Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin.
(AP)
(CNSNews.com) -- Newly released Department of State documents show that longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin helped top executives at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) set up then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for group photo sessions with primary sponsors of CGI and its staff members in September 2009.
CGI is a project of the Clinton Foundation. Clinton served as Secretary of State from January 2009 to February 2013. The photo sessions occurred at a CGI meeting on Sept. 25, 2009, just prior to a speech by Secretary Clinton.
The documents were obtained by the government watchdog group Judicial Watch. There are 207 pages of State Department material, including a series of email exchanges between Abedin, who served as Clinton’s deputy chief of staff during her time as Secretary of State, and CGI executives regarding a request for a group photo session with Clinton and “about 20” primary CGI sponsors prior to the secretary’s speech.
Although not mentioned by name in the email exchange, the primary sponsors of the 2009 CGI Annual Meeting, according to Judicial Watch and the CGI website, included Tom Golisano; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Laureate International Universities; P&G; Victor Pinchuk Foundation; Grupo ABC; Shangri La Industries; Booz Allen Hamilton; Cisco; Duke Energy; ExxonMobil; Hewlett-Packard Company; Standard Chartered; Swiss Re; Goldman Sachs; The Rockefeller Foundation; CLSA (Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia); Crédit Agricole; The EKTA Foundation; The Economist; Dell; Deutsche Bank; Microsoft; Inter-American Development Bank; Visa; APCO Worldwide; Diageo; Knoll; and PR Newswire.
In a Sept. 24, 2009 email, Abedin contacts Clinton adviser Doug Band, then-CGI Operations Director Mary Morrison, and VlamorolJ@state.gov, who is identified by Judicial Watch as “Clinton’s scheduler” – Lona Valmoro -- at the State Department.
Concerning the “HRC Photo,” Abedin says in the email, “Mary [Morrison], we are happy to do anything you want for staff. Adding Iona who’s managing all the other pullasides for hrc [Hillary Rodham Clinton]. But again, we can do several photos and wherever you think makes sense.”
Another email dated September 20, 2009 shows Clinton telling Abedin that philanthropist Elaine Shuster, “If she can, she should attend the POTUS [UN] speech on Wed am where she would sit w me as a member of the six-member US delegation.”
According to the Washington Post in November 2015, as quoted by Judicial Watch, Schuster and her husband Gerald had “given 53 separate donations to support the Clintons since 1992, including $276,100 for their races and more than $500,000 to their foundation.”
A September 24, 2009 email reveals that developer Ben Ringel, a Clinton Foundation donor, sought grant money from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for a hospital in Israel.
Ringel, over the years, had given $10,000 and $25,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation, reported Judicial Watch. In the Sept. 24, 2009 email to Abedin, Ringel states, “This is urgent…. When u get back to the office we need to get the money to them.”
Abedin currently serves as vice chairwoman for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Source: Judicial Watch