Sen Grassley wrote: "It appears that one of Abedin's clients, the Clinton-connected Teneo Strategies, may have been compensating Ms. Abedin for gathering information from US government sources for the purpose of informing investment decisions of her consulting clients - or in other words, political intelligence. This raises important questions about whether Abedin's dual role was adequately disclosed to government officials who may have provided her information without realizing that she was being paid by private investors to gather information."
Grassley's letter recounted:
<><> Abedin allegedly sent or received more than 7,000 emails on her US government account that involved Teneo's Doug Band, a close confidante and travel companion of the globe-trotting Bill clinton. Teneo is known as the tolll booth to the Clintons---in order to get access to them an entity or individual has to pony up bigtime.
<><> one email exchange involved Teneo's Doug Band pressuring Abedin to encourage her State Department boss, Hillary Clinton, to facilitate a White House appointment for one of his clients. Judith Rodin, then-president of the Rockefeller Foundation, "donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation," Mr. Band allegedly noted in his email to Ms. Abedin.
<><> email evidence allegedly suggests that Ms. Abedin and another Hillary aide, Cheryl Mills, colluded to find a way to ensure the US govt paid for Ms. Abedin's travel to and from New York.
<><> multiple allegations received by Sen Grassley's Judiciary Committee indicated Abedin had actually taken leave during her time as a govt employee, casting doubt on whether Abedin should have received $33,000 in taxpayer money.
<><> allegations surfaced that the State Dept personnel rule was quietly bent to permit Abedin to collect her government paycheck while wielding her influence to the benefit of her other employers (connected to the Clintons).
<><> Hillary Clinton jetted to Ireland with Abedin at her side for her last official trip before exiting the State Dept, during which Hillary attended an event hosted by a major Clinton Foundation donor that had been promoted by Teneo (for which Abedin then-served as a "consultant")
<><> Abedin's special employment status gave her heavy influence over Hillary Clinton's State Dept daily schedule and travel plans at the same time Abedin served as a senior adviser at Teneo, and performed other duties at the Clinton Foundation.
<><> Abedin using information about Hillary's travel schedule in discussions w/ her clients, could be a serious breach of US ntl security, since even the calendar amd travel plans of the Secy of State is considered classified information.
<><> Abedin was among several key aides to Hillary Clinton that hosted email accounts on a private server in the 2016 presidential candidate's Chappaqua, New York home, in violation of federal records laws.
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BACKSTORY Abedin worked as a full-time staffer to Hillary Clinton January 2009-June 2012; she was then given a "special government employee" designation and took on roles at the Clinton Foundation and Teneo.That designation is designed to allow individuals who fill "an unmet government need for rare or unique expertise" to retain their private-sector positions while receiving compensation from the government.
Abedin was vice-chair of Hillary's losing presidential campaign committee.
FBI agents interviewed Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin in December 2016, more than a month after the official close of the Clinton email probe and much more recently than previously believed.
The Washington Post reports that agents were interested in how Abedin and Clinton emails wound up on a laptop used by Abedin’s husband, Anthony Weiner.
The FBI discovered Abedin and Clinton emails on the laptop while conducting an investigation into Weiner’s contact with an underaged girl in September 2016. The Clinton email probe, which had been closed in July 2016, was reopened on Oct. 28. It was closed again on Nov. 6, two days before the election, after FBI officials determined that none of the emails on the laptop would warrant criminal charges.
Agents considered their investigation complete but they wanted to find out whether Abedin should have disclosed the laptop emails sooner, according to The Post. She was considered a witness in the initial investigation, rather than a target. That didn’t change after the interview, which was conducted around Christmas 2016, as investigators found no reason to charge the longtime Clinton aide.
An interview with Abedin was hinted at in text messages exchanged between former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
As The Daily Caller News Foundation first reported in February, Strzok told Page on Dec. 13, 2016, about a conversation he had with the Department of Justice about an interview with Abedin.
“Told them we had to interview, no immunity,” he wrote.
“They said they thought that would get counsel to the point of saying she’s either taking the 5th in the [grand jury] or you need to give her immunity. I said that’s fine, please have discussions to get the decision to that point and I would run it up the chain.”
The Post confirmed that an interview did occur but that no immunity was granted. “There was never any suggestion by the government that Huma had done anything wrong,” Karen Dunn, Abedin’s lawyer, told The Post. “To the contrary, she was told that her full and voluntary cooperation as a witness in their investigation was appreciated. Having done her part to assist the government, Huma is a private citizen now and should be left to live her life in peace.”
Abedin was first interviewed as part of the Clinton email investigation in April 2016. As one of the top FBI investigators on the probe, Strzok conducted the interview along with Justice Department lawyer David Laufman. In the interview, Abedin may have given misleading statements about when she first learned about Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state. Emails showed that Abedin was aware of Clinton’s server use, yet she said in the FBI interview that she did not learn that Clinton used a private server until after they left the State Department.
Cheryl Mills, another Clinton aide, also denied knowing about the server while at the State Department. But Mills was also included on email exchanges where the server was discussed. Mills, unlike Abedin, received partial immunity from the Justice Department. She also served as Clinton’s attorney.