New Emails Found With Further Suggestion Of Clinton Taking Payments For Influence

Clinton Email

Hillary Clinton continues to be haunted by her email with the finding of an additional 15,000 on top of those which had previously been released. The Washington Post reports:

The FBI’s year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server uncovered 14,900 emails and documents from her time as secretary of state that had not been disclosed by her attorneys, and a federal judge on Monday pressed the State Department to begin releasing emails sooner than mid-October as it planned.

Justice Department lawyers said last week that the State Department would review and turn over Clinton’s work-related emails to a conservative legal group. The records are among “tens of thousands” of documents found by the FBI in its probe and turned over to the State Department, Justice Department attorney Lisa Ann Olson said Monday in court.

The 14,900 Clinton documents are nearly 50 percent more than the roughly 30,000 emails that Clinton’s lawyers deemed work-related and returned to the department in December 2014.

Both the the State Department Inspector General report and the FBI statement on the investigation demonstrated that Clinton violated the rules in effect when she became Secretary of State, and that many of the statements she has made since the scandal broke have been false.

The email provides yet another example of the blurred lines between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State, in violation of the ethics agreement Clinton entered into before she was confirmed. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Emails released Monday provide new examples of a Clinton Foundation official seeking access to the State Department on behalf of donors at a time when Hillary Clinton led the department.

The emails—obtained through a lawsuit by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch—could fuel criticism that the Clinton family’s charitable foundation, in fundraising with wealthy donors, corporations and foreign nations, created a conflict of interest for Mrs. Clinton during her work as the nation’s top diplomat.

In an exchange from June 2009, a Clinton Foundation official and longtime aide to former President Bill Clinton wrote to Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton at the State Department, seeking a meeting between the crown prince of Bahrain and Mrs. Clinton.

Colin Powell has also responded to Hillary Clinton’s attempts to pin the blame on him. The Hill reports:

Colin Powell says Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been trying to use him to help justify her use of a private email server while she was secretary of State.

The Democratic presidential nominee reportedly told FBI investigators that Powell, also a former secretary of State, recommended she use a private email account.

Clinton allegedly discussed email practices with her predecessor during a dinner after she became the top U.S. diplomat in 2009, The New York Times said Thursday.

On Sunday, Powell told the New York Post’s Page Six that Clinton was using her private email long before their meeting.

“The truth is she was using it for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did [during my term as secretary of State],” he said.

“Her people have been trying to pin it on me.”

Update: Emails reveal how foundation donors got access to Clinton and her close aides at State Dept. (Washington Post)

Update II: AP Found That Half Of Clinton’s Non-Government Meetings As Secretary of State Were With Foundation Donors

19 Comments

  1. 1
    Linda Hansen says:

    This is already old news. She's the nominee, so unless something comes up that will pave the way for her concession, let's stop. As a disclaimer, I am NOT a Hillary Clinton supporter. I am #BernieorBust and #StillSanders.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    Whether she is the nominee is irrelevant. Corruption by public officials should be exposed. This is not Fox–only reporting to promote one political party.

  3. 3
    Dave M. says:

    There's been evidence that people tried to gain influence. Absolutely none to show that those attempts were successful. Puts a large dent in the "corruption" story. Maybe you could point that out. You know – fairness.

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    What spin. There was considerable evidence of people obtaining access in return for donations. Some got what they wanted, some didn’t. Nobody would expect that a donation would result in automatically getting what someone wanted. It is the paying for access (and Clinton’s failure to disclose the contributions) which was unethical, and a violation of the ethics agreement Clinton entered into before becoming Secretary of State.

  5. 5
    Dave M. says:

    I think you're wrong. Maybe you could point out that evidence. Everything I've read, including the news about today's email "revelations" points to just what I said earlier. No evidence that Clinton was actually involved in pay too play. Lots of evidence that staffers may have tried to push meetings, but everything else is pure speculation.

  6. 7
    Ron Chusid says:

    Washington Monthly has been spinning and ignoring the facts throughout the scandal.

  7. 8
    Ron Chusid says:

    Are you kidding? There has already been ample evidence that Clinton failed to honor her agreement to disclose the Foundation donors while Secretary of State. This email provides quite a lot of additional evidence that she also failed to honor the agreement to keep Foundation business separate from her duties as Secretary of State. Clinton entered into the ethics agreement precisely due to ethical concerns such as this, and the terms were clearly violated.

  8. 9
    Dave M. says:

    Well now you're changing arguments. And I agree that Clinton should have been a lot better about maintaining a "firewall" so to speak. But beyond that, there is no evidence of actual pay to play or "corruption". Just a lot of speculation and anti Clinton bloviating floating around.

  9. 10
    Ron Chusid says:

    No, there is no “changing arguments.” This is all the same argument, with quite clear evidence of payments for access. This is hardly speculation.

  10. 11
    Dave M. says:

    No evidence Ron and you can't provide any can you? All speculation. Did you even read the article you're citing? If you did you left out the exact points I was making – no influence was sold. Sad that you allow your hate to influence you so much.

  11. 12
    Ron Chusid says:

    I have presented plenty of evidence in the posts.

    “Sad that you allow your hate to influence you so much.”

    No, I am influenced by the facts–unlike you.

  12. 13
    Brent says:

    No evidence Ron –Dave M

    No amount of evidence will satisfy the Clinton supporters. Clinton could shoot someone in broad daylight with 100 eye witnesses and national television coverage, and they would still deny the facts. Here's a tip Dave. The blue text are called hyperlinks. They link to actual evidence. This includes the hyperlinks in the post, and the hyperlinks in the tags. The Hillary Clinton and Scandals hyperlinks lead to more posts–which have a quite impressive amount of evidence linked to them.

    But then we both know, don't we, that you don't care about the facts. You prefer to talk out of your ass with absolutely nothing to back it up, and then insult others. You would be much happier with partisan blogs which don't care any more about the facts than you do.

  13. 14
    Ron Chusid says:

    You are sure right about no amount of evidence satisfying them, considering how massive the amount of evidence which has been accumulated. They are like Bush supporters who still claim he was right to go into Iraq based upon WND.

    The really sad thing about this analogy is that we are now seeing Clinton supporters who are even defending her vote, and the war, in order to blindly support her record.

  14. 15
    Larry says:

    The problem isn't that people like dave can't follow hyperlinks or don't know the facts. The problem is that they don't understand ethics. Even if they see the facts, it doesn't compute for them. They see nothing wrong with these payments for access and favors.

  15. 16
    Ron Chusid says:

    They don’t see anything wrong when Clinton did it. If this was a Republican, they would be screaming about how crooked they are. It all comes down to “anything someone in my party does is ok.” In other words, you are right that they don’t understand ethics.

  16. 17
    Ron Chusid says:

    AP has some data which also looks quite bad for Clinton (at least will look bad to everyone here but Linda H and Dave M). Will post later when I have time.

  17. 18
    Mike Hatcher says:

    Ron, I admit the following comment is from my wild imagination and not a shred of evidence that I have. You have my blessing to delete it if you think it too inflammatory.  But I imagine Bill Clinton, as perhaps a zero salaried "volunteer" of the Clinton Foundation, flying first class to a meeting in Vienna for a week to attend a 30 minute meeting on starving African children.  Putting the posh hotel, rental car, meals, and massage service all on the Clinton foundation travel expense. Now, assuming that was all fiction, where could I find expense records, with that much detail,  of this charity to disprove my imagining?  I have looked at salary information from the Clinton Foundation and for its size, there is nothing outrageous that I found, but do the Clintons have any control over who gets hired? I know the bulk of the employees get paid somewhere around 10 to 20K a year, indicating they might either be part-time or perhaps foreign nationals in poor countries where 10K might be a living wage.  But for those few jobs that do go at the 100k or 300k, it would be quite the power to pass those out to whom you wish.

  18. 19
    Ron Chusid says:

    The Clinton Foundation has long been believed to be a slush fund for Bill’s friends but I don’t think that detailed specific information is available for things such as whether his expenses included massages. I think you were being rather conservative in just speculating as to “massages” for Bill. We do know that long-time Clinton allies have been on the payroll, in some cases mixing jobs between the Foundation and State.

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