The Clinton Foundation’s Star Soccer Player

Among the more provocative email exchanges involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides included in the latest batch released by Judicial Watch this week is an effort to help get a British soccer star into the United States.

The player had been blocked because of a “criminal charge” from joining his Wolverhampton Wolves teammates on a “celebration break” in Las Vegas following their 2009 championship victory. The player’s name is redacted in the emails obtained by Judicial Watch — but the British press has identified him as Sylvan Ebanks-Blake.

“I got this now, makes me nervous to get involved but I’ll ask.”

An executive with Wasserman Media Group, which represented several English soccer players, emailed his boss, Casey Wasserman, to tell him the player’s visa had been held up. The May 5, 2009, email indicates that the player’s agent, Paul Martin, needed an expedited appointment at the U.S. embassy in London. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) “balked at the criminal charge” and inquiries to Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office were “not going well either,” according to the email.

Wasserman responded not by seeking help from the State Department directly but by forwarding the email to Doug Band, an executive at the Clinton Foundation, to which Wasserman has contributed between $5 million and $10 million.

“Can you help with the below, or maybe Huma???” he wrote.

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Band forwarded the request to Huma Abedin, a longtime member of the Democratic presidential nominee’s inner circle, then a State Department aide.

“I got this now, makes me nervous to get involved but I’ll ask,” Abedin replied.

It is unclear if anyone at the State Department tried to intervene on behalf of Wasserman’s request. Jill Farrell, a spokeswoman for Judicial Watch, said in an email to LifeZette that she does not know the outcome. But The Telegraph reported the player did not make the trip.

The criminal charge that raised the red flags, according to British newspapers, involved allegations that Ebanks-Blake — during his tenure with the Plymouth Argyle in 2007 — beat up a doorman with his girlfriend’s handbag, causing a 3-inch cut to his head. Ebanks-Blake pleaded guilty to the English equivalent of aggravated assault and paid a fine and court costs.

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Wasserman apparently did not get the favor he sought, unlike other mega-donors to the Clinton Foundation. Emails released by Judicial Watch indicate that several, including the crown prince of Bahrain, used their connections to the charity to get special access to Clinton during her time running the State Department.

Still, it is telling that when a man who gave millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation had a problem, he contacted the executive of the nonprofit organization instead of the U.S. government.

Donald Trump and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus have called for a special prosecutor to investigate the links between the foundation and Clinton’s conduct as secretary of state. On Wednesday, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Rep. Dan Donovan (R-N.Y.) joined the growing list of elected officials asking for a special prosecutor.