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Washington: A longtime Indian-born Clinton benefactor used corporate jets to fly the former president and Hillary Rodham Clinton on business, personal and campaign trips that a lawsuit brands as wasteful company spending.
The supporter, Vinod Gupta, also secured contracts worth more than $3 million (Dh11 million) for Bill Clinton to provide consulting services to Gupta's company, infoUSA, from 2003 through 2008, according to the suit.
Since 2002, Gupta spent $900,000 (Dh3.3 million) flying the former president to international locations on presidential foundation business and flying Hillary Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York, to political events.
Gupta has said in interviews that he is from the village of Rampur, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. He attended the Indian Institute of Technology, and moved to the United States in the late 1960s.
Unrelated
The suit, filed by infoUSA shareholders last year, claims those expenses as well as millions of others unrelated to the Clintons were a "serial misuse of corporate assets and resources". The Clintons are not a party to the suit.
InfoUSA, based in the central state of Nebraska, is a marketing information company that provides electronic, print and data processing services to its clients.
Details of the lawsuit 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 is 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 on Saturday. Stamford, Connecticut-based Dolphin owns 3.6 per cent of infoUSA stock.
"All flights were reimbursed and disclosed in accordance with the prevailing FEC [Federal Election Commission] and Senate ethics rules," said Phil Singer, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
The suit offers a glimpse into the personal and political relationships between the Clintons and a contributor who was willing to spend more than $145,000 (Dh532,150) to fly himself and the Clintons to Acapulco, Mexico, on a vacation in 2002.
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