The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee raised questions Thursday about how a top Hillary Clinton aide's fundraising for the Clinton Foundation and job at a corporate advisory firm intersected with her work at the State Department.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned whether Huma Abedin's status as a Special Government Employee (SGE), which enabled her to hold four positions simultaneously, created conflicts of interest.
"How can the taxpayer know who exactly SGEs are working for at any given moment?" Grassley asked in a letter to Abedin and Secretary of State John Kerry. "How can the ethics officer at the State Department know?"
Grassley's letter was prompted by emails from Abedin's official State Department account obtained by Fox News that include messages sent ahead of a December 2012 visit to Dublin and Belfast by Clinton, who was then secretary of state. In those emails and others, Abedin discusses diplomatic matters as well as issues related to her work for both the Clinton Foundation and Teneo, a firm co-founded by a longtime aide to former president Bill Clinton.
In one e-mail, dated Sept. 21, Abedin was among the recipients of a message from Amitabh Desai, the Clinton Foundation's foreign policy director, about fundraising for a charity supporting a museum honoring former President Bill Clinton in Northern Ireland.
The message said that Hillary Clinton had instructed Stella O'Leary, the head of a pro-Clinton PAC to form a 501c3 organization that would be "flexible" enough to raise funds to be used in "whatever manner WJC and HRC wish in Ireland and Northern Ireland and not restricted to support only the current iteration of the Clinton Centre in Enniskillen."
Abedin responded, "HRC said she made no commitments to her."
O'Leary told The Washington Post that she had set up the charity, but it was currently "stagnant", and she could not recall discussing the matter with Hillary Clinton.
In another message, sent Nov. 30, Abedin attempted to arrange a get-together in Dublin for a small group of people on the evening of Dec. 6.
"Maybe we can all gather for drinks/dinner and HRC can come join for as long as she can?" Abedin asked in her e-mail. The dinner was ultimately attended by Clinton campaign donors, Clinton Foundation donors, and Teneo's CEO.
In another case, the Post reported that in July 2012, the assistant to a New York banking executive wrote to Abedin to ask for her input on whether the executive should take a job at Teneo. The paper reported that Abedin agreed to meet with the executive, who later accepted the position.
Grassley wrote that the emails, which were disclosed through a Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative group Citizens United, "raise a number of questions about the intersection of official State Department actions, private Teneo business, and Secretary Clinton’s personal interest in fundraising for the Clinton Foundation and related entities."
Abedin's role as Hillary Clinton's main confidante during the Democratic presidential front-runner's time as America's top diplomat has made her a key player in the ongoing investigation into Clinton's personal server and whether classified information was sent, received, or passed through it. Earlier this week, Fox News reported that an April 2011 e-mail from Abedin contained intelligence from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which oversees aerial imagery, including satellites. That e-mail was later declassified by the State Department, in possible violation of an executive order signed by President Barack Obama.
Abedin has denied any wrongdoing related to Clinton's server or her status as a Special Government Employee. Earlier this week, Abdein's lawyer responded to another letter from Grassley with a missive of his own claiming the senator had "unfairly tarnished Ms. Abedin’s reputation by making unsubstantiated allegations that appear to flow from misinformation ... provided by an unnamed — and apparently unreliable — source."
Abedin herself issued a more diplomatic denial in a July 2013 letter to Grassley: "I was not asked, nor did I undertake, any work on Teneo’s behalf before the Department (and I should note that it is my understanding that Teneo does not conduct business with the Department of State). I was also not asked, nor did I provide, insights about the Department, my work with the Secretary, or any government information to which I may have had access."
"The bottom line has always been and still is whether the taxpayers are well-served by agency practices and spending," Grassley said in his letter Thursday. "No one will know for sure until the State Department is more transparent about how it operates."
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