Showing posts with label State Department. Show all posts
Showing posts with label State Department. Show all posts

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Planned Parenthood Received Millions of Dollars After Lobbying Clinton’s State Department

Planned Parenthood lobbied the Department of State many times during Hillary Clinton’s tenure there and received tens of millions of dollars from foreign policy agencies over the past few years, according to a new report.
As secretary of state, Clinton attacked the Mexico City Policy, which bans federal funding of abortion overseas. Her husband revoked the policy during his administration and President Obama lifted the ban upon taking office in 2009. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is tied to the State Department, steered more than $100 million in funding to Planned Parenthood, its international affiliates, and the pro-abortion Population Council between 2010 and 2012, according to the Government Accountability Office—about 20 percent of the nearly $500 million pro-abortion organizations received from taxpayers during that time frame.
The taxpayer dollars that Planned Parenthood received dwarfed the $3.4 million that Planned Parenthood spent on lobbying during President Obama’s first term, according to a report from Women Speak Out PAC, a partner of the Susan B. Anthony List, and American Rising. Government records document more than 30 instances of Planned Parenthood lobbying federal agencies, including the State Department while Clinton was serving there.
Congress is now considering bills to deny taxpayer funds to the nation’s largest abortion provider after undercover video surfaced from the non-profit Center for Medical Progress showing Planned Parenthood officials casually discussing the harvesting of fetal organs and the price of body parts. The group released a fourth video Thursday showing executives at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains carving up aborted babies while saying “it’s a baby” and “another boy.” The executive identified as Savita Ginde also tells the undercover videographers, who posed as prospective organ buyers, how Planned Parenthood justifies the sale of those organs.
“In public I think it makes a lot more sense for it to be in the research vein than, I’d say, a business venture,” she said. Planned Parenthood has responded to the scandal of the videos by claiming the fetal body parts are used for research on numerous occasions.
Clinton is the top recipient of campaign donations from workers at the nation’s largest abortion provider, including a $2,700 donation from the CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, Vicki Cowart. The nearly $10,000 she received from Planned Parenthood employees and executives is about 20 times more than the rest of the presidential field combined.
Neither the Clinton campaign nor the Clinton Foundation responded to requests for comment.
Pro-life activists, including Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of SBA List, have criticized Clinton’s support for abortion and Planned Parenthood throughout her political career.
“For more than two decades, her cozy relationship with Planned Parenthood was a source of cash and powerful political support. In light of yet another video brutally detailing the reality of abortion and harvesting of baby organs, it is a massive liability,” she said.
The Clinton campaign has drawn heavily from pro-abortion professionals. One of its top officials in Iowa, the nation’s first primary state, is Lily Adams, daughter of Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards. Jane Emerson, the women’s outreach director of Clinton’s failed 2008 campaign, previously served as CEO of the abortion provider’s South Carolina operations.
Planned Parenthood has also partnered with Clinton’s controversial family foundation, helping with six projects under the Clinton Global Initiative umbrella. The Clinton Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
Clinton, a recipient of the Margaret Sanger Award, initially defended the billion dollar organization when the Center for Medical Progress released several hours of undercover video showing Planned Parenthood officials casually discussing the harvesting of fetal organs and the price of body parts. Those videos captured numerous officials and medical personnel discussing the various techniques that the abortionist employees to recover intact body parts, which would violate federal law. Three congressional committees are now investigating Planned Parenthood over these violations.
Clinton has since backed away from outright support of the organization. After a third video was released Tuesday showing a former organ retrieval technician discuss how clinics financially benefit from the practice, Clinton told the New Hampshire Union Leader that she found the imagery “disturbing.”
“I have seen pictures from them and obviously find them disturbing,” she said. “This raises not questions about Planned Parenthood so much as it raises questions about the whole process, that is, not just involving Planned Parenthood, but many institutions in our country … If there’s going to be any kind of congressional inquiry, it should look at everything and not just one [organization].”
Dannenfelser said that Clinton’s tepid support for the investigation was smart politics as voters react to the video scandal.
“Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats have painted themselves into a corner by supporting abortion on-demand, up until the moment of birth, paid for by taxpayer dollars. The more Americans learn the truth about this extreme position, the more they will reject it,” she said.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Swiss bank's donations to Clinton Foundation increased after Hillary intervention in IRS dispute

UbsClinton640360.jpg
Donations to the Clinton Foundation by Swiss bank UBS increased tenfold after Hillary Clinton intervened to settle a dispute with the IRS early in her tenure as secretary of state, according to a published report.
According to the Wall Street Journal, total donations by UBS to the foundation grew from less than $60,000 at the end of 2008 to approximately $600,000 by the end of 2014. The Journal reports that the bank also lent $32 million through entrepreneurship and inner-city loan programs it launched in association with the foundation, while paying former President Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of corporate question-and-answer sessions with UBS Chief Executive Bob McCann.
Though there is no evidence of wrongdoing, ties between the Clinton Foundation, major corporations and foreign governments have come under increasing scrutiny as Hillary Clinton begins her presidential campaign. The UBS case is unusual in that it shows a top U.S. diplomat intervening on behalf of a major overseas bank in a situation where federal prosecutors and the Justice Department had been the lead entity. 
Clinton's campaign acknowledged to Fox News that she did intervene, but maintained that was only because the Swiss -- at the ministerial level -- raised this issue with the secretary of state. 
"Secretary Clinton is proud of her time at the State Department, and about the work she did and the decisions she made for the betterment of our security and our prosperity," campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said. "Any suggestion that she was driven by anything but what's in America's best interest would be false. Period." 
UBS' legal battles with the U.S. government date from 2007, when a whistleblower told the Justice Department that UBS had helped thousands of Americans open secret accounts to avoid U.S. taxes. In 2009, the bank paid a $780 million fine and turned over the names of 250 account holders to U.S. authorities as part of a deferred-prosecution agreement. 
However, that same year, the IRS requested that UBS turn over the names of U.S. citizens who owned 52,000 secret accounts worth an estimated $18 billion. The bank maintained that doing so would be a violation of Swiss privacy laws. The Journal reports that UBS enlisted the Swiss government to settle the matter. Clinton, recently sworn in as secretary of state, first met with her Swiss counterpart, Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, in March of 2009. 
Over the next three months, the Journal reports, the U.S. and Switzerland engaged in a series of complex negotiations. Citing diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks as well as people involved in the case, the Journal reports that the U.S. pressed Switzerland to work for the release of American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was being held by Iran. Another issue Clinton brought up was alleged violations of international sanctions by a Swiss energy-consulting company thought to be providing civilian nuclear technology to Iran. The Swiss embassy represented U.S. interests in Iran, which has not had formal diplomatic relations with Washington since 1979. 
After Saberi's release that May, the shutting down of the Swiss energy company's Iran operations that July, and the expressed willingness the Swiss government to accept some low-level detainees from Guantanamo Bay, the Journal reports settlement talks intensified. 
Under the terms of the deal, which was announced by Clinton and Calmy-Rey July 31, UBS would turn over information about 4,450 account-holders, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.
The deal was criticized by members of Clinton's own party in Congress. Then-Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. called the agreement "disappointing." 
In recent weeks, Clinton's corporate ties have been harped on by Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has made some gains on her in polls of early-voting states. 

[COMMENTARY] Startling 'secret clauses' with US/Iran deal

Andrew HarnikAs the White House campaign to persuade Congress about the wisdom of its Iran nuclear deal moves into its second week, important components of the complex agreement are emerging that will be shrouded from the public and in some cases from the U.S. government itself.
Kerry: Agreement on Iran issue only alternative to forceThe existence of these secret clauses and interpretations could undermine the public's trust in the Barack Obama administration's presentations about the nuclear pact. Already Republicans and other critics of the deal have seized on the side agreements between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency as a weakness in the deal closed last week in Vienna.
The controversy began on Wednesday when Secretary of State John Kerry told House lawmakers behind closed doors that he neither possessed nor had read a copy of two secret side deals between the IAEA and Iran, according to Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee who was inside the session. Congress hasn't seen those side agreements either.
"Kerry told me directly that he has not read the secret side deals," Pompeo told us in an interview. "He told us the State Department does not have possession of these documents."
In other cases, secret understandings were provided to legislators. Congress on Monday was given a set of non-public interpretations of the Iran deal, according to House and Senate staffers who have seen the documents. These were part of 18 documents the White House provided to Congress as required under legislation passed this spring that gives Congress 60 days to review the Iran deal.
Of the 18 documents, six are classified or confidential, the staffers told us. These include secret letters of understanding between the U.S. and France, Germany and the U.K. that spell out some of the more ambiguous parts of the agreement, and classified explanations of the Iran deal's provisions that commit other countries to provide Iran with research and development assistance on its nuclear program. There is also a draft of the U.S. statement to be made public on the day the Iran agreement formally goes into effect.
Those are the secret understandings Congress and the administration have put on paper. But in the case of the side agreements with the IAEA, Congress and the executive branch may not have all the facts. In Wednesday's closed session, Kerry sparred with Pompeo, who last weekend traveled with Republican Senator Tom Cotton to Vienna last weekend to meet with IAEA officials. Those agency representatives told the lawmakers the that two secret side deals covered how the IAEA would be able to inspect the Parchin military complex and how the IAEA and Iran would resolve concerns about the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program.
The briefing for lawmakers was classified, but the Kerry- Pompeo exchange was not. Pompeo pressed Kerry on the details of the side agreements between the IAEA and Iran. Kerry acknowledged he didn't know all of the specifics.

A statement distributed by the State Department on Wednesday disputed the characterization that the agreements between Iran and the IAEA were "secret." Instead, it described them as "technical arrangements" and said U.S. experts were "comfortable with the contents," which the State Department would brief to Congress if asked.
"It is standard practice for the IAEA and member states to treat bilateral documents as 'safeguards confidential,' " the State Department statement said. "This is a principal the United States has championed throughout the IAEA's existence to protect both proprietary and proliferation sensitive information. We must be able to ensure that information given to the IAEA does not leak out and become a how to guide for producing nuclear materials that can be used in nuclear weapons, and that countries know their patented or proprietary information won't be stolen because they are released in IAEA documents."
But while these agreements may be standard operating procedure in the case of other IAEA nuclear inspections, with Iran it's potentially more serious. On Thursday, during an open session before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Senator James Risch said his understanding was that one of the IAEA-Iran side agreements would allow Iran to take its own environmental samples at Parchin. Speaking around the specifics, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, chairman of the committee, compared this arrangement to the NFL allowing athletes suspected of taking steroids to mail in their own urine samples.
Kerry and others have told Congress that the agreement about Parchin and the understandings about IAEA inspections in general are largely technical and do not weaken a strong agreement. Needless to say, Pompeo disagrees. "Kerry gave no indications they are seeking these documents and there is no indication he is the least bit worried he doesn't have access to this. The Ayatollah knows what's in the deal but we don't," he told us, referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
For the Obama administration, not having copies of the side agreements between Iran and the IAEA is convenient. The law requires it to give Congress all the documents it possesses and only those documents. If the side agreements are outside the reach of Kerry, they are outside the reach of Congress and the American people.
On the other hand, that fact undermines Obama's argument that the overall deal can be verified and is transparent. Already Iranian leaders have publicly spoken about the Iran deal in terms vastly different from their American counterparts. The existence of secret understandings of that deal will only exacerbate this tension over time.
Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes about politics and foreign affairs.
Josh Rogin is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes about national security and foreign affairs.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Obama’s Kenya Flights Cost $6 million, Now Tied for Most Total International Trips

(Alexandria, VA)—Today, President Obama returns from his most recent voyage to Africa, having now spent 161 days abroad during his presidency on 41 international trips. That’s the data from National Taxpayers Union Foundation’s (NTUF’s) new Presidential travel study “Still Up in the Air.”


NTUF found the President has traveled internationally as much as any U.S. President through July of the seventh year in office – equaling former President Clinton with 41 trips. Though, Obama has tended toward shorter stays, falling shy of Clinton’s 178 days spent overseas.

Study author and Policy Analyst Michael Tasselmyer said, “Where in the world is Barack Obama remains the easy question, the difficult question for taxpayers is: What in the world is the cost of the travel?”

Table 1. Presidential Travel Abroad Through July of Seventh Year in Office


Notes:
Sources: State Department data, media reports.

Visits are defined as the number of countries traveled to during a trip (e.g., if the President spends time in 4 countries before returning to the U.S., that is counted as 4 visits).

The most recent estimate on the hourly cost of flying Air Force One from Fiscal Year 2015, verified by NTUF, is $206,337 per flight hour. This figure, obtained by Judicial Watch, represents a slight decline from 2013.

The President’s trip to Africa has taken him to Nairobi, Kenya from Andrews Air Force Base, and on to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia then back to D.C. for a total flight time of 29 hours, at a cost of $5,983,773. 

Visiting this region of Africa requires additional security measures for the President. In this instance security costs are compounded by the presence of 20 Members of Congress who traveled with the President and additional members of the Executive branch.

Table 2. Presidential Obama’s Most Frequently Visited Countries


Notes:
Sources: State Department data, media reports.
Fourteen countries tied with 2 visits: Australia, Belgium, Burma, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Italy, Poland, Russia, South Africa, and Vatican City.

Despite two prominent trips to Africa, President Obama has most frequently traveled to European nations, as well as Mexico, Afghanistan, and South Korea.

Additional notable findings include:

Presidents continue to travel more in their second terms (during the jet travel era), even President Eisenhower spent 54 more days abroad during his second term than during his first, Obama continues this trend.

Vacation trips are considered official travel and thus funded by taxpayers.


In FY 2015 the Office of Management and Budget reported that the Secret Service was appropriated an estimated $852 million for “protection of persons and facilities” and $31 million for “international field operations, administration and operations.”

The Air Force will be moving ahead with replacing the current fleet of VC-25 aircraft (Air Force Ones), which could cost upwards of $1.7 billion over five years

Tasselymyer concluded, “While flight costs can be estimated, the rest of the expenses associated with travel, including security, lodging, food, and more, not just for the President and Air Force One, but additional staff and airplanes, remains opaque.”

Via: Canada Free Press

Continue Reading.....

Sunday, July 26, 2015

What We Learned from Hillary Clinton’s Record at State

A majority of Americans don't think Hillary Clinton is honest or trustworthy, but it's no surprise. If history has taught us anything about the Clintons, it's that you can't take them at their word. 
So if you can't trust what Hillary Clinton says, take a look at what she has done. 
The facts there don't paint a much better picture. As RNC Chairman Reince Preibus details in a recent oped, Hillary's record as secretary of state is one of incompetence, a lack of accomplishment, and most notably, refusing to take responsibility for her failures: 
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton dropped the ball on Embassy Security
"The tragedy in Benghazi is well known. But many other diplomatic posts that were potential targets for attack also did not meet security standards. Investigators discovered numerous security deficiencies in global hot spots, and Clinton’s State Department bureaucracy often slowed down funding requests or emergency planning."
And Failed to Take Responsibility 
"Clinton regularly denied that any of these lapses or shortcomings was her fault. Or in some cases, she insisted she was not aware of the problems.
It’s troubling that she acted as if not knowing was a good thing. Ignorance may be bliss, but it certainly isn’t leadership."
She broke her promise to tackle no-bid contracts
"As a candidate for president in 2008, she complained about no-bid contracting, and then in her confirmation hearings before the Senate, she said that contract oversight would be a top priority for her and her department.
Yet while she was secretary, the department gave out over $2 billion in no-bid contracts. That was more than the previous four years and certainly an astounding amount for someone who said, “[W]e must stop these no- and limited-bid contracts.”
And Interfered with Independent Government Watchdogs
"While she was secretary of state, the State Department lacked a permanent inspector general to guard against waste, fraud, abuse and other wrongdoing. And when investigations emerged, her department frequently interfered and undermined their independence.
Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, has become infamous for blocking investigations into wrongdoing or simple requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The department also failed to comply with investigations into such things as war-zone mismanagement and prostitute solicitation by an ambassador."
​If past is prologue, a Clinton presidency would be plagued with mismanagement and lack of accountability. 

​Which Begs the Question...

"...if Hillary Clinton couldn’t run the State Department in that manner, why would we trust her with the rest of the federal government?"

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Cuban Flag Goes Up at State Department on Monday

Flag of Cuba.svg .pngThe State Department will hang the Cuban flag in the lobby of the State Department building on Monday in recognition of the imminent reopening of the communist nation's embassy in Washington. The AP's Matt Lee reports:
Cuban flag to be hung alongside those of other nations in @StateDept lobby Monday AM before Cuba reopens embassy in DC, per @statedeptspox
— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) July 17, 2015
Flag of #Cuba will be hung in alphabetical order with others in @statedept lobby, which should put it between #Croatia and #Cyprus.
— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) July 17, 2015
President Eisenhower had the Cuban embassy closed in January 1961 and severed diplomatic relations with the communist government of Fidel Castro. President Obama announced in December 2014 that he is setting a "new course" with Cuba. The reopening of the embassy is just the latest step in that new course.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Three questions for Hillary Clinton

After months of refusing to answer questions, avoiding situations in which she might be questioned, and literally roping off the press, Hillary Clinton has granted an interview to a news organization. CNN's Brianna Keilar, who will do the interview, has asked for suggestions on what she might ask. Here are three questions for the former secretary of state:
1) In March, you said, 'I … provided all my emails that could possibly be work-related' to the State Department. Now, State says there are some emails you didn't turn over. Did you tell the truth in March?
2) After turning over some of your emails to the State Department, you destroyed everything: all emails, all backups. Why?
3) On Aug. 16, 2012, Ambassador Chris Stevens warned State of dangerous security problems in Benghazi, Libya, saying U.S. facilities there could not survive a 'coordinated attack.' Top administration officials Leon Panetta and Martin Dempsey testified that they knew about the Stevens warning. You said you were too busy to see it. Why?

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Subpoena Hillary's Email Server


Thanks to Tuesday’s State Department document dump, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email server is back in the news. The roughly 3,000 emails that State plopped on the media were among those that Clinton supposedly surrendered before she wiped that server as clean as a chalkboard at the start of class.

But what if that server still brims with Clinton’s emails and other documents?

I strongly suspect that Clinton has erased nothing. Her server is pristine. Hillary and company only say that it has been deleted.

“I have confirmed with the secretary’s IT support that no emails . . . for the time period January 21, 2009 through February 1, 2013 reside on the server or on any back-up systems associated with the server,” Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, wrote the House Select Committee on Benghazi. “Thus, there are no hdr22@clintonemail.com e-mails from Secretary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State on the server for any review, even if such review were appropriate or legally authorized.”



By asserting that contents of the server have been obliterated, Clinton enjoys the political advantage of pretending to delete it: Republicans largely have stopped asking for the device.

Hillary’s server is empty, GOPers think. So, why bother with it? 

Instead, Republicans probing Clinton’s role in the Benghazi massacre trust bureaucrats at State to share emails from among those that Clinton hand-picked in the first place. At best, Benghazi Committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R–S.C., and others are seeing a subset of a subset of Clinton’s emails.

Meanwhile, my hunch is that Clinton has touched nothing. This leaves her totally immune to federal charges of destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice because she craftily has done no such thing.

“It’s entirely possible that Hillary is lying when she claims to have wiped her server,” former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell tells me. “Her bald claims to have done so seem to have deflected attention from the server and bought her a pass — at a minimum stalling and diverting the substantive investigation.” 

The author of "Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice" adds, “If Hillary actually did not erase her own server, and is lying about having done so, she hasn’t actually destroyed evidence. And if her lies were not under oath, she’s not subject to a perjury prosecution. It’s the Clinton version of ‘bait and switch.’”


Friday, July 3, 2015

Is the Clinton Email Coverup Unraveling?


Federal investigators may be closer to seizing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illicit off-site email server as evidence emerges that she transmitted classified information through it and that key Obama White House officials knew about her clandestine email account for years.

On Tuesday the Department of State made available on its website 3,000 pages of Clinton’s emails. Clinton emphatically declared months ago that none of the thousands of emails she sent using her hacker-friendly dedicated server contained classified information.

As it turns out the State Department had to redact 25 of the newly unveiled emails because they contained the very same classified information Hillary said she didn’t send. This is but a fraction of the 55,000 pages of email the former secretary of state gave to the diplomatic agency for processing. Under federal court order, the State Department is conducting monthly Clinton document dumps after screening and redacting the emails.

Clinton has admitted that tens of thousands of the emails she sent that happened to be U.S. government property were deleted. Emails were scrubbed while subject to a subpoena from the House Select Committee that is investigating the terrorist attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that took place on Sept. 11, 2012.

Around the time of the attack Clinton scapegoated the innocent director of an anti-Islam movie trailer that almost nobody had seen. She claimed back then that the sophisticated military-style operation materialized spontaneously from an angry mob of protesters gathered outside the facility which was in Islamist-held territory. The Benghazi coverup the Obama administration engineered to get President Obama safely reelected in November 2012 has been gradually falling apart.

This new revelation that classified information went out into cyberspace by way of Clinton’s laughably insecure server clears the way for the U.S. government to seize the machine itself, theWashington Times reports.







Friday, June 26, 2015

[VIDEO] Hillary’s Claim That She Gave State Department All Of Her Emails Falls Apart

The State Department has revealed that it did not receive emails sent between former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and a longtime ally, obliterating the Democrat’s public claim that she gave the agency all of her work-related records.
The State Department notified the House Select Committee on Benghazi of the discrepancy on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. The records gap was initially revealed last week when Sidney Blumenthal gave the Committee 60 Libya- and Benghazi-related emails he exchanged with Clinton.
Blumenthal sent Clinton intelligence reports concerning Libya and other nations though he was not a State Department employee. Instead, he worked at the time for the Clinton Foundation and Media Matters, a non-profit group that is allied with the Clintons.
According to the AP, Blumenthal provided nine full emails and portions of six others that Clinton had not given the State Department. They were sent before the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and included reports Blumenthal sent to Clinton concerning developments during and after the Libyan civil war.
The revelation completely undermines a claim Clinton made at a press conference in March that she “provided all…emails that could possibly be work-related” to the State Department.
She said at the time that her team “went through a thorough process to identify all of my work-related emails.” Clinton gave the State Department 55,000 pages of official emails in December. She said that she deleted all personal correspondence she sent on the email account, which was hosted on a private email server.
Benghazi Committee chairman Trey Gowdy said that the news raises more questions about Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
“The revelation these messages were not originally produced to the State Department by Clinton is significant and troubling,” Gowdy said in a statement. “This has implications far beyond Libya, Benghazi and our committee’s work. This conclusively shows her email arrangement with herself, which was then vetted by her own lawyers, has resulted in an incomplete public record.”

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

State Omitted Clinton’s Chief of Staff From ‘Special Government Employee’ Disclosure List

The State Department did not disclose that Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills had a special arrangement in 2009 that allowed her to hold outside positions with the William J. Clinton Foundation, New York University, and an Abu Dhabi-funded group.
The agency came under scrutiny in 2013, after it was reported that Clinton’s close aide Huma Abedin had been granted “special government employee” status under Clinton, which allowed her to work as a part-time consultant for the State Department while also taking private clients that had financial ties to the former First Family.
The State Department said on Wednesday that Mills was also granted special government employee status between Jan. 22 and May 24, 2009. That contradicts previous reports that Mills first became an SGE in 2013, after Clinton left the agency.
Mills was not included on a list of all special government employees for the year 2009, which the State Department released last year in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from ProPublica. She is only included for the year 2013. According to ProPublica, the agency repeatedlydelayed the release of the list, which included about 100 employees.
When asked on Wednesday why the information about Mills was omitted from the disclosure, a State Department spokesperson declined to comment.
The Free Beacon first reported on Wednesday that Mills continued to serve as general counsel for NYU and as a board member for the school’s UAE-funded Abu Dhabi campus for four months after she joined the State Department. She was also on the board of the William J. Clinton Foundation until March 2009.
While the board positions were unpaid, Mills received $198,000 from NYU, according to her financial disclosure. The NYU Abu Dhabi campus has drawn criticism from human rights groups for alleged labor abuses.
During this time, Mills was identified as Clinton’s “Chief of Staff and Counsel” in internal State Department memos and cables. She was also involved in discussions with State Department ethics counselors about vetting and approving Bill Clinton’s paid speech requests. Clinton has given numerous paid speeches in the UAE since 2009, and the Clinton Foundation has received between $1 million and $5 million from the UAE government.

Report: Sweeping New Hostage Policy Due To ‘Idiot’ At State Dept, WILL Harm Americans

U.S. President Barack Obama pauses while speaking about gun violence during an address to the United States Conference of Mayors in San Francisco June 19, 2015. 
(REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
The federal government will stop threatening families with criminal prosecution for attempting to pay ransom for loved ones taken hostage by terrorist groups, President Barack Obama will announce Wednesday in an executive order clarifying and changing the way the government handles hostage situations. The sweeping new policy is due to “an idiot” at the Department of State, an official close to the review process told The Daily Caller News Foundation– and “it’s going to encourage more kidnappings of U.S. service members and U.S. diplomats stationed abroad, and it’s going to make Americans targets.”
3

“All this because an idiot opened her mouth out of place and someone told the media,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with press, told The DCNF. “It’s going to encourage more kidnappings of U.S. service members and U.S. diplomats stationed abroad, and it’s going to make Americans targets.”
1

By law, the government cannot make concessions to terrorist groups, but the executive order will clarify that federal agents can communicate and negotiate with captors on a family’s behalf– and that families who try to ransom a loved one will not be punished, The New York Times says the report will decide.
What do you think?

The Department of Justice “does not intend to add to the families’ pain in such cases by suggesting they could face criminal prosecution,” an official told the Times.
The changes are the result of an extensive review of federal policy regarding hostages abroad. Obama ordered the review in December after frustrated family members of current and former hostages complained about the process, and in light of changing national security realities, such as the rise of ISIS, since the policy was written in 2000. (RELATED: American Deaths Spark Dispute Over Official Hostage Policy)
What do you think?

The official told TheDCNF that the Justice Department has not wanted to issue blanket immunity because there are times when a duress defense would not hold up in court, such as if the a family crowd-sourced for ransom money. That, the officials said, is because providing material support to terrorists is a blatant violation of U.S. law. Other agencies also opposed the change.



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