IS THIS THE MAN WHO COULD PUT HILLARY IN JAIL?

Hillary Clinton thinks she has little to fear from Donald Trump. But she may be casting nervous glances over her shoulder at Preet Bharara.

You may not have heard of Mr. Bharara. Sheldon Silver, former speaker of the New York State Assembly, a Democrat, and Dean Skelos, former Majority Leader of the New York State Senate, a Republican, wish they hadn’t. In May, they were sentenced to 12 years and 5 years in prison, respectively, for corruption.

Preet Bharara is the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He’s a Democrat, but appears to be one of the few “public servants” these days who puts the responsibilities of his office ahead of partisan politics. Since his appointment in 2009, Bharara “has launched a one-man crusade against evil-doers, ranging from corrupt politicians to the Mafia,” said Prof. Alan Chartock.

Currently, Mr. Bharara is disturbing the sleep of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Will he have Hillary tossing and turning too?  Here’s how he could turn Hildebeast into an insomniac.

The Southern District of New York is the lead of three U.S. Attorneys’ offices investigating the Clinton Foundation, a recently retired Deputy Director of the FBI told the Daily Caller. The Clinton Foundation is headquartered in New York. It was begun in Little Rock, Arkansas, to raise funds for the Clinton library. The U.S. Attorneys’ office in Washington D.C. may focus on when Hillary was Secretary of State.

The Clinton Foundation has received more than $2 billion in contributions. More than 1,000 donors are foreigners. The Foundation won’t disclose their names or the amounts donated.

Few of the funds raised have been spent on charitable works. In 2013, for instance, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million, but spent just $9 million (6.4 percent) on direct aid. A typical charity devotes about 75 percent of receipts to aid.

Much more is spent on pay and benefits for staff, office rent, conferences and travel. Some of the highest paid staffers are political operatives, such as Huma Abedin, who for a time was on the payrolls of both the Clinton Foundation and the State Department, and Sid Blumenthal, who ran a private intelligence network for Hillary in Libya.

The most ballyhooed project, Relief for Haiti after a devastating earthquake in 2010, was an example of Robin Hood in reverse – robbing the poor for the benefit of the rich, said financial analyst Charles Ortel.

Bill was the designated UN representative for aid to Haiti. As Secretary of State, Hillary controlled disbursements from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Together, they were primarily responsible for the disbursement of $10.5 billion in aid.

Little was actually spent on the poor. Contributors to the Clinton Foundation got fat contracts to provide aid never delivered.

“Some projects championed by the Clintons, such as the building of industrial parks and posh hotels, cost a great deal of money and offered scarce benefits to the truly needy,” noted Dinesh D’Souza. “Port-au-Prince was supposed to be rebuilt; it was never rebuilt. Projects aimed at creating jobs proved to be bitter disappointments.”

The Clinton Foundation is a “charity fraud,” Mr. Ortel said. “What possesses powerful, wealthy and educated persons to prey on the most desperately poor humans on earth as they posture as philanthropists?”

Hillary used private email servers for official business to conceal something. Was it evidence she was soliciting bribes?

An email obtained by Judicial Watch Aug. 9 indicates the head of the Clinton Global Initiative urged Ms. Abedin and Cheryl Mills, then Hillary’s top aides at the State Department, to connect Lebanese businessman Gilbert Chagoury, a major Clinton Foundation donor, with a senior State Department offiical. Mr. Chagoury had been convicted of laundering funds for a Nigerian dictator.

“As political scandals go, this is middling,” shrugged the Washington Post. But what if it’s part of an oft-repeated pattern?

Emails obtained in June indicated in 2011 Ms. Clinton appointed commodities trader Rajiv Fernando, a major donor to the Clinton Foundation with no experience in intelligence to a highly sensitive government intelligence board.

Hillary approved a deal that gave Russia control of 20 percent of U.S. uranium assets after $145 million was contributed to the Clinton Foundation, reported Peter Schweizer of the Government Accountability Institute.

Hillary turned over fewer than half her emails, Mr. Schweizer noted. The gaps in the email record coincided with meetings with shadowy foreigners who later gave to the Clinton Foundation.

There is ample evidence the Clinton Foundation has broken the law.  Charles Ortel observes:

“State, federal, and foreign laws bar public charities from being run for private gain in interstate commerce—which means, by using the mail, telephones or the internet. The Clinton Foundation’s complex operations (it is not just one entity but a web of them) do not comply with this requirement. Nor does the Clinton Foundation ever seem to have submitted its financial records to an independent, properly certified audit by a qualified accounting firm.”

Dirt on the Clinton Foundation gleaned from public records is suspicious enough. What might a U.S. attorney armed with subpoena power find?

The FBI, the Justice Department and the Southern District refuse to comment on whether Mr. Bharara is investigating the Clinton Foundation. Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova interprets these as non-denials.

“They basically confirmed that there’s an investigation and they’re not going to talk about it,” Mr. DiGenova said.

If Mr. Bharara is investigating the Clinton Foundation, he’ll have to wind it up soon. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. The odds Hillary will reappoint him are zero.

Could Hillary be indicted before the election? Or might she win in November, only to be indicted in December? What a fine kettle of fish that would be.  One that smells as bad as the stink of Clinton Corruption.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration.  He is the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.