State Department Inspector General Steve Linick has launched an investigation of Hillary Clinton’s close confidant, Huma Abedin.
The focus of the inquiry is Abedin’s highly unusual special status, which allowed her to be paid by a private consulting firm at the same time as drawing a salary as Clinton’s deputy chief of staff.
Abedin received the “Special Government Employee” classification but department officials have declined to provide information about who approved the designation for Abedin or the justification for it.
Linick told Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that he “intends to examine the Department’s SGE program to determine if it conforms to applicable legal and policy requirements, including whether or not the program, as implemented, includes safeguards against conflicts of interest.”
The confirmation came in a letter made public late Friday by Grassley, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Grassley has been unsuccessfully seeking documents concerning Abedin’s role at the department since 2013. He requested the probe out of concern with potential conflicts of interest resulting from Abedin working for the government and Teneo Holdings, a strategic consulting firm founded by Doug Band and DeClan Kelly, long-time advisers to former President Clinton and to Hillary Clinton.
“This program is meant to be used in a limited way to give the government special expertise it can’t get otherwise,” Grassley said Friday. “Is the program working the way it’s intended at the State Department or has it been turned on its head and used in ways completely unrelated to its purpose?
“An independent analysis will help to answer the question. An inspector general review is necessary. Available information suggests that in at least one case, the State Department gave the special status for employee convenience, not public benefit.”
Abedin, who was often seen in the background of news photos of Clinton during official events, also used Clinton’s private email server, as did then-chief of staff Cheryl Mills and possibly other close aides.
Clinton confirmed last month that she used the private email account and server, which was located at her Chappaqua, New York, residence, to conduct official government business throughout her four-year tenure as the nation’s chief diplomat.
Federal law and regulation require all federal employees to use government email accounts to conduct official business and promptly to give their employing agency copies of any private emails that dealt with official business.
Clinton said that she deleted about 30,000 emails that were personal, and turned over to the department 55,000 pages of emails that concerned official business. That only happened, however, last year in response to a State Department request for the communications.
In a related development, Linick acknowledged in his letter to Grassley that he and his staff were unaware of Clinton’s use of the private email and server before it was first reported by the New York Times last month.
Linick told Grassley that “in the past when faced with employees who were using non-government email accounts for government business, the OIG questioned such activities.” He cited an August 2012 instance in which it was found the U.S. embassy in Nairobi was using commercial email instead of State Department systems.
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
