EXCLUSIVE: Starkey & Foundation, Bill & Tani Austin Under FBI, IRS Money Laundering Investigation: Firings Were Cover-Up

In early June as the full picture was emerging of the sleaze of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation money laundering and influence peddling operation, we connected the dots back to Bill Austin and his Starkey Expo and Starkey Foundation Gala. At the time, we took a libertarian, laissez-faire view that Starkey was a privately owned company, and if Bill Austin wanted to get into bed with Bill & Hillary Clinton, so what: It's his money, his company, and his Trump-sized ego. However, The Hearing Blog has learned through first a whistleblower report and then confirmed through law enforcement sources that the FBI & IRS is conducting a criminal investigation for money laundering at both Starkey and the Starkey Foundation; and that the story we broke two weeks ago of the six executive firings, including President Jerry Ruzicka, was an attempt to cover up the criminal probe. Also, just as we were about to hit "Publish" we received a tip that the shakeup also relates to Widex, as their "new" management team wants to get into the mergers & acquisitions game, and there was an internal fight in Eden Prairie over whether or not to team up with them. Because of Austin's personal ties to team Clinton, and Starkey company & foundation membership in the sleazy Clinton Global Initiative as we documented in June, the implications are staggering: Is the Clinton Foundation itself under a secret FBI criminal investigation, and one of the subsidiary discoveries money laundering by the Austins? Currently, the FBI has custody of the CLINTONEMAIL.COM e-mail server as part of a criminal investigation into Hillary (the FBI only performs criminal, not civil investigations) and has just recovered her work and personal e-mails, but it is worth noting the former Secretary of State and her team shared the same domain and server as the Clinton Global Foundation: What did the FBI uncover? Are the Clinton and Starkey probes independent, or more ominously, are they tied together?