Hillary Clinton was honored with a major award by a Clinton Foundation donor at a ceremony promoted by controversial consulting firm Teneo Strategies during her final official trip as secretary of state.
At the former first lady’s side during the Dec. 7, 2012 event in Belfast, Northern Ireland was Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the State Department and senior adviser at Teneo.
Abedin’s simultaneous roles at the Clinton Foundation, Teneo and the State Department have sparked controversy in the past. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has written multiple letters to Secretary of State John Kerry demanding to know how and why Abedin was allowed to work for Teneo while serving in the State Department.
A longtime Clinton aide, Abedin reportedly advised Clinton on her schedule and travel as deputy chief of staff — raising questions about whether she played a role in steering the secretary of state to an event in which her other employer was involved.
State Department officials did not return a request for comment.
The host of the Belfast lunch, a philanthropy network called the Ireland Funds, gave heavily to the Clinton Foundation the year it attracted Hillary Clinton to attend its ceremony.
One of its charities, the American Ireland Fund, gave $100,000 to the William J. Clinton Foundation and $20,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2012, the group’s tax forms show.
In remarks at the lunch, Clinton noted “a number” of former interns from her Senate office had gone on to work at the Ireland Funds.
The organization presented Clinton with a “Lifetime Achievement Award.” Teneo was involved in promoting the event, records suggest. Brendan Murphy, senior vice president at the firm, was listed as a contact on a press release from the Belfast luncheon.
Reporter Ron Brynaert first noted the connection between Teneo and the Ireland Funds on his blog, -gate News.
Teneo did not return a request for comment on its involvement with the Ireland Funds.
Abedin was given the designation of “special government employee” in 2012, a status that allowed her to collect a State Department paycheck while consulting for outside companies and organizations.
She worked as a senior adviser to Teneo, a firm founded by a pair of former Clinton insiders who leveraged their connections to the former president into a lucrative consulting business.
Douglas Band, Bill Clinton’s closest aide in his post-presidential years, was a leading architect of the Clinton Global Initiative, an arm of the sprawling Clinton philanthropy.
Band and Declan Kelly, former special envoy to Northern Ireland for the State Department, started Teneo in 2011.
By December 2012, Abedin had received her status as a special government employee and was free to work as a consultant for other organizations. She quietly shifted into that role in early summer 2012, Politico reported in 2013.
In remarks at the American Ireland Fund’s 2010 national gala, Kelly, then the State Department envoy to Ireland, introduced Hillary Clinton before she delivered the keynote address.
“You have once again proven the truth of one of my husband’s rules of politics: Always be introduced by someone you have appointed to high office,” she joked.
The former secretary of state went on to tout the work the State Department had done with the American Ireland Fund, singling out Kelly for his work with the group.
“We will continue to work with the American Ireland Fund, which has been instrumental in forging economic partnerships, just as it has supported the peace process at every step,” Hillary Clinton said.
The Ireland Funds did not return a request for comment.
Previous recipients of the Ireland Fund’s lifetime achievement award include George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader who Bill Clinton appointed to fill a newly-created position, special envoy to Northern Ireland, in 1995.
Kelly later occupied that post in 2009, where he served two years before resigning to form Teneo.
Mitchell is a senior adviser at Teneo, holding the same title that Abedin once did.
Bill Clinton entered into what was supposed to be a three-year “consultancy arrangement” with Teneo in 2011, documents obtained by the nonprofit Judicial Watch show.
The deal was scrapped just eight months later after the controversial collapse of IMF Global, a Teneo client whose top official was also a major Clinton Foundation donor.
Both Clintons have played major roles in the Irish peace process, with Bill Clinton leading an effort to heal religious differences during his presidency and Hillary Clinton pushing for women to participate in the peace process.
