Subpoena: State Dept vs. Clinton Foundation

How the Clinton Foundation is organized

What We Know About WJC, LLC, Bill Clinton’s Consulting Company

Financial disclosures show that the former president started a pass-through company to channel his consulting fees.

Clinton Foundation received subpoena from State Department investigators

Investigators with the State Department issued a subpoena to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation last fall seeking documents about the charity’s projects that may have required approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state, according to people familiar with the subpoena and written correspondence about it.

The subpoena also asked for records related to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide who for six months in 2012 was employed simultaneously by the State Department, the foundation, Clinton’s personal office, and a private consulting firm with ties to the Clintons.

The full scope and status of the inquiry, conducted by the State Department’s inspector general, were not clear from the material correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post.

A foundation representative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing inquiry, said the initial document request had been narrowed by investigators and that the foundation is not the focus of the probe.

A State IG spokesman declined to comment on that assessment or on the subpoena.

Representatives for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Abedin also declined comment.

[How Huma Abedin operated at the center of the Clinton universe]

There is no indication that the watchdog is looking at Clinton. But as she runs for president in part by promoting her leadership of the State Department, an inquiry involving a top aide and the relationship between her agency and her family’s charity could further complicate her campaign.

For months, Clinton has wrangled with controversy over her use of a private email server, which has sparked a separate investigation by the same State Department inspector general’s office. There is also an FBI investigation into whether her system compromised national security.

Bill Clinton used LLC as a pass through

Clinton was asked about the FBI investigation at a debate last week and said she was “100 percent confident” nothing would come of it. Last month, Clinton denied a Fox News report that the FBI had expanded its probe to include ties between the foundation and the State Department. She called that report “an unsourced, irresponsible” claim with “no basis.”

During the years Clinton served as secretary of state, the foundation was led by her husband, former president Bill Clinton. She joined its board after leaving office in February 2013 and helped run it until launching her White House bid in April.

Abedin served as deputy chief of staff at State starting in 2009. For the second half of 2012, she participated in the “special government employee” program that enabled her to work simultaneously in the State Department, the foundation, Hillary Clinton’s personal office and Teneo, a private consultancy with close ties to the Clintons.

Abedin has been a visible part of Hillary Clinton’s world since she served as an intern in the 1990s for the then-first lady while attending George Washington University. On the campaign trail, Clinton is rarely seen in public without Abedin somewhere nearby.

Republican lawmakers have alleged that foreign officials and other powerful interests with business before the U.S. government gave large donations to the Clinton Foundation to curry favor with a sitting secretary of state and a potential future president.

Both Clintons have dismissed those accusations, saying donors contributed to the $2 billion foundation to support its core missions: improving health care, education and environmental work around the world.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic primary, has largely avoided raising either issue in his campaign. Last spring, Sanders expressed concerns about the Clinton Foundation being part of a political system “dominated by money.”

Sanders has batted away questions about the email scandal, famously saying at a debate last fall that, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”

The potential consequences of the IG investigation are unclear. Unlike federal prosecutors, inspectors general have the authority to subpoena documents without seeking approval from a grand jury or a judge.

But their power is limited. They are able to obtain documents, but they cannot compel testimony. At times, IG inquiries result in criminal charges, but sometimes they lead to administrative review, civil penalties or reports that have no legal consequences.

The IG has investigated Abedin before. Last year, the watchdog concluded she was overpaid nearly $10,000 because of violations of sick leave and vacation policies, a finding that Abedin and her attorneys have contested.

Republican lawmakers, led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), have alleged that Abedin’s role at the center of overlapping public and private Clinton worlds created the potential for conflicts of interest.

Examples of fees paid for speeches

Hillary Emails Back in the News, Again

  Yoga and wedding arrangements? Not so much..

State Dept: Top Official Didn’t Know About Hillary’s Server, Even Though He Was On Email Discussing It

DailyCaller: A spokesman for the State Department insisted during a press conference on Wednesday that Patrick Kennedy, the Under Secretary of Management at the department, was not aware Hillary Clinton maintained a private server in her home while she was secretary of state.

But that claim — made by spokesman Mark Toner — is a curious one given that emails published by The Daily Caller last month show that Kennedy was involved in an August 2011 email exchange with two of Clinton’s top aides and another State Department official in which Clinton’s private email server was discussed.

Whether Kennedy knew about Clinton’s private server is a key point in the ongoing email kerfuffle. In his role, the 42-year veteran manages all facets of State Department business, including personnel matters, logistics, information technology, and budgetary issues. He is also the official who has served as the State Department’s main point of contact with Clinton, her attorneys, and her aides throughout the ongoing email scandal. He sent the letters requesting that Clinton and her aides hand their emails over to the State Department.

Given his central position at State, it would stand to reason that Kennedy should have known — and should have been informed — that Clinton was using a private email server housed in her New York residence.

As one reporter put it during Wednesday’s press briefing: “How could he not know if he’s responsible for both [Diplomatic Security] and for the people who do the technical and computer stuff at State?”

But Kennedy knowing about the server would also raise questions about why the career diplomat allowed Clinton to use an email system was vulnerable to outside threats. Not to mention the risks posed by Clinton’s sending and receiving of classified information.

Kennedy’s name popped up on Wednesday when Fox News’ Catherine Herridge reported that he was one of the State Department officials who handled 22 “top secret” emails found on Clinton’s server. Clinton and her aides, Jake Sullivan, Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, and Philippe Reines all either sent the sensitive emails, received them, forwarded them, or commented on them.

 

The State Department has determined that the emails are so sensitive that they will be withheld from the Clinton records being released in batches at the end of each month since June.

Fox’s Herridge also reported that Kennedy told the House Select Committee on Benghazi during an interview earlier this month that he knew about Clinton’s personal email account from the beginning of her tenure, but that he was not aware of the “scope” of its use for government business.

A spokesperson for the Committee declined to comment on matters involving private interviews.

During Wednesday’s questioning, Toner said three times that Kennedy, who frequently emailed with Clinton about work-related issues, did not know about Clinton’s private server.

“He’s spoken to it before — or we’ve spoken to it before — that he did not have knowledge of the computer server that she set up in her residence,” said Toner, who also stated that Kennedy told the Benghazi Committee that he did not know about the server.

“What his knowledge or what his awareness at the time — other than what he has said already, or what we have said already — which is that he was not aware of her having a private server at her home,” Toner said later in the press briefing.

But an Aug. 30, 2011 email chain obtained by TheDC last month through a FOIA lawsuit shows that Kennedy was involved in a conversation that explicitly mentioned Clinton’s server.

 

In the email, Stephen Mull, then-executive secretary at State, thanked Cheryl Mills for alerting him to problems that Clinton was having sending emails on the personal Blackberry that she used to send and receive work email. The Blackberry was “malfunctioning,” Mull noted, “possibly because of [sic] her personal email server is down.”

Kennedy was copied on that email as well as on a response from Abedin. On top of indicating that Kennedy was made aware of Clinton’s use of a personal server, the emails also show that Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and an official on her presidential campaign, vetoed a proposal to set Clinton up with a second Blackberry equipped with a State.gov email address.

“Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Abedin said in response to the proposal. Clinton was never provided a State Department-issued Blackberry. Why Kennedy did not intervene at that time is anybody’s guess.

TheDC reached out to the State Department to find out more about the apparent inconsistency between Toner’s comments on Wednesday and the August 2011 emails. Perhaps Kennedy didn’t see the email? Perhaps he assumed that another email server that was linked to Clinton’s Blackberry was being discussed by Stephen Mull, the executive secretary of State?

But the agency provided few additional details.

“Today the State Department indicated that comments made by Under Secretary Kennedy to the Benghazi Committee were being misconstrued. Beyond that, we are not going to speak to this further,” ‎‎a State Department official told TheDC.

Hat tip Chuck!

 

 

Possibly up to 30 Accounts on Hillary’s Server?

Official: Top Clinton aides also handled ‘top secret’ intel on server

FNC: EXCLUSIVE: At least a dozen email accounts handled the “top secret” intelligence that was found on Hillary Clinton’s server and recently deemed too damaging for national security to release, a U.S. government official close to the review told Fox News.

The official said the accounts include not only Clinton’s but those of top aides – including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines – as well as State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and others.

A second source not authorized to speak on the record said the number of accounts involved could be as high as 30 and reflects how the intelligence was broadly shared, replied to, and copied to individuals using the unsecured server.

The State Department recently confirmed that the messages in question include the most sensitive kind of intelligence. On Jan. 29, Fox News first reported that some emails on Clinton’s server were too damaging to release in any form. The State Department subsequently announced that 22 “top secret” emails were being withheld in full; these were the messages being handled by more than a dozen accounts.

Kennedy recently told the House Benghazi Select Committee that he knew about Clinton’s personal email account from the beginning, but did not understand the “scope,” thinking it was for reaching husband Bill Clinton and their daughter Chelsea — and not for the exclusive handling of State Department business. Kennedy’s testimony appears to conflict with emails released through the Freedom of Information Act that show he routinely sent and received government business from the Clinton account.

Fox News has asked the State Department to comment on the email accounts that shared the highly classified information, and how it was that Kennedy did not understand the “scope” of Clinton’s personal email being used for government business.

A spokesman for the intelligence community inspector general, which has been reviewing the classification of the Clinton server emails, had no comment.

*** From ABC and the White House last year:

President Obama Knew Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Address, But Not Details of Server

President Obama exchanged emails with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at her private address — @clintonemail.com — but did not know the details of her account or how she would comply with administration policy and federal records law, the White House said today.

“Yes, he was aware of her email address. He traded emails with her,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “But he was not aware of her personal email server or that she was using it exclusively for all her business.”

Asked how often Obama and Clinton emailed, Earnest said he “would not describe the number as large.”

In an interview Saturday, Obama said he learned of his secretary of state’s private email address use through recent news reports, “the same time everybody else learned it.”

Earnest explained that the president was referring to details of her email system and the fact that she had not been in compliance with State Department policy for nearly six years after failing to submit the records for transfer to government computers.

Clinton has called for the public release of 55,000 emails turned over to the State Department for archiving. Her team handpicked the messages off her private server that pertained to official business; Clinton’s camp said roughly 10 percent were of a personal nature and not handed over.

“I’m glad that Hillary [has] instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed,” Obama said Saturday.

Earnest said an independent, third-party review of Clinton’s private server should not be required, but suggested that the White House would not oppose one if she elected to do so.

The former Secretary of State has remained mum on the email controversy. She has yet to explain why she exclusively used private email through a server built inside her New York home while Secretary of State, or why it took six years to submit the records as required under the department policy she oversaw.

*** Some emails being withheld could have Obama’s communication exchanges included:

“We can confirm that later today, as part of our monthly [Freedom of Information Act] productions of former secretary Clinton’s emails, the State Department will be denying in full seven email chains”, he said.

In the past few months, Clinton had been facing issues of trustworthiness during surveys as a result of evidence of the existence of top secret material in her private email server.

Clinton has encouraged the State Department to release her email as quickly as possible and, when delays have occurred, her campaign has been quick to point out that they do not control the schedule, which was set by the court and government bureaucrats.

Officials in the State Department have asked for additional time to vet the messages because of the recent snowstorm that hit Washington.

“This seems to be over-categorization run amok”, it said in statement.

So far, officials haven’t really described what’s in the emails or even if Clinton sent them.

The presidential hopeful has acknowledged that her choice to make use of a personal email server at her Nyc house was a blunder. We feel no differently today. But as is often the case with the Democratic presidential candidate, she dodged the question and gave an inconsistent answer.

The State Department is separately withholding 18 e-mails comprised of eight e-mail chains between Clinton and President Barack Obama, Kirby said. Such operations are widely discussed publicly, including by top USA officials, and State Department officials debated McCullough’s claim.

The AP reported last August that one focused on a forwarded news article about the classified US drone program run by the Central Intelligence Agency.

 

Hillary has no Message, then this Memo

FreeBeacon: MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell slammed Hillary Clinton’s campaign for its “pretty shocking” memo that it “defensively” released in anticipation of losing to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in New Hampshire.

Sanders, as predicted by the polls, defeated Clinton there Tuesday night, with networks making the calls just moments after the final polls closed.

PBS reported on the memo:

Hours before official New Hampshire results appeared Tuesday, Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook conceded to staffers, supporters and some reporters that the Granite State race was lost, in a memo obtained by PBS NewsHour that urged the Clinton team to focus past February and on March.

“The first four states represent just 4% of the delegates needed to secure the nomination,” Mook wrote, “The 28 states that vote (or caucus) in March will award 56% of the delegates needed to win.”

The Democratic Party is “completely splintered,” Mitchell said.

“Hillary Clinton had the Democratic Party establishment,” Mitchell said. “She still has their endorsements, but he has out-raised her in January. He now will have a ton of money on those online contributions in February, and the Clinton team anticipated this with this three-page memo.”

Host Rachel Maddow interrupted to say that the memo “shocked” her.

“Is this normal?” Maddow asked.

“No, this is pretty shocking because it is a three-page memo from the campaign manager defensively explaining how they can come back and win the nomination in March with the delegate-rich first 15 days in March,” Mitchell said, her voice hardened.

Mitchell added she’d had it for a half-hour, showing the campaign pre-emotively wrote it in anticipation of losing to Sanders.

“Embargoed until 8:00,” Maddow said. “They knew they were going to lose.”

***

The gaping hole at the heart of Hillary Clinton’s campaign

WaPo: There are many stories one could tell about Bernie Sanders’ defeat of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. One is that Sanders has captured the prevailing sentiment among Democrats, a fervent desire for political revolution to unmake a corrupt system, and he will ride this desire all the way to the nomination. Another is that yesterday’s result was a function of some idiosyncratic features of that primary, particularly New Hampshire’s demographic homogeneity and the fact that independents are allowed to vote in the party primary; now that the race moves to states that better represent the Democratic Party, Clinton’s strength among Latinos and African-Americans will move her back into command for good.

Either of those stories might be true. But right now, the Clinton campaign has a much bigger problem than the story it wants to tell about New Hampshire. That problem is this: the campaign has no story to tell the voters about Hillary Clinton and why she should be president.

Having a good story doesn’t guarantee you victory, but nobody becomes president without one. The story has to contain three simple elements. First, it explains what the problem is. Second, it explains what the solution is. And third, it explains why this candidate, and only this candidate, is the person who can bring the country from where it is now to where it ought to be.

As Greg discussed this morning, both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have very simple messages that are resonating with substantial parts of the base voters in each one’s party. Trump says that America is being played for chumps, and only a fantastic, luxurious individual like him can make us win again. Sanders says that the political system is corrupted by the influence of the wealthy and corporations, and a revolution delivered by an unsullied figure like him is necessary to break their stranglehold on our politics. Anyone who has paid attention to the campaign for five minutes understands what those messages are, whether you agree with either one of them or not.

Now tell me: what’s Hillary Clinton’s message?

She doesn’t have one. She doesn’t have a clear diagnosis of the problem the country faces, nor does she have an explanation of what the solution is, nor can she say why only she can bring about the better future voters are hoping for.

Of course, Clinton can make a persuasive argument for her preferred solution on any policy area you can name. She also has a strong argument for why Sanders is being unrealistic about much of what he wants to do, an argument I basically agree with. And if you asked, she could tell you all about her ample qualifications for the presidency. But it doesn’t add up to a coherent story.

What’s remarkable about this gaping hole in her candidacy is that she faced exactly the same problem eight years ago, and lost in part because she never solved it. Barack Obama told voters that our politics was being constrained by partisan bickering and small thinking, and only he, a new, inspiring figure, could forge consensus and bring the kind of change our future demanded. You might not think he succeeded in that, but at the time it was exactly what voters believed we needed. Far more than Obama’s specific policy ideas — which barely differed from Clinton’s at all — that vision and the way he embodied it was what drew first Democrats and then general election voters to him.

I’m a little reluctant to make this critique, because reporters and pundits are often too eager to play political consultant and tell candidates and operatives how to do their jobs, when there are more important things we could be talking about. And candidates don’t need more encouragement to oversimplify things and reduce all the complexities of policy and politics to bumper sticker-ready slogans.

Nevertheless, the fact is that human beings understand the world through stories, which help bring coherence to complex situations. And there’s no reason a campaign can’t offer voters both lengthy policy plans and a simple, broad structure that organizes them into an understandable whole.

Clinton’s campaign would argue that she has such a story to tell. In her speech in New Hampshire last night, she listed many of the problems she wants to solve and explained how she can solve them through commitment and hard work. Sources near to her tell Politico that now she will “push a new focus on systematic racism, criminal justice reform, voting rights and gun violence that will mitigate concerns about her lack of an inspirational message.” That’s directed primarily at African-Americans, the Democratic Party’s largest and most loyal constituency group, and the one no Democrat can win the nomination without. If Clinton can hold those voters, she can probably turn back Sanders’ challenge.

But that’s far from guaranteed, and it’s a message that only addresses some of the problems the country faces. In contrast to broad ideas like Sanders’ call for revolution or even Trump’s claim that we’re a country of losers, it can’t be easily and logically applied to any problem a voter might see as urgent. And it doesn’t tell you much about Hillary Clinton in particular, other than the fact that this is something she cares about.

There’s another successful presidential candidate we can remember who knew that being smart and experienced and having popular policy ideas wasn’t enough. His name was Bill Clinton, and he told the country that as an innovative thinker hailing from a place called Hope, this representative of a new generation could carry America out of its doldrums. He may have been more of a natural politician than his wife, but he also had a story to tell, one the voters found compelling. Hillary Clinton hasn’t told the country a story that connects their worries with her potential as a president. But she’d better find one soon.

Have you Met Taylor Johnson?

Imagine a government doing this to an employee, when an employee is bound by law to do so. Ah, Harry Reid, of course.

EXCLUSIVE: ICE Whistleblower Fired After Refusing DHS Hush Money

DailyCaller: The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday dismissed an ICE whistleblower it was secretly smearing to reporters after she testified before Congress about her troubles with the agency.

Special Agent Taylor Johnson — who had a storied career until she irked Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid by objecting to a visa program for foreign investors tied to the senator’s son — says she declined to take a $100,000 severance package because it included a non-disclosure agreement.

Gee, what a great use of taxpayer money that would have been. Pay a woman not to talk about what already got nationwide coverage when she talked about it before Congress.

DHS Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Todd Breasseale did not respond to multiple inquiries about the reason for Johnson’s dismissal and why they tried to buy her silence.

Despite all the media coverage of her case, including a Washington Gadfly report that the ICE press secretary with the approval of Breasseale was peddling confidential information to discredit her in violation of the Privacy Act, Taylor is not surprised she got the boot.

“My entire chain of command was appointed by Obama,” she remarked. “They can do anything they want.”

In testimony last June to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Johnson said she was stripped of her gun and badge, without explanation, after discovering fraud and abuse.

“Some of the violations investigated surrounding the project included bank and wire fraud, and I discovered ties to organized crime and high-ranking politicians and they received promotions that appeared to facilitate the program,” Johnson testified.

She said that during her investigation in 2013, she “discovered that EB-5 applicants from China, Russia, Pakistan, Malaysia had been approved in as little as 16 days” and that case files “lacked the basic and necessary law enforcement queries.”

At ICE, Johnson had amassed many awards and never had any disciplinary problems. But everything changed abruptly in 2013 when she invoked the ire of Senator Reid by holding up a visas for a foreigner investor in a Las Vegas casino represented by his son, attorney Cory Reid.

The Senator’s office complained to Johnson’s Special Agent in Charge. She was then placed on administrative leave, without explanation, on October 13, 2013.

Under pressure from Senate Democratic staffers Johnson did not mention in her testimony the role Reid’s office played in her ouster. But the DHS Inspector General concluded in a report last March that U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) director Alejandro Mayorkas intervened in “an unprecedented matter” to approve EB-5 visas for the Las Vegas casino investors after pressure from Reid’s office.

The report essentially vindicated complaints by Johnson and other DHS employees about the program.

DHS has never given any public explanation for the disciplinary action it took against Johnson. After the hearing a DHS spokeswoman said they do not talk about personnel matters.

But this past December, ICE press secretary Gillian Christensen, citing confidential information from Johnson’s file, tried to convince this reporter off the record that she was a dishonest and a problem employee.

That argument is going to be even harder to peddle now that the Department would have allowed Johnson to leave with a clean work record and $100,000 in spending money if she promised to keep her mouth shut.

Johnson is soliciting donations on gofundme.com to cover legal fees for a possible federal lawsuit.