Weiner’s Wife Didn’t Disclose Consulting Work She Did While Serving in State Dept.
Pool photo by Susan Walsh
Huma Abedin, left, a longtime confidante of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department.
Ms. Abedin did not disclose the arrangement — or how much income she earned — on her financial report. It requires officials to make public any significant sources of income. An adviser to Mrs. Clinton, Philippe Reines, said that Ms. Abedin was not obligated to do so.
The disclosure of the agreement that Ms. Abedin made with the State Department comes as her husband, former Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a Democrat, prepares for a mayoral run in New York City. Politico reported the arrangement on Thursday afternoon.
Ms. Abedin declined a request for an interview, but the picture that emerges from interviews and records suggests a situation where the lines were blurred between Ms. Abedin’s work in the high echelons of one of the government’s most sensitive executive departments and her role as a Clinton family insider.
While continuing her work at the State Department, in the latter half of 2012, she also worked for Teneo, a strategic consulting firm, which was founded by Doug Band, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. Teneo has advised corporate clients like Coca-Cola and MF Global, the collapsed brokerage firm run by Jon S. Corzine, a former governor of New Jersey.
At the same time, Ms. Abedin served as a consultant to the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation and worked in a personal capacity for Mrs. Clinton as she prepared to transition out of her job as secretary of state.
It is not clear what role Mrs. Clinton played in approving the arrangement. Some good-government groups have been critical of such situations, saying public employees’ loyalty should be solely to the public and their government work, rather than private firms and figures.
Ms. Abedin reached her new working arrangement in June 2012, when she returned from maternity leave, quietly leaving her position as deputy chief of staff and becoming a special government employee, which is essentially a consultant. A State Department official said that change freed her from the requirement that she disclose her private earnings for the rest of the year on her financial disclosure forms. Still, during that period, she continued to be identified publicly in news reports as Mrs. Clinton’s deputy chief of staff.
Officials in the State Department and Clinton circles seem especially sensitive about the arrangement, and no one would speak about it on the record. Earlier this month, Mr. Weiner released a copy of the couple’s 2012 tax return showing that they had income of more than $490,000.
But when pressed on the matter, Mr. Weiner declined to discuss what, if any, income Ms. Abedin derived from work done outside the State Department.
An associate of Ms. Abedin’s said on Thursday that the arrangement allowed her to work from her home in New York, rather than at the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, and to spend more time with her child and husband. She earned approximately $135,000 from the department during 2012.
It is not clear how much Ms. Abedin was paid by Mrs. Clinton privately, or from the Clinton Foundation and Teneo. The Clintons have described Ms. Abedin as a surrogate daughter to them.
Ms. Abedin, who is one of Mrs. Clinton’s most trusted advisers, ended her consulting practice in March, when she moved on to become director of Mrs. Clinton’s transition office.
Melanie Sloane, executive director of CREW, an ethics watchdog group, said the arrangement that Ms. Abedin had seemed unusual. “If she was being held out as a deputy chief of staff, it would be highly unusual for her to be a part-time employee or a consultant,” she said. “Being a deputy chief of staff at the State Department is generally considered more than a full-time job.”
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