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InfoUSA's Gupta Defends Pelosi Hire
Embattled businessman Vinod Gupta has responded to NewsMax’s revelation that he hired House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul as a $180,000-a-year senior vice president – even though he has no experience in Gupta’s company’s main business activities. "Just because he’s Nancy Pelosi’s son and we’ve hired him, I don’t see why he should be news,” Gupta told The Sunday Times in London. "He has a master’s degree in business and he is a very bright young man.” NewsMax has earlier chronicled the controversy swirling around Gupta, whose Nebraska-based company InfoUSA sells lists of sales leads, market research and e-mail marketing services.
Story Continues Below A shareholder lawsuit alleges that Gupta is appropriating company funds for personal use and his political pet projects. He has had InfoUSA pay Bill Clinton $2.1 million in "consulting fees” since he left the White House, with another $1.2 million promised. The lawsuit also states that InfoUSA spent more than $900,000 to provide corporate jet flights for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Clintons vacationed at Gupta’s home in Hawaii – next door to actor Pierce Brosnan’s home – and flew to Acapulco on a corporate jet. Gupta has helped raise considerable sums for Hillary’s campaigns – most recently serving as vice chairman of a fundraiser in New York – and once spent the night as a favored guest in the White House’s Lincoln bedroom. Gupta also played golf with Bill Clinton in Scotland, and the former president introduced him to British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a London reception. "Tony Blair is a great communicator,” Gupta told the Times. He’s like Bill Clinton Junior.” Gupta continues to defend his dealings with Bill Clinton, telling the Times that Clinton’s name and contacts were worth "over $40 million.” He said: "We’ve met chief executive, billionaires, government people – it helps us to make connections and do deals. "If you’re negotiating with a company, it helps if Bill Clinton says, ‘Oh, Vin, he’s a good guy.’”
As for his stay in the Lincoln Bedroom in the 1990s, Gupta said: "To be frank, it was not all it was cracked up to be. I felt I was in prison. It wasn’t a very homely atmosphere.”
Gupta is also under fire on another front. As NewsMax reported earlier, InfoUSA repeatedly rented marketing databases to unscrupulous persons who used the information to defraud the unsuspecting elderly, investigators found. Said Gupta: "We have 4 million customers and we didn’t realize the lists were being misused.”
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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