EXCLUSIVE: Amid the
tumult of the 2016 presidential campaign, John Podesta is best known as
Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the individual from whose
private account WikiLeaks is presently publishing some 50,000 hacked
emails.
Released in daily batches, these documents have laid
bare the inner workings and tensions of the Clinton campaign in an
unprecedented way, while also offering insights into the operations of
the Clinton Foundation and the State Department in the years when
Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee, served as secretary of
state.
At that time, when Clinton was traveling to a record
number of foreign countries, Podesta, a former White House chief of
staff under President Clinton, held dual titles at the State Department:
as a senior advisor – entitled to an annual salary of $130,000 never
paid him, the department maintains – and as a member of a prestigious
foreign policy advisory board Secretary Clinton created. Records
obtained from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management show Podesta’s
tenure at State extended from Sept. 25, 2011 to Jan. 4, 2014.
For several months in 2012, Clinton’s final year as
secretary of state, Raytheon, the leading defense contractor, hired
Podesta’s sister-in-law, Heather Podesta, as a lobbyist, federal records
show.
Raytheon was looking to enlarge its share of foreign
military sales – transfers of advanced weapons systems to other
countries that are reviewed and approved by the Department of State,
then implemented by the Department of Defense – and was beefing up its
lobbying operation to accomplish that goal before Secretary Clinton left
office.
On the LD-2 lobbying disclosure form completed by her
company, Heather Podesta + Partners, LLC, in July 2012, the veteran
lawyer and Democratic fundraiser listed in the space provided for a
description of her lobbying activities, “Engaged the Executive Branch on
the economic benefits of foreign military sales.” In the space
requesting the specific locales of her lobbying, Ms. Podesta listed the
White House and the State Department.
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At the same time, Raytheon retained two other
lobbyists, John Merrigan and Matt Bernstein, both associated with the
powerhouse D.C. law firm DLA Piper. All three of these lobbyists,
including Ms. Podesta, were major donors or bundlers to Hillary
Clinton’s 2008 and 2016 campaigns. Federal records show they have raised
hundreds of thousands of dollars for Clinton’s campaigns and earned
hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying her State Department.
In the final three quarters of 2012, DLA Piper earned
some $360,000 in lobbying fees from Raytheon, courting the State
Department and other agencies, while Ms. Podesta, within that same time
frame, received $100,000 from Raytheon for the same purpose.
The gambit appears to have worked: Records maintained
by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arm of the Defense
Department that coordinates the transfers of weapons systems once they
have received State’s approval, show Raytheon as a prime contractor in
at least seventeen foreign military sales in 2012, worth an estimated
total of $26 billion. Of those contracts, three with the Gulf nation of
Qatar – for missile defense, Apache attack helicopters and other
materiel – accounted for $19 billion.
An email from a Clinton Foundation official released
earlier this month, in the sixth of Wikileaks’ postings of John
Podesta’s emails, revealed that in 2011, the Qatari government had
pledged $1 million to the foundation to help former President Clinton
celebrate his birthday. In return, the email said, the Qataris sought a
“five-minute” audience with Mr. Clinton.
The individual at the State Department who was
statutorily entrusted to approve foreign military sales was Andrew
Shapiro, the assistant secretary of state for political and military
affairs. Prior to his nomination to that job, Shapiro had served as
Clinton’s national security adviser in her Senate office. Today, Shapiro
is a partner in a Washington consulting firm whose other co-founders
include Philippe Reines, Clinton’s longtime press aide.
After Clinton stepped down as secretary of state in
February 2013, Raytheon discontinued the services of Heather Podesta +
Partners, and ceased its use of DLA Piper at State.
While experts do not believe any laws were broken,
the affair illustrates how Washington worked in the first Obama term,
and particularly at the Clinton State Department. The Raytheon operation
bears some similarity to a pop-up store that materializes to serve a
seasonal need, such as Halloween candy or July Fourth fireworks, then
vanishes once that need has been met.
“I think this is as close an example of pay-to-play
as we’ve seen,” said Raj Shah, deputy communications director at the
Republican National Committee. “And that's why [Raytheon] made these
hires [of Heather Podesta, Merrigan and Bernstein]. … Their experience
was getting access to Hillary Clinton and raising money for her.”
“The ultimate responsibility, of course, rests on the
Cabinet official. In this case, it'd be the secretary of state,” said
State Department spokesman John Kirby at a briefing with reporters
Wednesday. “But we do it in close coordination with DOD. … The only
considerations that are factored into the foreign military sales program
is the furtherance of foreign policy objectives of the United States of
America and not the efforts by external groups to lobby, as you say, or
to influence that decision.”
Josh Schwerin, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign,
told Fox News that the nominee “never took action as secretary of state
because of any donations and any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
In a statement, Raytheon said its lobbying practices
and policies are fully disclosed and comply with all federal, state and
local laws. DLA Piper did not respond to a request for comment. And
Heather Podesta sent Fox News a one-sentence email saying: “I never
lobbied the Secretary or John Podesta on this matter.”
