Clinton Foundation officials courted a Russian billionaire to join a 2012 meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, seeking the advice of State Department staff about the invitation.
The well-connected charity wanted to invite Viktor Vekselberg, founder of major Russian conglomerate Renova Group, to attend the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City that year. Amitabh Desai, the foundation’s director of foreign policy, asked a top aide to Hillary Clinton if the State Department would be troubled by the invitation, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Vekselberg, a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been involved in multiple corruption investigations spawned from his far-reaching commercial activities in oil, aluminium and investments.
Renova Group has donated as much as $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation, donor records show.
Desai asked Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, and two other State Department officials if the U.S. government would “have any concerns” about bringing Vekselberg to the high-profile event in September 2012.
The agency’s response was not included among the documents provided to Citizens United, the conservative watchdog group that took the State Department to court over its trio of FOIA requests.
While Vekselberg’s name does not appear among a list of “featured attendees” at the 2012 event, the fact that the foundation was considering an effort to attract the Russian tycoon — and consulting with the State Department about its intentions — illustrates the conflicts that critics have cited as evidence of the charity’s unethical practices.
Observers have questioned the Clinton Foundation’s reliance on foreign donors during Clinton’s time as secretary of state, as well as her husband’s frequent appearances on the paid lecture circuit, which brought him into contact with controversial characters.
For example, in June 2012, Desai asked top State Department aides, including Mills and Huma Abedin, if they would object to an invitation for the former president to speak at an event hosted by Luca International Group.
The California oil firm had offered Bill Clinton $200,000 for 90 minutes of his time as they prepared for the U.S.-China Energy Summit, a nonprofit incorporated by Luca International Group just one month earlier for the purposes of hosting the planned event.
Reports indicate former President George W. Bush was ultimately the keynote speaker at the event, not Bill Clinton.
Luca International Group was later accused of defrauding millions of dollars from investors through an elaborate Ponzi scheme. The firm filed for bankruptcy shortly afterward.
Desai forwarded State Department aides details for several other potential paid speaking engagements for Bill Clinton, including an event in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and another in North Korea.
The latter speech was arranged by Tony Rodham, Hillary Clinton’s brother, according to internal emails. Mills hastily suggested the former president reject the invitation to travel to North Korea and earn thousands for the appearance.
Other emails included in the batch of documents made public by Citizens United Monday evening include a chain in which Abedin, Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff, asked to be removed from a conversation that highlighted her conflicts of interest.
Abedin has come under fire for her simultaneous work at the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and a consulting firm called Teneo Strategies.
Her overlapping occupations collided in one episode that has been cited by lawmakers in which she was asked by one of her superiors at Teneo to secure a coveted White House position for Judith Rodin, Teneo client and Clinton Foundation donor. Rodin heads the Rockefeller Foundation, a major philanthropy.
In a November 2012 exchange with Kris Balderston, another Clinton aide, Abedin acknowledged the problems created by her multiple jobs when she recused herself from a discussion of Teneo.
“When this was a matter of [J]udith coming up to me randomly asking about [R]ockefeller partnership with [S]tate, it was one thing,” Abedin wrote.
“But now that [T]eneo is involved, I feel I have a conflict so best not to be a part of this,” she added. “It makes me uncomfortable.”
Abedin asked Balderston to “de-loop” her from the conversation, which involved Balderston discussing a potential project with Rodin’s charity and the State Department. Executives with Teneo, such as Paul Keary, were copied on the email to Rodin.
Abedin’s attorneys have fiercely denied their client ever delivered favors to friends by exploiting her multiple positions.
