- The Washington Times - Monday, August 22, 2016

New emails Monday show the Clinton Foundation using Huma Abedin to try to arrange meetings between the foundation’s supporters and then-State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton.

In one exchange Doug Band, who headed the Clinton Global Initiative, asked Ms. Abedin to try to help with a visa for a soccer player from a British team, Wolverhampton FC. Ms. Abedin at first thought she might be able to speed up the interview, but then said she was worried about crossing lines.

“Makes me nervous to get involved but I’ll ask,” she told Mr. Band in one message obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative group that’s pushed to get a look at the Clinton emails.

“Then dont [sic],” Mr. Band replied to Ms. Abedin.

During the May 2009 exchange, Mr. Band also complained about the difficulty of connecting with Ms. Abedin through her confusing array of different email addresses.

“You have 50 email accounts,” Mr. Band wrote.


SEE ALSO: FBI found nearly 15,000 new Hillary Clinton emails


In another exchange Mr. Band appeared to be trying to learn inside information about appointments, asking who was going to be appointed ambassador to France or Italy. Ms. Abedin demurred, saying she wasn’t sure. Days later, President Obama appointed a top Democratic donor to the post.

At one point the crown prince of Bahrain had requested a meeting with Mrs. Clinton through official channels, but she seemed reluctant to commit.

Mr. Band emailed Ms. Abedin letting her know the prince was a “good friend of ours.” Mrs. Clinton ended up scheduling the meeting and Ms. Abedin said Mr. Band could alert the prince to the meeting — though she also said they’d let him know from “normal channels” too.

The Clinton Foundation and its murky ties to foreign governments and major corporate donors has become a headache for Mrs. Clinton, Democrats’ presidential nominee.

GOP nominee Donald Trump said the foundation is a symbol of the “corrupt” behavior of Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton, and called Monday for it to be shut down entirely.

“It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history,” he said. “What they were doing during ’Crooked’ Hillary’s time as secretary of state was wrong then, and it is wrong now. It must be shut down immediately.”

The foundation has said that if Mrs. Clinton wins the White House it will stop accepting donations from foreign governments and corporate interests, but Republicans have questioned why the foundation is waiting.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.

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