Ukraine and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople

I was WRONG about Hillary Clinton and money through Ukraine

I gave an interview a couple weeks ago to my friend Julian Dorey during which we discussed corruption in Ukraine. As part of that discussion, I told him a story that I had heard in 2010 when I was the senior investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The story was that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had offered Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew $20 million to recognize the autocephalous, or self-governing, nature of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which had been under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church for centuries. I said that the money was sent through Ukrainian banks and that when it finally arrived in Istanbul, it was $5 million short. I heard this story from a State Department officer who had claimed to have direct knowledge of the situation.

I have learned, however, that the story is false. No such transaction took place.

To make matters worse, my repeating of this story may have put Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in danger. He already has been the subject of criminal and terrorist attacks from Turkish nationalists, attacks well documented in the media and on the news program 60 Minutes.

Those of you who know me personally know how important my Orthodox faith is to me. And besides that, Patriarch Bartholomew is a personal hero of mine. He’s known as “the Green Patriarch” because of his impactful and longtime support for environmental protection, and he is a champion for peace around the world. Literally the last thing I would want to do is to put him in danger or to jeopardize the important work that he’s doing.

So let me repeat: The story that I told Julian Dorey is not true. And I should have nailed down the facts before I repeated it.

John