Newly released emails show the complicated nature of ties between the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton-led State Department—and the high risk of conflicts of interest.
The conservative accountability group Judicial Watch released Tuesday night a tranche of nearly 300 emails it obtained through a lawsuit, and they paint a picture of some of the conflicts of interest created by a situation in which Hillary Clinton ran U.S. foreign policy as her husband’s foundation acted around the globe.
Many of the emails are redacted, and some are almost comically boring—“No new voice messages,” one reads in full—but others are not.In one of the more piquant interactions, from April 2009, Doug Band, a close confidant of former President Clinton who was then in charge of the foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative, pressed top Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills for a connection at the State Department for Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian-Lebanese billionaire who was a major benefactor of the Clinton Foundation.
“It’s jeff feltman. I’m sure he knows him. I’ll talk to jeff,” Abedin replied, referring to the then-U.S. ambassador to Lebanon.
Band responded, “Better if you call him. Now preferable. This is very important… He’s awake I’m sure.”
It’s unclear from the emails what Chagoury wanted to talk about.
According to Clinton Foundation records, Chagoury has given the charity between $1 and $5 million, and pledged $1 billion to CGI.
He had ties to the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, according to The Wall Street Journal, as well as to Christian politicians in highly sectarian Lebanon.
In 2000, he paid a $66 million fine in Nigeria as part of a plea deal in a money-laundering case..."
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