The email request, in June 2012, came during a sensitive time for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. One of her top aides, Jake Sullivan, started meeting in secret with Iranian diplomats during the last week in July. These were talks that helped paved the way for Obama’s nuclear bomb deal with Tehran.
The email from the former president’s office was sent on June 4, 2012, from Clinton’s aide to three aides for then-Secretary Hillary Clinton, including Sullivan as well as State Department chief of staff Cheryl Mills. It concerned an event in the U.S. hosted by the National Iranian American Council. Definite conflict of interest.
The email said: “Would USG have any concerns about WJC doing a paid speech for [the] National Iranian American Council (‘NIAC’)?” Ami Desai, an aide to the former president, wrote. “We have been approached by the National Iranian American Council (‘NIAC’) for President Clinton to speak at a fundraising gala they are putting on.”
The gala was described by the group at the time as a “first and only of its kind” event bringing Iranian Americans to Washington, D.C. “to learn about government, meet with key policymakers and influencers and network with their fellow NIAC members.”
Translation: Lobbyists meeting with crony lawmakers to make deals in exchange for future votes. This was Bill Clinton’s forte.
Fox News and other media outlets have previously obtained emails showing an aide to Bill Clinton vetted with the State Department possible paid speaking gigs in North Korea and the Republic of the Congo – an event that would have included notorious Democratic Republic of the Congo leader Joseph Kabila. Using an aide to make the arrangements kept the Clintons with plausible deniability, which they are using now.
In the end, Bill Clinton did not deliver those speeches, or the one with the National Iranian American Council.
Source: Fox News
An official with the former president’s office stressed to Fox on Tuesday that the previous stories about his speech requests have been mischaracterized as him pushing to do these controversial speeches.
A check of his speeches and to whom and where and when and how they were delivered seems to indicate otherwise.
The National Iranian American Council, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group which was founded in 2002, has denied being a lobbying group for the Islamic Republic of Iran, though the group has been an outspoken critic of U.S. sanctions on Iran.
