Washington Post traces the complex web of Clinton finances

Washington Post investigative reporter Rosalind S. Helderman spoke to Yahoo News Thursday about another round of hacked emails revealing the connections among the Clinton family’s charitable endeavors, their roles as public servants and their personal finances.

One email, in particular, has been closely scrutinized since Wikileaks published it on Wednesday. Doug Band, who was one of former President Bill Clinton’s closest White House aides wrote an email in 2011 documenting what he did to serve the interests of the Clinton family.

“Doug Band is one of the most important people in Bill Clinton’s post-presidential life. In the White House he had been Bill Clinton’s body man, the Charlie character from ‘The West Wing.’ The guy who brought the Diet Cokes and gave the president a pen,” Helderman said to Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric. She is the co-author of an article headlined “Inside ‘Bill Clinton Inc.’: Hacked memo reveals intersection of charity and personal income.”

After Clinton left the presidency, Band served his chief aide in establishing the Clinton Foundation. With fellow Clinton alumnus Declan Kelly he founded a consulting company called Teneo, providing strategic advice to corporative executives. But they did not untether themselves from the Clintons and even appointed the former president as honorary chairman, for which he would receive $2 million per year, according to Helderman.

“There’s been a lot of conversation publicly in the years since as to whether or not Teneo was formed to monetize the Bill Clinton name,” she continued. “Were they using Bill Clinton to make money? And it turns out, we can now see from Wikileaks that there seems to have been some questions about that internally in the Clinton world as well.”

Band wrote a detailed memo to the Clinton Foundation’s lawyers to defend his money-raising strategies after the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea Clinton, initiated a review of the organization and expressed skepticism about Band and Teneo’s operations.

In 13 pages, he explained how he would raise money for the Clinton Foundation from major corporations, such as Coca-Cola or UBC, through his firm, Teneo. Then he would go back to the same corporations and push them to hire Bill Clinton as a speaker and consultant.

“These were agreements set up for Bill Clinton but they have joint finances, so if you’re paying Bill Clinton millions of dollars, it is going into the household income of Bill and Hillary Clinton jointly,” Helderman said.

This account raises the question: Why were these people paying so much to the Clintons? Not coincidentally, Hillary Clinton was secretary of state at the time. Critics say this amounted to a conflict of interest — a “pay to play” scheme in which wealthy individuals and corporations paid the Clintons or contributed to their foundation in exchange for access.

Couric asked if there is any evidence that Hillary Clinton provided special access to people who contributed to the Clinton Foundation or to Bill Clinton personally. Helderman said there is not a clear-cut example of Band explicitly writing in his pitches to corporations that if they give money then they would have access to the State Department.

“Having said that, we have seen emails between Doug Band and Huma Abedin, who was Hillary Clinton’s top aide at the State Department that made it clear that sort of being a friend of the Clintons, being a supporter of the Clintons, could get people’s phone calls returned,” she said. “They could get a meeting. They could get a phone call. They didn’t necessarily get what they wanted, but they did have the ability to access these top officials that ordinary people might not have had.”

Couric asked Helderman if she thinks the revelations, which are nuanced and complicated, will resonate with voters less than two weeks before the general election.

Though Helderman said she’s hesitant to make any predictions, she thinks it is unlikely to have a significant impact on Nov. 8 because most voters have already come to their conclusions about the Clinton Foundation and whether the family’s dealings constitute corruption.

“My general cut sense is that there’s been a great deal written about the Clinton Foundation over the last several years,” she said. “And a lot of what we’re learning from these emails kind of confirms what that reporting had showed over time. So if this is something that bothers you as a voter, it’s probably something that’s kind of already baked into your vote. You’re already concerned about this. It has already impacted you. My gut sense is that it’s unlikely to sway undecided voters.”