Confidential Memo Exposes Conflicts Between Clinton Foundation Donors And Bill’s “For-Profit” Activities

We have written frequently in recent weeks about a feud that erupted between Chelsea Clinton and Doug Band back in 2011 after Chelsea raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest between Band’s firm, Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the State Department (see here, here, here and here). The feud ultimately resulted in Band being forced to draft a memo spelling out, in vivid detail, the many entangled relationships between himself, Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the State Department. Fortunately, today’s Wikileaks dump included that memo which reveals, for the first time, the precise financial flows between the Clinton Foundation, Band’s firm Teneo Consulting, and the Clinton family’s private business endeavors.

The memo starts with a brief background on Teneo, which was created in June 2011, shortly after Declan Kelly resigned from his position as “United States Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland,” a position to which he was appointed by Secretary Clinton.

In June 2009, DK Consulting was founded by Declan Kelley. Mr. Kelly served as COO of FTI Consulting until June 2009, when he stepped down and established DK Consulting. At that time, he also became the United States Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland. Pursuant to the terms of his exit agreement with FTI and consistent with the ethics agreement of his uncompensated special government employee appointment at the State Department, Mr. Kelly retained and continued to provide services to three paying clients (Coke, Dow, and UBS) and one pro bono client (Allstate). In late 2009, Declan retained me as a consultant to DK Consulting to help support the needs of these clients.

In May 2011, Mr. Kelly resigned his Envoy position at the State Department. In June 2011, Mr. Kelly and I founded Teneo Strategies; simultaneously, Mr. Kelly closed DK Consulting and shifted its clients to Teneo.

Throughout the past almost 11 years since President Clinton left office, I have sought to leverage my activities, including my partner role at Teneo, to support and to raise funds for the Foundation. This memorandum strives to set forth how I have endeavored to support the Clinton Foundation and President Clinton personally.

In a subsequent section of the memo entitled “Leveraging Teneo For The Foundation,” Band spells all of the donations he solicited from Teneo “clients” for the Clinton Foundation. In all, there are roughly $14mm of donations listed with the largest contributors being Coca-Cola, Barclays, The Rockefeller Foundation and Laureate International Universities.

The donations from Dow Chemical are particularly notable for several reasons. First, because of other emails revealed by WikiLeaks and other FOIA requests, we now know that Dow Chemical CEO, Andrew Liveris, was granted special access to then Secretary Clinton back in July 2009 at the same time he was embroiled in ongoing litigation with another Clinton Foundation donor, Kuwait, over a failed joint-venture that would have netted Dow $9BN in cash. As Band notes in his memo, 1 month after being granted special access to Secretary Clinton, Liveris invited President Clinton and Band out for a day of golf. Moreover, shortly after his meeting with Secretary Clinton and golf outing with President Clinton, Liveris decided to donate $500,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative…very convenient timing for all involved.

In August of 2009, Mr. Kelly invited Mr. Liveris to play golf with President Clinton and me. Mr. Kelly subsequently asked Dow to become a CGI sponsor at the $500,000 level, which they did, as well as making a $150,000 donation to the Foundation for President Clinton to attend a Dow dinner in Davos.

The story gets even more bizarre when Band reveals in the following footnote that Liveris provided the Dow Chemical plane to fly President Clinton and his staff from New York to California and then California to North Korea for their golf outing. We would assume this is a simple typo by Band and/or he’s just geographically challenged…if not, this certainly raises a whole other set of questions for Bill.

Mr. Liveris provided the Dow plane to fly President Clinton and his staff to and from California for our trip to, and from, North Korea. As a private trip, the Foundation had to pay the costs of airfare; Mr. Liveris’ in kind contribution saved the Foundation in excess of $100,000.

According to the Dialy Caller, Dow Chemical paid Teneo $2.8 million in 2011 and $16 million in 2012 for a variety of “consultancy services”. Of course, Bill Clinton was an honorary chairman of Teneo and, as such, was set to be paid $3.5 million for that position even though he ultimately only kept $100,000 because of the scandals that erupted around the firm, including their advisory relationship with MF Global.

Finally, Band also offers the following commentary on the “$50 million in for-profit activity” he was able to secure for Bill Clinton (as of November 2011) as well as the “$66 million in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements.”

Independent of our fundraising and decision-making activities on behalf of the Foundation, we have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities – including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements. In that context, we have in effect served as agents, lawyers, managers and implementers to secure speaking, business and advisory service deals. In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family – for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like. Neither Justin nor I are separately compensated for these activities (e.g., we do not receive a fee for, or percentage of, the more than $50 million in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date or the $66 million in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements).

With respect to business deals for his advisory services, Justin and I found, developed and brought to President Clinton multiple arrangements for him to accept or reject. Of his current 4 arrangements, we secured all of them; and, we have helped manage and maintain all of his for-profit business relationships. Since 2001, President Clinton’s business arrangements have yielded more than $30 million for him personally, with $66 million to be paid out over the next nine years should he choose to continue with the current engagements.