New emails released from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state have revealed a dubious relationship between donors of her charitable Clinton Foundation and the State Department.
Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained a total of 296 pages of emails via a Freedom of Information Request in 2015, 44 pages of which the group said were not handed over during the original Clinton email investigation.
The emails show that that donors to the foundation were treated by Ms Clinton’s aides as top priorities, even when it came to applying for government jobs.
The news comes shortly after the FBI and the US Department of Justice decided to not to prosecute the Democratic nominee for the misuse of her personal email server during her tenure as secretary of state. The Clinton Foundation was not part of that investigation or the 33,000 emails that the department combed through, despite the FBI’s request to include it.
In one email chain, Clinton Foundation official Doug Band tried to get Ms Clinton’s aides to accept his recommendation of a candidate for a job at the State Department.
He told aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin to “take care of” the person, whose name was redacted.
Ms Abedin replied: “Personnel has been sending him options.”
In another instance in 2009, Mr Band asked the two aides to help a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire and donor called Gilbert Chagoury to get in contact with the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon.
“As you know, he's a key guy there and to us and is loved in Lebanon. Very imp,” Mr Band wrote.
Ms Abedin responded: “It’s jeff feltman. I’m sure he knows him. I’ll talk to jeff.” She was referring to Jeffrey Feltman, the US ambassador at the time.
Judicial Watch president Tom Filton accused Ms Clinton of hiding 44 emails.
“No wonder Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts and Congress,” he said in a press release.
“They show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton in potential violation of the law.”
The Clinton campaign responded that the emails did not refer to Ms Clinton’s work at the foundation.
The Trump campaign has also used the most recent batch of emails as supposed proof that Ms Clinton is corrupt.
Mr Trump tweeted: “When is the media going to talk about Hillary’s policies that have gotten people killed, like Libya, open borders, and maybe her emails?”
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