Palau News: Hillary Clinton E-Mail & Palau's Potential Impact on Her Presidential Campaign
Emails show Hillary Clinton exchanges with foreign lobbyist
Island nation of Palau gets swept up in Clinton controversy.
By GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI 07/01/15, 07:01 PM EDT Updated 07/01/15, 07:48 PM EDT
Hillary Clinton personally emailed with a former advisor-turned-foreign lobbyist about his island nation client early in her tenure as secretary of state, a tranche of roughly 3,000 pages of Clinton emails released from Foggy Bottom on Tuesday night shows. The lobbyist, Jeffrey Farrow, emailed Clinton in 2009 about the American relationship with Palau while the United States was determining how much financial assistance it would give the Micronesian island, and shortly after Palau agreed to become the first nation to accept prisoners from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
The email release includes a handful of messages from Farrow to Clinton and one response from the secretary of state, as well as two instances where Clinton forwarded Farrow’s messages to top members of her staff. While none of the emails reveal Clinton granting Farrow out-sized influence, they recall earlier questions about relationships between foreign governments and both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Farrow advised Bill Clinton’s White House on matters relating to Puerto Rico and other territories, and played a similar role for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Farrow ran into some controversy when House Republicans in 1999 accused him of playing a role in Clinton’s granting of clemency to Puerto Rican nationalists in order to help Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore politically.
Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the reporters at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Clinton conceded Tuesday that she should have used a government email to conduct business as secretary of state, saying her decision was simply a matter of 'convenience.' (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Farrow registered to lobby for Palau in May 2009, disclosures show. The first email to Clinton from Farrow came in June 2009. Over the ensuing months - a time when the State Department was monitoring China’s growing influence on islands in the region - Farrow repeatedly suggested to Clinton that the American aid package for Palau should be larger. The country of just over 20,000 people was formerly administered by the U.S., but the countries have maintained diplomatic relations since 1994.
While Palau is far from a hot-button topic in American presidential politics, Clinton’s Republican antagonists resumed their practice of pouncing on her emails on Wednesday, questioning her honesty and relationship with Farrow: “The American people are right to wonder why it is foreign interests do so well when they cross paths with Hillary Clinton. If foreign governments aren’t pouring millions into the Clinton Foundation while benefitting from Hillary Clinton’s State Department, they’re hiring her former associates to lobby her directly,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told POLITICO on Wednesday. “These seemingly endless conflicts of interest call into question whether Hillary Clinton can be trusted with the presidency.”
Clinton’s campaign did not directly comment on questions about Palau or Farrow, but reiterated to POLITICO on Wednesday - a day the Democratic front-runner’s campaign was focused on promoting its mammoth fundraising haul of $45 million - that the emails provide “a window into her tenure” in Foggy Bottom.
“Months ago, Hillary Clinton took the unprecedented step of asking that the 55,000 pages of her work emails be released into the public domain, and this is the beginning of that process,” said spokesman Nick Merrill. Farrow did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Wednesday.
Hours after news broke that Palau would accept up to 17 Uighur detainees from Guantanamo in June 2009, Farrow contacted Clinton’s private email address, pivoting from the agreement to the proposed U.S. budget for aid to Palau. “Was going to write earlier re Palau willingness to take the 17 Guantanamo Uighurs - but see the story has now broken. I am now representing Palau, primarily re extension of free association w/ the U.S.,” Farrow wrote to Clinton. “Also, just FYI now, I’ve been concerned that the Budget includes a far too low placeholder for free association extension aid, $45-9 m over 10 years, although the aid is to be based on a joint review of need that will really begin with a Palauan presentation Friday.”
Clinton apparently did not respond directly to Farrow’s concern about the aid proposal, but she forwarded his message to aides Jack Lew - now the Treasury secretary - and Jake Sullivan with the message “Fyi.”
The next month, Farrow forwarded Clinton a disappointed message from Palau’s representatives who wanted to see more of an investment from the U.S. government. They were “insulted by the nature and depth of the response to their proposal as well as the content and the overall approach. They are even privately questioning the relationship,” he wrote to the secretary of state. Two days later Clinton forwarded this message to Sullivan, who is now a top Clinton campaign policy adviser, asking him to “Pls review, do some recon outreach and advise what, if anything, we should do. Thx. H.” Sullivan told Clinton he had been working on the issue over the weekend, and that “they will be getting new numbers in the next round of negotiations.” A week later, Clinton wrote to Farrow to tell him she had forwarded the note to Sullivan. Just two days after that, Farrow sent Clinton another email - this one containing a copy of a New York Times Op-Ed by Palau’s representative to the United Nations, who Farrow noted knew Clinton in law school. Once again, the secretary of state didn’t respond.
WASHINGTON - JULY 13: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) (L) speaks with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) before the start of a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill July 13, 2006 in Washington DC. The committee is hearing testimony on military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Farrow apparently didn’t email Clinton again until Oct. 30, 2009, shortly after the United Nations took a 187-to-3 vote urging the United States to end the Cuban embargo. Palau joined Israel as the only countries on the American side, Farrow noted, bringing the conversation back to the aid negotiations. “Important officials in Palau wanted to abstain [on the UN vote] because of the drastic cut in U.S. assistance that [State Department official] Alcy Frelick has insisted on but Pres. Toribiong decided to stick with the US. The proposal to cut the small amount of assistance that Palau is receiving is ironic in light of the substantial increase in assistance pledged to the two other freely associated states just a few years ago. It is also misinformed and misguided,” Farrow wrote.
Less than two hours later Clinton forwarded Farrow’s note to Sullivan, Lew, and her top aide Cheryl Mills. “As I have said repeatedly, I do not want to see Palau shortchanged,” she told her aides. The communications between Farrow and Clinton appear to end there.
A September 2010 agreement between the United States and Palau provided for over $250 million to be sent to the Oceanian nation through 2024.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/emails-show-hillary-clinton-exchanges-with-foreign-lobbyist-119660#ixzz3kquDX3Ef
Island nation of Palau gets swept up in Clinton controversy.
By GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI 07/01/15, 07:01 PM EDT Updated 07/01/15, 07:48 PM EDT
Hillary Clinton personally emailed with a former advisor-turned-foreign lobbyist about his island nation client early in her tenure as secretary of state, a tranche of roughly 3,000 pages of Clinton emails released from Foggy Bottom on Tuesday night shows. The lobbyist, Jeffrey Farrow, emailed Clinton in 2009 about the American relationship with Palau while the United States was determining how much financial assistance it would give the Micronesian island, and shortly after Palau agreed to become the first nation to accept prisoners from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
The email release includes a handful of messages from Farrow to Clinton and one response from the secretary of state, as well as two instances where Clinton forwarded Farrow’s messages to top members of her staff. While none of the emails reveal Clinton granting Farrow out-sized influence, they recall earlier questions about relationships between foreign governments and both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Farrow advised Bill Clinton’s White House on matters relating to Puerto Rico and other territories, and played a similar role for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Farrow ran into some controversy when House Republicans in 1999 accused him of playing a role in Clinton’s granting of clemency to Puerto Rican nationalists in order to help Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore politically.
Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the reporters at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Clinton conceded Tuesday that she should have used a government email to conduct business as secretary of state, saying her decision was simply a matter of 'convenience.' (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Farrow registered to lobby for Palau in May 2009, disclosures show. The first email to Clinton from Farrow came in June 2009. Over the ensuing months - a time when the State Department was monitoring China’s growing influence on islands in the region - Farrow repeatedly suggested to Clinton that the American aid package for Palau should be larger. The country of just over 20,000 people was formerly administered by the U.S., but the countries have maintained diplomatic relations since 1994.
While Palau is far from a hot-button topic in American presidential politics, Clinton’s Republican antagonists resumed their practice of pouncing on her emails on Wednesday, questioning her honesty and relationship with Farrow: “The American people are right to wonder why it is foreign interests do so well when they cross paths with Hillary Clinton. If foreign governments aren’t pouring millions into the Clinton Foundation while benefitting from Hillary Clinton’s State Department, they’re hiring her former associates to lobby her directly,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told POLITICO on Wednesday. “These seemingly endless conflicts of interest call into question whether Hillary Clinton can be trusted with the presidency.”
Clinton’s campaign did not directly comment on questions about Palau or Farrow, but reiterated to POLITICO on Wednesday - a day the Democratic front-runner’s campaign was focused on promoting its mammoth fundraising haul of $45 million - that the emails provide “a window into her tenure” in Foggy Bottom.
“Months ago, Hillary Clinton took the unprecedented step of asking that the 55,000 pages of her work emails be released into the public domain, and this is the beginning of that process,” said spokesman Nick Merrill. Farrow did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Wednesday.
Hours after news broke that Palau would accept up to 17 Uighur detainees from Guantanamo in June 2009, Farrow contacted Clinton’s private email address, pivoting from the agreement to the proposed U.S. budget for aid to Palau. “Was going to write earlier re Palau willingness to take the 17 Guantanamo Uighurs - but see the story has now broken. I am now representing Palau, primarily re extension of free association w/ the U.S.,” Farrow wrote to Clinton. “Also, just FYI now, I’ve been concerned that the Budget includes a far too low placeholder for free association extension aid, $45-9 m over 10 years, although the aid is to be based on a joint review of need that will really begin with a Palauan presentation Friday.”
Clinton apparently did not respond directly to Farrow’s concern about the aid proposal, but she forwarded his message to aides Jack Lew - now the Treasury secretary - and Jake Sullivan with the message “Fyi.”
The next month, Farrow forwarded Clinton a disappointed message from Palau’s representatives who wanted to see more of an investment from the U.S. government. They were “insulted by the nature and depth of the response to their proposal as well as the content and the overall approach. They are even privately questioning the relationship,” he wrote to the secretary of state. Two days later Clinton forwarded this message to Sullivan, who is now a top Clinton campaign policy adviser, asking him to “Pls review, do some recon outreach and advise what, if anything, we should do. Thx. H.” Sullivan told Clinton he had been working on the issue over the weekend, and that “they will be getting new numbers in the next round of negotiations.” A week later, Clinton wrote to Farrow to tell him she had forwarded the note to Sullivan. Just two days after that, Farrow sent Clinton another email - this one containing a copy of a New York Times Op-Ed by Palau’s representative to the United Nations, who Farrow noted knew Clinton in law school. Once again, the secretary of state didn’t respond.
WASHINGTON - JULY 13: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) (L) speaks with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) before the start of a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill July 13, 2006 in Washington DC. The committee is hearing testimony on military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Farrow apparently didn’t email Clinton again until Oct. 30, 2009, shortly after the United Nations took a 187-to-3 vote urging the United States to end the Cuban embargo. Palau joined Israel as the only countries on the American side, Farrow noted, bringing the conversation back to the aid negotiations. “Important officials in Palau wanted to abstain [on the UN vote] because of the drastic cut in U.S. assistance that [State Department official] Alcy Frelick has insisted on but Pres. Toribiong decided to stick with the US. The proposal to cut the small amount of assistance that Palau is receiving is ironic in light of the substantial increase in assistance pledged to the two other freely associated states just a few years ago. It is also misinformed and misguided,” Farrow wrote.
Less than two hours later Clinton forwarded Farrow’s note to Sullivan, Lew, and her top aide Cheryl Mills. “As I have said repeatedly, I do not want to see Palau shortchanged,” she told her aides. The communications between Farrow and Clinton appear to end there.
A September 2010 agreement between the United States and Palau provided for over $250 million to be sent to the Oceanian nation through 2024.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/emails-show-hillary-clinton-exchanges-with-foreign-lobbyist-119660#ixzz3kquDX3Ef