Huma Abedin Recruited State Department Official To Private Firm

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huma Abedin
AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

Hillary Clinton’s right-hand aide Huma Abedin recruited a fellow State Department official to work for the private consulting firm Teneo Holdings during her tenure at the State Department.

Breitbart News reported on a 2012 email chain between Abedin and former Merrill Lynch vice chairman Ken Miller, in which Abedin recruited Miller for Teneo Holdings on her official government email account while she was on an official government trip with Clinton by her side. Abedin was working as a paid adviser to Teneo at the time. Miller’s assistant Shannon Nacey reached out to Abedin, who was traveling to Cambodia with Clinton, and Abedin arranged a conversation.

Why did Miller have to talk with Hillary Clinton’s top State Department operative to make his decision about whether or not to join Teneo, the firm founded by Bill Clinton’s former top aide Doug Band?

The conflict of interest is even deeper than that.

Miller also worked at the State Department, as disclosed by left-leaning journalist Ron Brynaert on his blog. To be specific, Miller served as an adviser to the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy.

Miller was already on the Advisory Committee before Abedin helped steer him to Teneo. Interestingly, Miller’s official Teneo Holdings biography does not mention the State Department gig, but his nearly-identical bio on a website for Teneo’s company publication “Visions” lists him as a onetime State Department adviser.

Advisory Committee minutes from January 31, 2012 reveal that the Advisory Committee discussed an article that its member Miller wrote for Time magazine regarding China.

Reached for comment by Breitbart News, the State Department pledged to look into the matter but ultimately did not reply for this report. Reached by Breitbart News for a previous report, Miller’s Teneo assistant Shannon Nacey said, “I can tell you that he’s not interested in speaking with you.”

Here’s a September 2011 photo from an Advisory Committee meeting showing Miller’s name tag at his empty seat, closest to the camera:

ACIEP's Nelson Cunningham of McLarty and Associates, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations' Task Force on Brazil, gave an overview of the report, "Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations" at the meeting of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy.

(Photo: State Department)

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