Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department was involved in the review process for Bill Clinton’s speech and consulting requests while also serving on the board of the Clinton Foundation, newly released emails indicate.
Cheryl Mills joined the State Department on Jan. 22, 2009, but did not formally step down from the board of the William J. Clinton Foundation until an undisclosed date in March of 2009, according to the foundation.
"While Cheryl’s official resignation was in March of 2009, she didn’t participate in any board activities after Dec 2008," a Clinton Foundation official told the Washington Free Beacon. The official declined to provide the exact date Mills stepped down.
Between January and March of 2009, Mills was copied on numerous memos between Clinton Foundation aides and State Department ethics officer Jim Thessin as part of the review process for Bill Clinton’s speaking requests. The Obama administration required the State Department to vet these requests for potential conflicts of interest as part of an ethics agreement with Hillary Clinton.
Emails published last week by the watchdog group Judicial Watch suggest that Mills had a more active role in the review process during this time period than previously known.
A State Department ethics official said in one email to the Clinton Foundation that he had discussed a consulting request with Mills in late February 2009, but needed more deliberation before it could be approved.
"Cheryl and I discussed Consultancy 0001-2009-02-16 - Saban Capital Group Inc. on Friday afternoon. Further discussion will have to take place," wrote ethics official Waldo "Chip" Brooks in a Mar. 2, 2009 email to a Clinton Foundation staffer. Brooks copied Mills on the message.
A State Department ethics official asked Brooks in another email whether a Feb. 23, 2009, speaking request from Scrap Recycling Industries had ever been approved.
"[T]hat was in the hands of Jim [Thessin] and Cheryl Mills. They were to discuss with the Counsel to the former President. I do not know if either ever did," wrote Brooks on April 1, 2009.
The emails raise new questions about Mills’ role at the State Department, which experts have described as unusual. The Free Beacon first reported in June that Mills continued to serve as general counsel for New York University and sat on the board of its Abu Dhabi campus for four months after joining the State Department.
At NYU, Mills negotiated with "quasi-governmental if not governmental" officials in the United Arab Emirates on labor and free speech issues related to the Abu Dhabi campus, the Washington Post reported this week.
The State Department said last month that Mills was an expert/consultant appointee between January and May of 2009 and did not receive a salary. The arrangement would have allowed her to hold outside employment and avoid certain ethics restrictions.
State Department officials referred to Mills during this time as "Chief of Staff" in internal emails and cables, although this was not her official title until May of that year.
In addition to her involvement in Bill Clinton’s speaking requests, Mills reportedly helped the Clintons negotiate the ethics agreement with the Obama administration in late 2008 that put the review process in place.
The arrangement allowed Bill Clinton to accept paid work from corporations and foreign governments, as long as the requests did not pose a conflict-of-interest with Hillary Clinton’s State Department duties.
"The agreement was negotiated by Cheryl Mills, Robert Barnett, Bruce Lindsey, and Doug Band on the Clinton side and John Podesta and Todd Stern on the Obama side," CBS News reported on Nov. 30, 2008.
Spokespersons for Mills and the State Department did not respond to request for comment.
Mills told the Washington Post this week that she did not "recall any issues" that came up at the State Department that would have required her to recuse herself. The State Department said Mills signed an acknowledgement of ethics review guidance on Jan. 22, 2009.
Mills is listed as a board director on the Clinton Foundation’s corporate records in Florida until 2011. A spokesperson for the Clinton Foundation said this was due to an inadvertent error made by the firm that files its records in Florida.
An employee at the Nonprofit Service Group, which handled the Clinton Foundation’s Florida filings, said Mills was initially listed as a director when the foundation incorporated in June of 2009 but should have been removed at the end of the year.
"As of the end of 2009, Cheryl Mills was no longer a director of the Foundation and should not have been listed as such," said the employee, Carolyn Emigh, in a letter to Clinton Foundation CFO Andrew Kessel. "I sincerely apologize for the mistake with the Division of Corporations."