Just days before the election, something that happened during Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State has come back to haunt her in a big way.
Daily Mail reported that new emails that were published today showed that Chelsea Clinton begged her mother for assistance in getting a visa for a friend, and the then Secretary of State’s top aides scrambled to help. The State Department was forced to release the emails due to a lengthy lawsuit by campaign group Citizens United
In January of 2012, Chelsea emailed her mother as her top aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin asking them to help her “distraught” friend and forwarding them his “story.” The email was sent to Clinton’s secret Clintonemail.com address, her personal email.
“Hi Mom, Cheryl and Huma – The silliest thing about my blanking on the call this morning was that I was actually on the phone with my friend [redacted] who is distraught about his current visa conundrum (is talking about something firmly in your world!),” the email from Chelsea read. “I asked him to write out an explanation and send it to me so that I could see if there was anything the collective you could do to help him given the challenge originated from a miscommunication and a snafu and no ill intent (quite the opposite). If however, as ever, there is nothing that can be done, please let me know that and I’ll tell him he has to just go back into the US Embassy queue in London.”
Daily Mail reported:
The email was sent by Chelsea on January 22, 2012, under her alias Diane Reynolds.
She pasted in the email from her friend, apparently sent just six minutes beforehand when the time difference is taken into account.
‘Hey Chels – Cripes, I feel like such an idiot for managing to screw this up,’ the email reads.
‘I just didn’t think it would be an issue. Below is my ‘story’ and I have attached the letters of recommendation I had with me – any advice appreciated!
‘Can’t wait to see you – I still hope very soon .-)
‘Oh deary deary me…’ the sender continues, before signing off with ‘F xxx’.
The friend’s name is redacted, except for the initial in his sign-off, ‘F xxx’.
But DailyMail.com can reveal he is Freddie Sayers, a British citizen who is an Oxford graduate and contemporary of Chelsea when she studied at the university who once starred in a TV movie about Princess Diana.
He is now the editor-in-chief of YouGov, which on Thursday published a poll showing Clinton five points ahead of Donald Trump.
Sayers is also a friend of Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, and was seen with her on a night out in 2006. He was known in the past for his resemblance to her now husband, Prince William, and played him in a TV movie about Diana, Princess of Wales, made for a British channel in 1998.
He is now the editor-in-chief of YouGov, the polling company, which on Thursday published a poll showing Clinton five points ahead of Donald Trump.
Clinton’s aides’ help for the boss of a polling firm was unknown until the publication of the emails. The outcome of his visa application is not known.
The email exchange is problematic for the Clintons, who have been criticized for using their public status for private gain and accused of elitism.
Sayers emailed Chelsea just a week before he was supposed to board his flight to America – and the Clinton machine sprang into action.
Cheryl Mills, the chief of staff at the time, replied to Chelsea slightly over two hours later, agreeing to help.
‘Adding Nora who will likely reach out to [redacted] to see what is possible – generally rejections make it harder to get over so flagging that this may be hard to undo but we’ll see what’s doable,’ she writes.
Mills copied in Nora Toiv, then a special assistant to the counselor / chief of staff at the State Department, according to her LinkedIn profile. Toiv replies saying she will ‘see what’s possible’.
The email is yet another example of how the Clintons and their associates used their political clout to help those in their circle.
Source
Leave a Comment