Newly obtained emails from Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin reveal friends of the Clinton Foundation and political allies seeking personal favors from the Clinton State Department, Judicial Watch said Wednesday.
The batch of documents shows well-connected players, including a Clinton library donor, inquiring about meetings and job openings -- and Clinton aides carefully tending to those requests. The emails were among 1,606 pages the conservative watchdog group got from the State Department as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“Pay to play, classified information mishandling, influence peddling, cover ups—these new emails show why the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s conduct must be resumed,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
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In the latest email release, Fitton flagged numerous instances of donors and allies contacting the State Department for help.
“It’s hard to tell where the Clinton State Department ended and the Clinton Foundation began,” Fitton told Fox News. “It was almost like a seamless operation—nowhere on these emails does anyone say ‘Mrs. Clinton is not involved in the foundation. Stop coming to us for favors.’”
One email exchange showed the grandson of Warren Buffett, Howard Buffett Jr., seeking a meeting for his father with Clinton to discuss “food security.” The Buffett family donated to the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation.
Emails show Bill Clinton aide Ben Schwerin wrote to Abedin requesting a meeting with Clinton and Howard Buffett Sr. Abedin responded: “we will take care of this.”
In this Sept. 20, 2011 file photo, Huma Abedin, top, deputy chief of staff and aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, during a meeting with leaders for the Open Government Partnership in New York. (AP )
Fitton cited one email exchange on April 12, 2009, where a major donor was supposedly pushing for an ambassador position.
Miguel Lausell, a Puerto Rican executive who reportedly donated $1 million to the Clinton Presidential Library and was a member of the Clinton Global initiative, requested Abedin push for the appointment of someone to become U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
“It’s unclear if there was follow through, and if he became an ambassador because the name was redacted,” Fitton told Fox News.
Another email exchange starting in April 2009 involved Abedin; Kelly Craighead, who at the time was managing director of liberal fundraising organization, Democracy Alliance; and Capricia Marshall, a former executive of HillPAC and Friends of Hillary. Craighead asked that they “reach out” to an “extremely loyal supporter” interested in a senior position at the department. Marshall responded saying the person was “on everyone’s list/grid.” A year later, Craighead contacted Abedin again asking for assistance in getting someone a job at State.
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“It would mean a lot to me if you could help or advise on a personnel situation for a dear friend,” the email said. Abedin replied, “We love [Redacted]. Looking into this asap.”
Other emails revealed requests from Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, on several different issues. One involved help on a “green card renewal,” and another sought help for someone involved in a criminal case in the Republic of Georgia.
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But former Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon told Fox News these emails will not distract from the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with the Trump campaign in the 2016 presidential election.
“Hillary Clinton is not in government anymore or a candidate for office,” Fallon told Fox News. “So none of this is going to succeed in distracting the public from the active FBI investigation into President Trump.”
The Judicial Watch lawsuit seeks “all emails of official State Department business received or sent by” Abedin from January 2009 through early 2013 using a non- ‘state.gov’ email address. The new documents include 91 Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total of emails not part of the original Clinton document dump to 530, Judicial Watch said.
The State Department was ordered in November to turn over 500 pages of Clinton-related documents a month to Judicial Watch.
The State Department, now led by Trump appointee Rex Tillerson, told Fox News it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
Judicial Watch published all 91 emails and over 1,000 new documents to its website.
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