A Clinton Foundation donor and St. Louis-based political consultant begged Huma Abedin to get former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to meet with her client, the U.S.’s largest coal company, according to emails released by a conservative legal group.
“Huma, I need your help now to intervene please,” Joyce Aboussie, a Clinton Foundation donor with close ties to the former First Family, emailed Abedin in June 2009 after Clinton had been leading the State Department for about six months.
Peabody Energy, a major coal company, hired Aboussie and the lobbying firm of the former Speaker of the House Dick Gephardt to set up a meeting with Clinton to discuss the company’s “clean energy and sustainability” activities around the world as well as their dealings with Chinese officials.
Aboussie has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation, and she admitted to be hired by Peabody due to her “relationship with the Clintons.”
“We need this meeting with Secretary Clinton, who has been there now for nearly six months,” Aboussie wrote. “This is, by the way, my first request. I really would appreciate your help on this. It should go without saying that the Peabody folks came to Dick [Gephardt] and I because of our relationship with the Clinton’s.”
Abedin responded to a second Aboussie email, saying “we hope we can make something work” but “we have to work through the bureaucracy here.”
