A spring 2012 email to Hillary Clinton’s top State Department aide, Huma Abedin, asked for help winning a presidential appointment for a supporter of the Clinton Foundation, according to a chain obtained by POLITICO.
The messages illustrate the relationship between Clinton’s most trusted confidante and the private consulting company that asked for the favor, Teneo — a global firm that later hired Abedin. Abedin signed on with the company while she still held a State Department position, a dual employment that is now being examined by congressional investigators.
Abedin’s status as a “special government employee” has been questioned by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has raised concerns about any overlapping duties and whether they posed potential conflicts of interest. Abedin also worked as an adviser to the Clinton Foundation, the nonprofit founded by former President Bill Clinton.
Abedin’s legal team maintains that the part-time jobs were appropriate and approved by Abedin’s supervisors at State and that she did nothing wrong. Indeed, in the email request obtained by POLITICO, there is no evidence that Abedin interceded on behalf of Teneo as it sought a new appointment for Judith Rodin, a Teneo client and the president of The Rockefeller Foundation.
Rodin, a former White House appointee to the White House Council for Community Solutions, did not get the appointment Teneo was seeking. The Rockefeller Foundation paid Teneo $5.7 million in 2012 to do public relations work but no longer works with the firm.
The Clinton campaign, which Abedin now leads as vice chairwoman, said in a statement that the release of the email chain was a “shameful” attempt to smear Clinton’s top staffer.
“This email — from before Huma Abedin was an SGE — is yet another attempt to smear a hardworking public servant in the press through ill-informed partisan leaks, as demonstrated by the fact that this email is marked as ‘Produced to Senate Judiciary Committee Only. Not for Public Release,’” said Hillary for America spokesman Nick Merrill in an email.
Grassley contends that the emails suggest a blurred line between a private firm and government work.
“This is a troubling example of Teneo and the Clinton Foundation seeking State Department help for a Teneo client and Clinton Foundation supporter,” Grassley said in a statement. “It raises serious questions. … Was anyone vetting the potential conflicts of interest? Were there other requests like this, and if so, how were they handled? The State Department ought to release the rest of any such emails in the interest of good government and transparency.”
The newly disclosed email chain comes a day after Bloomberg first reported that the FBI can recover all of Clinton’s emails on her homemade server, where Abedin also had an email account that she used for some State Department work.
The email scandal has thrown a wrench into Clinton’s campaign, and Abedin, a longtime aide, has been caught up in the controversy.
News broke days ago that the State Department inspector general had opened a “criminal investigation” into alleged overpayments made to Abedin at State. The Justice Department failed to take up the case, which is now being handled administratively. Abedin’s lawyers say the IG’s findings were unfair, and they are disputing a State Department billing to cover the questioned salary.
The emails obtained by POLITICO show that before Abedin signed on with the consulting firm, Teneo turned to her for help because of her close proximity to then-Secretary Clinton.
In the April 10, 2012, exchange, Teneo President Doug Band — a close confidant of Bill Clinton — asked Abedin to help him get Rodin nominated to the President’s Global Development Council, an unpaid post.
The Rockefeller Foundation at the time was both a Teneo client and a Clinton Foundation donor — and Band made that point in his email to Abedin.
The email subject line read: “She is expecting us to help her get appointed to this.”
“Judy rodin,” he wrote to Abedin in the shorthand email. “Huge foundation/cgi supporter and close pal of wjc[.] Teneo reps her as well[.] Can you help?”
“Wjc” is often used as shorthand for Bill Clinton. And “foundation,” likely means Clinton Foundation.
Teneo did not return a request for comment for this story.
The position in question was technically under U.S. Agency for International Development jurisdiction, but State was also involved, according to the Teneo employees discussing the appointment.
A spokesman for The Rockefeller Foundation said Rodin and staff “followed standard procedures in applying for this unpaid position — an application was submitted through the White House’s official online portal, which detailed the foundation’s interest in joining the Council and Dr. Rodin’s credentials.”
“At the time, Teneo was acting as the Rockefeller Foundation’s public relations consultant, and the foundation staff informed Teneo of Dr. Rodin’s application and interest,” the statement reads.
In the message to Abedin, Band forwarded along the full conversation, whereby multiple Teneo employees openly discussed who in power they could contact to help get their client Rodin assigned to the new post.
“Could someone from [Sen. Chuck] Schumer’s office place a call to the WH?” Orson Porter, senior vice president of Teneo, asked Tom Shea, the managing director.
“Doug is willing to push with Valerie or HRC, but I can’t find out who the decision maker is,” Shea replied, perhaps referring to Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama.
Eventually, Porter sent the email up the chain to Band.
“Hey brother — it’s been a lift in the [W]hite [H]ouse,” he wrote to Band. “She is not on anyone’s friend list — VJ’s office promised to send it up the flag pole, but they will need to hear from someone outside of us — I keep pushing Tom to have a congressional office send a note. Do you think Bruce Reed would be helpful?”
Reed was Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff.
Porter, in a separate message a few minutes later, told Band “a [H]uma call to USAID would be helpful.”
Band forwarded that to Abedin with his short note.
More than a month later, Teneo checked up on their request. Forwarding the entire conversation again to Band, Orson wrote on May 22: “DB, I haven’t heard anything from the WH on this appointment (Judy R_. Did you have any luck with the State Department?”
Band again forwarded that to Abedin, who two days later sent the message to her Clinton email.
It’s unclear exactly when Abedin started working for Teneo, a firm tailored toward advising CEOs of Fortune 100 companies on government affairs, business intelligence, management, public relations and financial issues, according to its website. She became an SGE, or so-called special government employee, in June 2012.
Other signs of Abedin’s relationship with Teneo surfaced in recent court documents given to Citizens United in a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
Ken Miller, who would go on to become a senior adviser or with Teneo Holdings, reached out to Abedin to arrange “a time to discuss Doug Band and Teneo” sometime in early July 2012. It appears he was considering an opportunity with the company and wanted her take.
“I am considering doing something with them and would value your perspective,” Miller, then president of Ken Miller Capital, wrote July 2, 2012.
Other records obtained by Citizens United suggest Abedin, State officials and Teneo CEO Declan Kelly, a former Clinton appointee at State, were arranging “dinner with Secretary Clinton during her visit to Dublin, Ireland,” in December 2012.
Clinton was there on official business at the time, meeting Irish leaders. Declan had been appointed economic envoy to Northern Ireland by Clinton in the fall of 2009, though that was before he helped found Teneo.
Once among the most powerful women in American business, Carly Fiorina emerged as a leading contender in the 2016 Republican presidential campaign alongside Donald Trump, another outsider from the corporate world.
Fiorina’s performance in the party’s Wednesday night debate elicited praise on social media and from political strategists as she commanded the stage equally with the likes of billionaire Trump, 69, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, 62.
CNN, which hosted the prime-time debate, said it drew 22.9 million viewers, making it the most watched program in the cable news network’s 35-year-old history.
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The former Hewlett-Packard CEO, Fiorina, 61, was one of Trump’s strongest challengers from 10 candidates anxious to pile on the real-estate mogul who leads opinion polls.
At one point, she got into a fracas with Trump over her record at HP, the information technology company, and lectured him about the U.S. Constitution.
“Carly won it,” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist in Washington. “She was passionate and tough.”
Fiorina spoke nearly the longest, and according to a Thomson Reuters measure of social media mentions she was the second most tweeted candidate with 19,400 tweets following Trump with 35,312.
Fiorina’s campaign for the November 2016 White House race had been slow to get off the ground and she was a late addition to the second prime-time Republican debate.
She took a victory lap on the TV shows on Thursday morning.
“This is an important election and we are going to have a fight about really important principles and really important policies and really important differences. And so if you can’t fight on a debate stage, then you are not going to be able to stand up and fight for the American people,” Fiorina told CNN.
A breast cancer survivor who lost a stepdaughter to drug addiction, Fiorina was forced out of HP in 2005 amid weak earnings as the company struggled to digest a $19 billion merger with computer maker Compaq.
After her ouster from HP, she was dubbed the “anti-Steve Jobs” by respected tech news website InfoWorld.
In 2010, she lost the election for a U.S. Senate seat in California to Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, failing to benefit from a wave of pro-Republican sentiment nationally.
REBUKE OF TRUMP
At Wednesday’s debate in Simi Valley, California, Fiorina rebuked Trump for his comment in an interview that voters might not back her because of her face.
“I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” Fiorina said, drawing applause at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
The outspoken Trump said early polls showed he had won the debate but he acknowledged that Fiorina had a good outing. “I think Carly did well … but I didn’t see it as standout,” he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show.
Fiorina argues that as a woman she will be in a unique position to challenge Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton if each wins her party’s nomination.
She attacked Clinton’s handling of the Syrian civil war when she served as America’s top diplomat from 2009-2013.
“When we do not lead, the world becomes a more dangerous and more tragic place. The failure in Syria lies at the feet of President (Barack) Obama and Secretary of State Clinton,” she told MSNBC.
Reuters/Ipsos opinion polling before the debate showed Trump leading the 2016 race among Republicans with 32 percent. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was second at 15 percent followed by Bush at 9 percent. Fiorina shared 10th place at 1.9 percent.
Fiorina’s social media score – a computation of the skew between positive and negative tweets – placed her in the top four of the candidates at the debate. Her score averaged 6.3 to Trump’s 8.3.
Carson finished atop the sentiment ranks with a score of 10.4, although he garnered less than half the traffic seen by Fiorina. Bush’s social media score was barely in the positive territory.
For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters blog, “Tales from the Trail.”
Ben Carson supports citizenship for illegal aliens. He didn’t call for this in 2004, or 2008 or 2012 or late last year. He called for it just this past June.
On Wednesday, Dr. Ben Carson said America’s borders must be sealed to protect against terrorism and told a prominent group of Latino elected officials that he also supports giving illegal immigrants a path to legalization and eventual citizenship. Regarding the country’s illegal immigrants, Carson said, “many of them have never known any other country … so where are you going to send them?”
That’s rather odd. I thought immigration was supposed to serve American policy, not the wishes and feelings of the people who illegally came here. What about the feelings of American citizens? Carson doesn’t talk about our feelings. And Carson is exaggerating–most illegals have very clear memories of the country they came from. When he talks like this, he sounds like Jeb Bush.
Carson said the country must “provide them a way so that they don’t have to hide in the shadows” and “give them an opportunity to become guest-workers–they have to register, they have to enroll in a back tax program.”
“Help them out of the shadows” is more liberal-speak. If I didn’t know who was speaking, I’d think it was Obama (or Jeb Bush).
“And if they want to become citizens they have to get in the line with everyone else… because we have to pay homage to people who’ve done it the right way,” Carson added.
This is the part that worries me. What, exactly, does it mean that they have to “go to the back of the line”? Many people wait years, even decades to enter the United States. Will these people have to wait ten or twenty years until their number is called? Or does”go to the back of the line” have another meaning, which is they can apply for citizenship now, years ahead of when they would get that option if they applied legally?
In any event, there is no ambiguity about one thing: however long illegals have to wait for citizenship, they can do their waiting in America. Unlike someone waiting patiently in Europe for permission to immigrate for years and years, illegals can continue to benefit from their illegality by staying and working in America until they get citizenship. So this language about “going to the back of the line” and being treated like legal immigrants is nonsense. Under Carson’s plan they would effectively have a chair at the front of the line, since they would never have to go back to their home countries and stay there to reapply. That’s what they’d have to do if they were really going “to the back of the line.”
I’m troubled by this and some of the other positions taken by Carson. We need a committed constitutional conservative for president who will enforce all the laws, even the ones related to immigration.
This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.
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The Obama administration is formally asking for $3.7 billion in emergency funds from Congress to address the flood of unaccompanied minor children coming illegally into the United States — more than the White House previously signaled it would request.
The funds include $1.1 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $433 million to Customs and Border Protection, $64 million for the Department of Justice, $300 million to the State Department and $1.8 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The administration previously indicated that it would request about $2 billion but would wait to release the details until Congress returned from a week-long break.
The White House says the money is necessary to cover costs like increased man-hours for border patrol agents and aerial surveillance teams, legal services for children in immigration proceedings, the hiring of 40 additional teams of immigration judges, and care for unaccompanied children while they are in the country. Almost $300 million would go towards efforts to “repatriate and reintegrate migrants to Central America” and address the underlying economic and security causes of the spike in child migrants.
It’s not clear how the GOP-led House will approach the funding request, which must pass both Houses of Congress.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said: “The Appropriations Committee and other Members, including the working group on the border crisis led by Rep. Kay Granger, will review the White House proposal. The Speaker still supports deploying the National Guard to provide humanitarian support in the affected areas – which this proposal does not address.”
Washington (CNN) — An internal Veterans Affairs audit released Monday said more than 57,000 newly returning veterans have waited at least 90 days for medical care, while almost 64,000 others who also signed up in the VA system over the past 10 years never got an appointment they requested.
The review provides a more complete picture of widespread problems at the agency’s health care facilities — as reported by CNN over the past seven months — than preliminary findings last month that led to the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki.
“This data shows the extent of the systemic problems we face, problems that demand immediate actions,” said acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson, who took over after Shinseki stepped aside.
Deadly waits
Reports of the sometimes fatal waits, with the VA acknowledging 23 deaths nationwide due to delayed care, sparked public anger over problems at the VA that have existed for years.
Despite efforts to address some issues in recent years, including reductions in backlogs for benefits and the number of homeless veterans, the long waits have continued for newly enrolled veterans to get initial appointments for care.
Reasons for the chronic problems include the increasing number of veterans returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a bonus system that rewarded managers for meeting goals regarding access to treatment.
By Tom Cohen, CNN
updated 6:51 PM EDT, Mon June 9, 2014
CNN’s Patricia DiCarlo, Scott Bronstein and Lisa Desjardins contributed to this report.
SLAMABAD, Pakistan – Militants brandishing machine guns and a rocket launchers stormed Pakistan‘s busiest airport on Sunday night, setting off an all-night battle with security forces that left at least 23 people dead.
Pakistan’s Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which saw militants dressed as security officers battling Pakistani forces for at least five hours. Television images of the scene showed raging fires at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, a teeming city of some 18 million. Loud explosions could be heard as militants blew up their suicide vests, according to Reuters.
Deadly Terror Attack At Pakistan Airport
NBC News
Officials said all passengers had been evacuated from the airport as militants and Pakistani forces battled for control of two areas, one of which is used for VIP flights and cargo. Fires lit up the sky with an orange glow as the silhouettes of jets could be seen.
Officials denied multiple reports that gunfire had broken out again at daybreak.
“There is a rumor about a fire fight resuming. No attack, I repeat no attack is happening. The troops are clearing the extended area,” Maj. Gen. Rizwan Akhtar, who was in charge of the paramilitary Rangers forces leading the fighting at the airport, told NBC News. “We are looking for any booby traps that may have been left.”
Earlier, military spokesman Gen. Asim Bajwal said that the airport would be cleared by midday, Karachi time (3 a.m. ET).
The Associated Press put the death toll at 23, including the ten attackers. Reuters said 27 had been killed. There was no explanation for the different counts.
“Ten militants aged between 20 and 25 have been killed by security forces,” a spokesman for the paramilitary Rangers force told Reuters.
RIZWAN TABASSUM / AFP – Getty Images
Smoke rises after militants launched an early morning assault at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi on June 9. Pakistan’s security forces said they have relaunched a military operation at Karachi airport as gunfire resumed several hours after they announced the end of a militant siege that left 24 dead.
The assault took place as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government tries to engage Taliban militants in talks to end years of fighting.
Pakistan’s Taliban — a collection of militant groups trying to topple the government and set up a sharia state — said they were behind the attack.
“This is a message to those saying Taliban had been defeated in Pakistan,” said Shahidullah Shahid, spokesman of the Pakistani Taliban, told NBC News.
The attack did not preclude talks with the government, however. “We are in favor of sincere and meaningful talks,” he added.
Gunmen Storm Pakistan Airport and Kill Several People
Nightly News
– Wajahat S. Khan and Mushtaq Yusufzai
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Two years after a hard-fought victory, President Barack Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment — the health care reform law — seemed at risk of being struck down as the Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday.
“I think it’s very doubtful that court is going to find the health care law constitutional,” NBC’s Pete Williams reported after watching the two hours of oral argument before the high court. “I don’t see five votes to find the law constitutional.”
While it’s difficult to know for certain after Tuesday’s oral arguments, the conservative justices appeared skeptical of the constitutionality of the law’s requirement that uninsured people purchase insurance.
Court observers caution that one shouldn’t read too much into what any particular justice says during oral arguments; a justice will sometimes test out a theory and his comments don’t necessarily indicate which way he or she will decide.
Court signals it will decide constitutionality of insurance mandate
But there were few encouraging hints for the Obama administration from Justice Anthony Kennedy, a potential swing vote on the court, or from any of the conservative justices.
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, arguing the case for the Obama administration, tried to defend the requirement that uninsured people purchase health insurance. But he came under constant pressure from the conservative justices.
As the Supreme Court hears arguments on the constitutionality of the health care law, the Obama team shifts strategies to gather support.
The mandate is backed up by a financial penalty the law imposes on uninsured people who choose to not buy insurance. This provision takes effect in 2014.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who upheld broad federal power in the court’s 2005 Gonzales v. Raich medical marijuana decision, “had nothing good to say about this law,” Williams said.
High court’s ruling could return health care fight to Congress
Justice Kennedy “seemed to have grave concerns,” Williams reported, saying at one point in the oral argument “this is beyond anything Congress has ever done before.”
It did not seem during the oral argument that Kennedy “found the justification that he needed” for the law, Williams said.
Veteran Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein, who was in the court room Tuesday for the oral arguments, said it was “very worrisome” for the Obama administration’s side of the case.
The four liberal members of the court seemed inclined to accept the administration’s s argument that Congress has ample power under the commerce clause to regulate health insurance and to require uninsured people to join the insurance market.
Verrilli and the government were “hunting for a fifth vote — and it really wasn’t at all obvious where that might come from,” Goldstein said.
Both conservative and liberal justices seemed to agree that Congress could require people who showed up at the doctor’s office for treatment for purchase insurance — but the conservative justices seemed entirely unpersuaded that Congress could force people to buy insurance before they had any medical need.
President Obama’s landmark health care reform law is under the microscope during a second day of arguments at the Supreme Court. NBC’s Pete Williams reports.
“It’s risky to predict, but if I had to predict right today, I would say the law is in trouble,” Williams said.
The fate of the health care overhaul hinges on the issue the justices weighed during the argument Tuesday morning: does Congress have the power to force individuals to buy a product they otherwise would not have purchased?
Much of Tuesday’s battle focused on the extent of Congress’s reach under the power to regulate interstate commerce which the Constitution assigns to it.
Kennedy said from the beginning of the oral argument that the Obama administration’s claim that Congress could force people to buy insurance seems unprecedented — and given the unprecedented scope of the law, Kennedy questioned whether the government didn’t have a special burden on it to prove that the law was justified.
Arguing on behalf of Florida and 25 other states was Paul Clement, the former solicitor general in the Bush administration.
The court is expected to hand down its ruling in june
Saying it’s time to rebuild America by working together to create jobs, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Sunday prepared for Congress’ return to Washington this week with a warning to Republicans to leave Tea Party “extremism” behind and “learn what legislation is all about.”
“I would hope that they understand that everything doesn’t have to be a fight. Legislation is an art of working together, building consensus, compromise. And I hope that the Tea Party doesn’t have the influence in this next year that they had in the previous year,” Reid said.
Repeating three times his claim that Republicans are engaged in “obstructionism on steroids,” the Nevada Democrat said President Obama for two and a half years “bent over backwards” to reach out to Republicans, only to find a fist rather than a hand to shake. Reid said he’d prefer that Democrats not have to go it alone in the Senate this year, but since last September they have succeeded on moving several items without minority cooperation.
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“I don’t think … anyone can question or they should question our having reached out to Republicans,” Reid said. “We’ve done everything we could to work with them. We’re going to continue to do that. In spite of the obstructionism, we have been able to accomplish a lot of good things in the last Congress. …
“I think we can build upon that. This Congress isn’t over. All I ask is for the Republicans to understand what legislation is all about.”
Reid said since last September Democrats in Congress have forged ahead alone pushing the president’s jobs bill and demanding tax hikes on millionaires.
The president also managed to upstage Republicans at the end of last year by forcing their hand on a two-month payroll tax cut extension rather than the year-long legislation the House GOP passed.
“I hope that the Republicans will understand, as they learned in the last week in the last year, that they can’t be led over the cliff by this extremism,” he said.
Democrats have since abandoned the millionaire surtax even though about $160 billion is needed to continue the payroll tax cut and federal jobless benefits beyond the Feb. 29 expiration date. Proposals left on the table after the last battle include the GOP plan to cut federal employee benefits and the president’s suggestion to raise fees on airline passengers.
Republicans are also still smarting from Obama’s appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau. The administration claimed Obama was entitled to make that appointment, as well as three others to the National Labor Relations Board because the pro-forma sessions convened by Congress are no substitute for a congressional recess.
On Saturday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called the action “extraconstitutional” and said it shows Obama “doesn’t want to have to work with both parties, he wants to jam through whatever he’d like to do.”
But Reid, who came up with the plan to use the pro-forma sessions to block former President George W. Bush’s nominees, said Obama’s move is not only “popular” but constitutional.
“We have consumers that need protecting. That’s why it was such a good move by the president,” Reid said, adding that he’s “confident” the appointments will be upheld by the courts.
Challenged that he hasn’t said anything that suggested a change of tone in Washington, the Democratic leader responded that his party is about taking care of the middle class and rebuilding America.
“We don’t believe you should be stripping good things off senior citizens in the country in order to do good things for the richest of the rich,” he said.
Among the items Democrats want to pass this year is a widely despised Internet piracy law that supporters say is aimed at protecting intellectual privacy but opponents say will shut down social media. Reid said he expected it will pass the Senate.
However, on Saturday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said he secured an agreement with Republican leaders that the legislation will not be brought to the House floor until a consensus is reached to address concerns of the Internet community.
Whatever is or isn’t achieved could be undone next year. With 10 Republican seats up for a vote and 23 Democratic seats to be defended, Democrats have a difficult task trying to keep the Senate in Republican hands.
But Reid, who was being interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” expressed confidence they would.
Democrats are “looking pretty good,” he said, pointing to races in Arizona, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Dakota and Nevada where Democrats have strong prospects to try to keep or win the seats.
RIZWAN TABASSUM / AFP – Getty Images
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