A Chinese business mogul shelled out $500,000 at auction for the privilege of eating lunch with President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — but when he asked for permission to bring along his kids, his reported answer was a bit shocking: Yes, if you round it up to a cool $1 million.
Proceeds raised from the auction was to benefit the Clinton Foundation.
CharityBuzz CEO Coppy Holzman was caught talking about the auction his website hosted at a recent Hamptons Magazine party, the New York Post reported. One party-goer said Mr. Holzman told how the “lunch for two with Bill and Hillary went for $500,000 to benefit the Clinton Foundation [to] a Chinese business mogul who then asked if he could bring his two children along to the meeting.”
The auction winner was then told yes, if you increase the payment to $1 million, the New York Post reported, citing the party attendee’s recollection of Mr. Holtzman’s words.
“The couple opted to leave the children at home,” the source told the New York Post.
The Clinton Foundation denied knowledge of any upping of the lunch price.
One representative of the foundation said, the New York Post reported, that the winner of the auction was “actually an American citizen of Chinese heritage [from California]. Without our knowledge, the CharityBuzz staff decided to ask him if he would be interested in adding more people to the lunch for an additional donation. We don’t know if they specified an amount.”
The New York Post said CharityBuzz did not respond to requests for clarification or comment.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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