A former aide to Hillary Clinton faced a criminal investigation in the months after Clinton left the State Department despite the previous assertions of her attorney that no such probe existed, internal documents show.
The attorney representing Huma Abedin, Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff, was a State Department aide at the same time as Abedin and was closely connected with Clinton herself on the private server she used to shield her government communications, according to new email records.
Miguel Rodriguez, the attorney presently representing Abedin, worked in Clinton’s State Department as deputy assistant secretary after serving in her Senate office.
“There is no criminal investigation and never has been. To say otherwise is just patently false and needlessly inflammatory,” Rodriguez said of Abedin after Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the State Department July 30 inquiring about an inspector general investigation.
But on Oct. 22, 2013, the State Department inspector general notified the FBI that it had opened a criminal investigation of Huma Abedin because of “theft,” according to a notice sent from the agency watchdog to the FBI that was obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The investigation focused on whether Abedin accepted payment for unused leave time that she allegedly spent vacationing and on maternity leave, an accusation her legal team has disputed.
The inspector general claimed Abedin did not submit timesheets that reflected her intention to take time off.
Her attorneys assert Abedin worked during her maternity leave and vacation, thereby justifying the thousands she was paid for work during that time.
The inspector general probe also focused on the “special government employee” designation that allowed Abedin to collect simultaneous paychecks from the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and a consulting firm called Teneo Strategies.
Abedin may have worked as a special employee weeks longer than federal regulations allow, the inspector general report found.
While the regulations cap special government employees from working under the arrangement for more than 130 days, Abedin allegedly served as a special employee for 244 days.
What’s more, she billed the State Department for overtime while working for the Clinton Foundation and Teneo, which is not permitted under SGE rules.
“These revelations raise important new questions about whether Ms. Abedin actually qualified for her SGE status under the law,” Grassley wrote in a letter to Abedin’s attorneys Thursday.
The Iowa Republican highlighted her legal team’s past denials of any criminal probe, raising questions about whether they had told the truth.
“If her purported status as an SGE did not conform to the law, then it would not protect her simultaneous employment with the Department, Teneo, and the Clinton Foundation from complying with the rules that apply to regular federal employees,” Grassley wrote.
Rodriguez, who has denied any wrongdoing on behalf of Abedin, is also deeply involved in the Clinton email controversy.
Documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit, indicate Rodriguez sent the first-ever email to Clinton’s private server in March of 2009.
Clinton did not turn over any emails that she received between her first day in office in Jan. 2009 and March of that year. She did not turn over any emails sent between January and April 2009, internal State Department records show.
An agency spokesman said emails from the final month of Clinton’s tenure, which had been deemed missing as well, were found after a more thorough review of the documents.
The State Department spokesman said Clinton used a different email address during the early months of her time at the agency, which is why she was unable to hand over records from that period.
Rodriguez’s message is the first record of communication with Clinton’s private address.
