News media, government officials giving Clinton’s ‘hench woman’ a pass?
An internal investigation by the Obama State Department discovered information that a top State Department aide to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, disgraced Democrat Anthony Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin, while working as a government employee was involved in activities that could be construed as serious conflicts of interest.The investigation also discovered evidence of overpayments by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to her alleged “closest aide.”
In an unanswered letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, stated that a special probe by the State Department’s inspector general uncovered possible leveraging of a State Department job by Huma Abedin that appears to have benefited her other employers while she worked for Mrs. Clintion. The two paid positions were with the now infamous Clinton Foundation and a consulting firm called Teneo Strategies that is also tied to former President Bill Clinton.
The so-called consulting firm known as Teneo Strategies is run by Douglas Band who once served as a special adviser to President Bill Clinton. Part of the Teneo firm’s success has been Band bragging to potential clients and other that the former president is a paid board member and has been in that position since 2011, coincidentally while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State.
According to Grassley’s letter to Kerry, Abedin allegedly sent or received more than 7,000 emails on her government account that involved Band and his firm which conducted business overseas with nations that benefited from having the Secretary of State’s ear. One example of Abedin’s potential conflicts of interest, an email exchange was discovered in which Band pressured Abedin to encourage Hillary Clinton to help one of his clients secure a White House appointment.
Judith Rodin, Band’s client, was then president of the Rockefeller Foundation based in New York City, “which donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, a fact which Mr. Band allegedly noted in his email to Ms. Abedin,” the Grassley letter noted. “(The) email evidence allegedly suggests that Ms. Abedin and Ms. Mills shared a desire to find a way to ensure the Department paid for Ms. Abedin’s travel to and from New York,” the Grassley letter states.
Grassley is also questioning a payment of more than $30,000 that Ms. Abedin received from the State Department for leave she hadn’t used. However, there are questions unanswered about the times she took off from the State Department but worked for the Clinton Foundation or Teneo Strategies.
The Iowa Republican pointed out that the Senate Judiciary Committee found evidence that Abedin had indeed taken leave during her time as a government employee, and it has led to questions about whether or not Abedin was entitled to taxpayer money in excess of $30,000, the annual take-home pay of many police officers not as fortunate to be connected to the Clintons.
Critics have accused Hillary Clinton of, once again, bending the rules – in this case personnel regulations – to allow Huma Abedin to collect her government paycheck while wielding her influence to the benefit of her other employers who did business with the State Department.
Grassley cited Hillary Clinton’s trip to Ireland with Huma Abedin for her last official appearance as secretary of State. While in Ireland Mrs. Clinton attended an event hosted by a major Clinton Foundation donor – under the guise of a charitable contribution – that was being promoted by Teneo. “No matter how you slice it, these people were sucking up taxpayer money in some inventive ways that would put the average American in federal prison. It almost appears to be a organized crime shell-game, but as usual Democrats ask where’s the smoking gun?” noted former criminal investigator Cheryl Freedman.
