Group claims Clinton ‘slush fund’ operated from Northern Ireland

Allegations about a “slush fund” being operated by Hillary Clinton out of Northern Ireland and the organising of a dinner at the Residence members’ club in Dublin by one of her closest aides have been made against the Democratic US presidential frontrunner by her opponents.

Conservative group Citizens United claimed Mrs Clinton mixed official business while serving as secretary of state from 2009 until 2013 with fundraising efforts by the Clinton Foundation.

The group has unearthed emails it claims show a foreign-policy adviser at the foundation sought guidance from Mrs Clinton’s aides at the state department on a potentially lucrative proposal.

An email from Amitabh Desai, an employee at the foundation, to Mrs Clinton’s chief of staff at the state department, Cheryl Mills, about a pitch from Irish-American Democratic donor Stella O’Leary, has been portrayed as a way of raising funds for the Clintons.

Mr Desai says in his email that Ms O’Leary was “firmly instructed” by Mrs Clinton to set up a not-for-profit organisation, known as “a 501c3” entity under US tax laws, called Friends of the Clinton Centre.

He also wrote: “I also asked if the new org could be flexible so that any funding raised could be used in whatever manner WJC [Bill Clinton] and HRC [Mrs Clinton] wish in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and not restricted to support only the current iteration of the Clinton Centre in Enniskillen.”

Ms O'Leary told The Irish Times the organisation was set up to establish and fund the Clinton Centre in Enniskillen, an educational institute bringing students from conflict zones around the world to Northern Ireland, and to set up a museum to Mr Clinton's role in the peace process.

She described the suggestion the centre was a slush fund for the Clintons as “the funniest thing I have ever heard . . . “I don’t think the Clintons need a slush fund in Enniskillen.”

The Washington Post in an article yesterday examined the dual role held by Mrs Clinton's long-time aide Huma Abedin as a "special government employee", working for the former first lady when she was secretary of state while also employed as an adviser at Teneo, a New York consulting firm co-founded by Irishman Declan Kelly.

It detailed an email sent by Ms Abedin about a dinner at Residence on St Stephen’s Green in December 2012 for Irish supporters of Mrs Clinton. The dinner was attended by Mr Kelly, New York-based hotelier John Fitzpatrick and other prominent Irish and Irish-American figures.

Referring to Mr Kelly, her boss at Teneo, whom Mrs Clinton, her boss at the state department, appointed as her economic envoy to the North, Ms Abedin said of the dinner: “Declan has kindly offered to organise something.”