Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her team refrained from mentioning “freedom” during a 2010 speech in Saudi Arabia at the behest of Saleha Abedin, new emails reveal.
The government watchdog Judicial Watch released 1,617 documents on Thursday linked to a May 2015 lawsuit it filed against the State Department. New emails shed light on influence the family of Mrs. Clinton’s long-time aide, Huma Abedin, had in dealing with the Saudi Kingdom.
Saleha Abedin, a sociology lecturer at a women’s college in Jeddah, helped craft a Feb. 16, 2010, speech that omitted any reference to “freedom” or “democracy.”
“Talk to my mom for sure,” Ms. Abedin told speechwriter Case Button on Feb. 12, 2010. “She will have good points for you…”
Saleha Abedin’s “IMPORTANT POINTS TO REMEMBER” email sent on the same day included instructions like:
- “Do not use the political terms such as ’democracy/ elections/ freedom.’”
- “Do not use the term ’empowerment of women’ instead say ’enabling women’ and use other terms such as ’partnership/participation.’”
- “Don’t sound sympathetic to ’women’s plight’ or be ’patronizing’ as other visitors have done and made the students extremely annoyed.”
A review of Mrs. Clinton’s speech shows that Saleha Abedin’s advice was followed, Fox News reported.
The documents released by Judicial Watch come as a result of its efforts to examine Mrs. Clinton’s handling of classified information — maintained via a secret email server — during her tenure as the nation’s top diplomat.
Judicial Watch sued the State Department after officials failed to respond to a March 18, 2015, FOIA request seeking, “All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-’state.gov’ email address,” the group reported.
Thursday’s release was the 20th the nonprofit received in response to the 2015 court order.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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