Donald Trump’s campaign has seized on embarrassing revelations of blurred lines between the Clinton Foundation and the family’s business interests, as fresh WikiLeaks emails cause their biggest political stir yet.



The new disclosures detail the extent of what was dubbed “Bill Clinton Inc” by advisers who boasted of securing more than $100m for the former president when challenged about their own conflicts of interest.

One email discussing an internal investigation into whether the foundation’s charitable status was at risk reveals Chelsea Clinton warning that her father would be “horrified” to hear that comparisons were being made between his activities and “Tony Blair’s profit motivations”.

Now the affair threatens to cast a cloud over Hillary Clinton’s campaign as demands are made for the full internal audit to be made public rather than just the snapshots provided via WikiLeaks.

“The revelation that the Clinton Foundation undertook an in-depth investigation into whether they were violating IRS charity rules because of the money-making efforts of the Clintons is deeply concerning,” said Trump spokesman Jason Miller on Thursday. “In the matter of transparency, the Clintons must release all the internal documents related to the investigation of the Foundation, including interview notes and other supporting documentation as well as all initial and preliminary reports.”

WikiLeaks has been releasing embarrassing and sometimes revelatory emails from Hillary Clinton and key figures in her party since July, giving an unprecedented insight into the workings of her campaign and foundation and raising hopes on the right that the group may publish something truly damaging before election day.

The Clinton campaign has largely shrugged off the apparent release of emails sent to its chairman John Podesta, pointing out that US intelligence believes the hacking was carried out by Russia in an attempt to manipulate the presidential election. It did not respond to a request for comment on the latest claims.

But the disclosures reveal undeniable concerns even within the family that those around the Clintons were seeking to profit from their political connections in inappropriate ways.

“It makes me very sad,” wrote Chelsea Clinton, who alleged, in one case, that British members of parliament had been called by advisers claiming to speak for her father but instead acting for commercial clients such as Dow Chemical. “[This] without my father’s knowledge, and inelegantly and ineffectually at best, and at worse ... now precipitating people in London [to] make comparisons between my father and Tony Blair’s profit motivations, which would horrify my father.”

Nonetheless, attempts to blame Clinton advisers for exploiting their political ties provoked a fierce response from one who claimed the former president “and his family” also benefitted from “personal travel, hospitality and vacations” as a result of their string-pulling.

“How then do we go through an exercise like this [the internal review] and WJC [William Jefferson Clinton] doesn’t as he is far more conflicted every single day in what he does? Why not apply the structure you set up for him to this situation?” wrote Doug Band, a former personal aide or “body man” to the former president who went on to set up a highly successful business consultancy called Teneo.

“Oddly, WJC does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by three [Clinton Global Initiative] sponsors, [and] gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home,” added Band, in reference to recommendations form the review.

In a report defending his role, Band also points out that he and another close aide personally secured “$50m in for-profit activity” and “$66m in future contracts” for president Clinton, including an estimated $20m in paid speeches.

The report details how clients of Teneo such as Coca-Cola, Dow, UBS and BHP Billiton were encouraged to make donations to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for personal meetings with the former president, sometimes at the family homes in Washington and Chappaqua.

One email also reveals how Podesta was persuaded to meet with BHP while he was a senior adviser to Barrack Obama, writing to Band: “For you, I’ll try.”

Band acknowledged that both he and Teneo partner Declan Kelly – a former chairman of London public relations giant Financial Dynamics and US economic envoy to Northern Ireland – “appreciate the unorthodox nature of our roles”, but felt it was appropriate to steer clients into making donations to the Clinton Foundation.

“As the memo demonstrates, Teneo worked to encourage clients, where appropriate, to support the Clinton Foundation because of the good work that it does around the world,” said their company in a statement released to the Guardian. “It also clearly shows that Teneo never received any financial benefit or benefit of any kind from doing so.”

Nonetheless the law firm hired by the Foundation to review its relationships warned that some corporate donors “may have an expectation of quid pro quo benefits in return for gift”, according to one report revealed by WikiLeaks.

“Mr Band called the arrangement ‘unorthodox’, the rest of us call it outright corruption,” claimed Trump in a statement on Thursday. “If the Clintons were willing to play this fast and loose with their enterprise when they weren’t in the White House, just imagine what they will do if they are given the chance to control the Oval Office.”