Hillary Clinton personally signed off on an agreement that allowed Huma Abedin, one of her top aides, to take jobs at the Clinton Foundation and a consulting firm called Teneo Strategies without having to leave the State Department, new documents show.
The controversial arrangement has highlighted the potential conflicts of interest that plagued Clinton’s time at the State Department, as Abedin’s overlapping roles exposed her to the type of influence-peddling that critics have accused the Clintons of perpetuating.
For example, Abedin was approached via email in 2012 by Douglas Band, her boss at Teneo, to arrange a presidential appointment for Judith Rodin, who headed an organization that donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation and was a client at Teneo.
While Rodin ultimately did not get the position, which was under the authority of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the email chain suggests Abedin was vulnerable to sensitive requests that may have put her at odds with her multiple employers.
Abedin’s attorney attempted to discredit accusations put forward by Sen. Charles Grassley, who first highlighted the episode involving Rodin’s appointment in a letter to the State Department in late July.
Grassley had described the email chain in question, which was detailed in a Politico report Wednesday.
A subsequent story in the Washington Post claimed Rodin had nabbed a White House appointment years before tapping Teneo.
“The Band friend was named to a White House panel in 2010, before her charity hired Teneo and before Teneo hired Abedin,” the report said.
But according to the detailed description of the conversation between Band and Abedin, Rodin was pushing for a USAID position, not the panel described in the Post story.
Even so, in an Aug. 21 letter sent from Abedin’s attorney to the State Department, her legal team repeated the Post’s assertion that “the timeline of events did not support a conflict of interest.”
Abedin’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment about why he had pointed to an unrelated panel position as evidence that Abedin had not received a request for a favor from her other boss.
The “special government employee” status that was given to Abedin sometime in 2012 has been questioned by lawmakers and watchdog groups who wonder why the rare arrangement was permitted in the first place.
Documents made public Thursday by Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit, indicate Clinton greenlighted the decision to convert Abedin to a special employee. Abedin evidently struggled to provide information about the assets of her husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner, as she prepared for her new position.
The records indicate staffers wanted to convert Abedin to a special employee in April 2012. But by June, Abedin was still wrestling with internal reporting requirements that may have prevented her from stepping into the new role on schedule.
It is unclear if Abedin was allowed to work as a special government employee beginning on April 1, 2012, as several emails from multiple officials indicate was the plan.
She did not file a form clearing her of conflicts of interest until May 5 of that year, and was still missing certain forms by the end of the following month.
In March 2012, she asked a State Department official to take over some of her expenses in apparent anticipation of the employment change.
“Can you start paying for my travel since [New York] is now my base?” Abedin asked an agency official in March 2012. “I’ve been paying personally for the last 6 months.”
Internal emails show Abedin failed to provide details about her husband’s finances when pressed by an official in the State Department’s financial disclosure office in June 2012.
“He runs his own consulting firm. I don’t really know his clients or the work,” Abedin said of Weiner’s business when asked to provide more information.
Federal regulations prohibit special government employees from working more than 130 days. Abedin indicated on her conflicts of interest clearance form that she intended to serve as a special employee for the maximum time allowed.
However, if she had started as a special government employee on April 1, 2012, she would have far exceeded the limit by the end of that year alone, racking up even more workdays beyond what is permitted by law until Clinton stepped down as secretary of state on Feb. 1, 2013.
“My new position is identical to my old position,” Abedin wrote on June 4, 2012 to a State Department official.
Her statement raises questions about why, if she was to maintain the same responsibilities, she was given the controversial special employee designation.
Critics have said Clinton only signed off on the personnel arrangement to allow Abedin to collect paychecks from the Clinton Foundation and Teneo while keeping her on the government’s payroll.
Special government employees are meant to provide services to the government that cannot be obtained otherwise.
