The new emails show that while Mr. Band of the Clinton Foundation sought to pass along the wishes of donors, Ms. Abedin deferred to official channels. The emails were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch against the State Department. The 725 pages of emails from Mrs. Clinton’s personal server included material that wasn’t handed over to the government as part of the Democratic nominee’s archive.
Josh Schwerin, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, defended Mrs. Clinton’s actions as secretary of state. “Once again this right-wing organization that has been going after the Clintons since the 1990s is distorting facts to make utterly false attacks,” he said. “No matter how this group tries to mischaracterize these documents, the fact remains that Hillary Clinton never took action as secretary of state because of donations to the Clinton Foundation.”
A spokesman for the Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by Mr. Clinton, didn’t immediately return requests for comment. Mrs. Clinton had attached her name to the foundation after she left the U.S. government and subsequently removed it when she started her presidential campaign.
Meeting with foreign heads of state is a primary role for a U.S. secretary of state. Critics of Mrs. Clinton have raised questions about Clinton Foundation officials’ access to and influence in the State Department during her tenure.
The Kingdom of Bahrain has donated between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation since its founding, according to the organization’s disclosures. The crown prince in 2005 launched a scholarship program through the Clinton Global Initiative, a wing of the foundation that coordinates charitable projects, that was intended to “educate select Bahraini students to take leadership roles in the private and public sectors,” according to the CGI website.
By 2010, the crown prince had spent more than $32 million on the project, according to the website. The funds don’t go to CGI.
In a separate exchange, Mr. Band sought Ms. Abedin’s help in obtaining a visa for a member of a U.K. soccer league at the request of Casey Wasserman, president of the Wasserman Foundation, which has donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Ms. Abedin appeared hesitant to get involved. “I doubt we can do anything, but maybe we can help with an interview,” she wrote. “I’ll ask.” She wrote again: “I got this now, makes me nervous to get involved but I’ll ask.”
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