht with an all-female crew.

Gupta has defended his spending, noting that he paid for the skybox at the University of Nebraska’s stadium out of his own pocket and then transferred it to InfoUSA.

InfoUSA is a marketing information company that provides electronic, print and data processing services.