Hillary’s State Department Racket

In summer 2009, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain sought a meeting with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but his official request to the U.S. State Department went nowhere.

So Salman tried Plan B.

“These new emails confirm that Hillary Clinton abused her office by selling favors to Clinton Foundation donors.”

He contacted the Clinton Foundation, and that got the ball rolling. Doug Band, the executive director of the foundation, sent an email on behalf of Salman — whom he referred to as “Cp” for crown prince — to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin on June 23, 2009.

“Cp of Bahrain in tomorrow to Friday
Asking to see her
Good friend of ours”

Less than three hours later, Abedin replied that the prince has asked through “normal channels” to see Clinton but that she did not want to commit to a meeting. But two days later, Abedin emailed Band again to offer the meeting that the crown prince sought.

“Offering Bahrain cp 10 tomorrow for meeting woith [sic] hrc
If u see him, let him know
We have reached out thru official channels”

Salman was not just any Middle East leader. He also was a generous Clinton Foundation donor. According to records cited by Judicial Watch, he pledged in 2005 to create the Crown Prince’s International Scholarship Program for the Clinton Global Initiative and by 2010 had chipped in $32 million to the initiative. Bahrain also reportedly gave the Clinton Foundation between $50,000 and $100,000, while Bahrain Petroleum contributed another $25,000 to $50,000.

[lz_jwplayer video= “iRu8I4C8″ ads=”true”]

The email exchange involving Salman is the latest revelation uncovered by Judicial Watch, which on Monday released 725 pages of emails sent and received on the private server that Clinton set up in the basement of her house in Chappaqua, New York, to bypass official government email. Judicial Watch sued to gain access to those emails.

The emails involving Salman and other big donors to the Clinton Foundation who got fast access to Clinton as secretary of state bolster arguments by critics that Clinton operated a fundraising operation for the Clinton Foundation out of the State Department.

“These new emails confirm that Hillary Clinton abused her office by selling favors to Clinton Foundation donors,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a prepared statement. “There needs to be a serious, independent investigation to determine whether Clinton and others broke the law.”

[lz_jwplayer video= “4bsEJRJ2″ ads=”true”]

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Monday called for the Clinton Foundation to be shut down.

“Hillary Clinton is the defender of the corrupt and rigged status quo,” he said in a prepared statement. “The Clintons have spent decades as insiders lining their own pockets and taking care of donors instead of the American people. It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history. What they were doing during Crooked Hillary’s time as secretary of state was wrong then, and it is wrong now.”

The Clinton Foundation announced last week that it no longer would accept foreign and corporate donations if Hillary Clinton wins the November election. Bill Clinton detailed the planned changes on Monday, saying in a prepared statement that the charity would only accept donations from American citizens, permanent residents, and U.S.-based independent foundations.

[lz_jwplayer video= “luRSjw5N” ads=”true”]

Clinton also promised to step down from the foundation’s board of directors and stop soliciting donations. He stated that the foundation would cut ties with projects that are partially funded by foreign governments’ aid programs.

“If Hillary is elected, we will transition those programs out of the foundation to other organizations committed to continuing their work,” he stated. “Doing this in a way that ensures continuity and is respectful of all the employees working around the world will take time. We will complete these transitions as soon as we can do so responsibly.”

Abedin’s role in the Clinton Foundation has long been under scrutiny. In addition to Clinton, she used the private server to conduct State Department business. And, in an unusual arrangement, she simultaneously drew salaries from the government, the foundation, and an outside consulting firm. She acknowledged in sworn testimony earlier this year that part of her duties included “family matters.”

[lz_related_box id=”189068″]

Another set of emails uncovered by Judicial Watch show Band urging Abedin to get the State Department to intervene on behalf of the United Kingdom’s Wolverhampton Football Club, which was having trouble getting a visa for one of its members to travel to the United States because of a “criminal charge.” Band acted on behalf of Casey Wasserman, a Hollywood sports entertainment executive whose own foundation had donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation.

In another possible conflict of interest, Abedin helped provide S. Daniel Abraham — founder of the company that created Slim-Fast — with almost immediate access to Secretary Clinton. Abraham was another Clinton Foundation contributor in the $5 million to $10 million range.

Other major donors who appear to have received special access, according to Judicial Watch, include:

• Kevin Conlon, a bundler who helped raise $100,000 for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Clinton confidante Kevin O’Keefe, who donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the foundation, helped arrange the meeting.
• Ben Ringel, who donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
• Maureen White, who donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
• Joyce Aboussie, who donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The St. Louis political power broker helped arrange a meeting between Clinton and Peabody Energy Vice President Cartan Sumner.
• Jill Iscol, a political activist who, along with her husband, donated between $500,000 and $1 million to the foundation. Iscol sought a meeting between Clinton and Jacqueline Novogratz, who subsequently won an appointment to the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.