A 2009 State Department memo reveals that while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and Huma Abedin was her top aide, the Secretary of State’s office was engaged in talks with Saudi Arabia about stopping the Muslim World League from funding terrorism at the same time the “Abedin family business” was operating out of the Muslim World League’s London office.

This revelation shows that while Huma Abedin was serving at the highest level of government as Hillary Clinton’s aide and had access to this information, Abedin also had a direct connection to a group that was actively suspected of funding groups including al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Hamas that had not only killed civilians around the world but also U.S. servicemen.

The memo, which was originally published by WikiLeaks, was sent on December 30, 2009 from the Secretary of State to the Department of Treasury and ambassadors in several Gulf region countries including Saudi Arabia. The stated goal of the memo is that “all action posts deliver the general talking points” to those countries.

The memo makes it clear that the Secretary of State’s office thought Saudi Arabia was not taking action to stop terrorism outside its own borders and that the Muslim World League was being used to fund terrorism. It reads in part (emphasis added):

Saudi Arabia has enacted important reforms to criminalize terrorist financing and restrict the overseas flow of funds from Saudi-based charities. However, these restrictions fail to include &multilateral organizations such as the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), Muslim World League (MWL) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY.) Intelligence suggests that these groups continue to send money overseas and, at times, fund extremism overseas.

At another point in the memo, the Email from the Secretary of State goes into specifics about the Salifi terror organizations that were being funded by the Saudis.

…more needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, LeT, and other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during Hajj and Ramadan.

The memo then goes on to list a number of talking points that should be used in diplomatic discussions with Saudi Arabia and other Arab Peninsula countries. These talking points take a very soft position in regards to Saudi Arabia’s role in terrorist funding. For example one talking point reads:

We urge your government to assume responsibility for the overseas operations of charities and NGOs headquartered in the Kingdom. We encourage you to prevent terrorists and their supporters from exploiting religious events (Hajj, Umrah, Ramadan) to raise funds. We acknowledge the recent adoption of stricter financial controls on charities, but urge greater regulation and oversight of the Saudi charitable sector.

Another talking point reemphasizes the groups that the State Department believed are being funded by Saudi Arabia.

In contrast to its increasingly aggressive efforts to disrupt al-Qa’ida’s access to funding from Saudi sources, Riyadh has taken only limited action to disrupt fundraising for the UN 1267-listed Taliban and LeT-groups that are also aligned with al-Qa’ida and focused on undermining stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

If the Saudi Arabian government had access to this information, it would obviously give it a huge advantage in any negotiation as it would give the Saudi Arabians foreknowledge of the U.S. government’s actual position. For example, the email makes it clear that the Saudi’s simply acknowledging the problem is more important than them taking steps to cut off the funding:

In 2002, the Saudi government promised to set up a Charities Committee that would address this issue, but has yet to do so. The establishment of such a mechanism, however, is secondary to the primary U.S. goal of obtaining Saudi acknowledgement of the scope of this problem and a commitment to take decisive action.

This open acknowledgment that the Muslim World League was believed by Hillary Clinton State Department to be funding terrorism raises serious questions about why Saudi Arabian raised Huma Abedin had access to such vital classified information given her direct connection to the Muslim World League.

On Tuesday, Breitbart News reported for the first time that that the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs—an organization that Vanity Fair magazine called the “Abedin family business” was located in the Muslim World League’s London office.

That same article also pointed out that Huma Abedin was both working for then New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and the Muslim World League’s sponsored publication at the same time.

Previous articles on Breitbart News showed that Hillary Clinton acknowledged Huma Abedin’s influential role on her understanding of Muslims and the Middle East during Bill Clinton’s administration.

The 2009 memo also revealed that Hillary Clinton’s State Department had a fundamental lack of understanding about the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the Muslim World League, one that Huma Abedin, with her deep personal knowledge, could have quickly clarified had she wanted to.

The Muslim World League is not a separate entity from the Saudi Arabian government, but is part of it. As the Oxford dictionary of Islam says about the Muslim World League:

Founded in 1962 in Saudi Arabia to discuss the affairs of the Muslim ummah in view of the threats posed to the Muslim world by Communism and irreligion. The intent was to promote the message of Islam, fight perceived conspiracies against Islam, and discuss all problems relevant to Islam. After 1972 it stressed a supranational, independent identity and concentrated on establishing a network of Islamic cultural and political organizations. During the 1970s it expanded activities in missionary work, jurisprudence, and social welfare. The group has acted as a mouthpiece for the Saudi Arabian government, which finances it. Since the beginning it has sought to establish a jurisprudence council entrusted with the elaboration and control of internationally accepted standards of Islamic law.

Hillary Clinton’s State Department memo is actually expressing dismay that the Saudi Arabian government is not adequately investigating a branch of the Saudi Arabian government.

Huma Abedin’s entire family apparently continues to work for the Saudi Arabian government, even though she herself stopped visibly working for the Journal in 2008.

DEVELOPING…

Follow Breitbart News investigative reporter and Citizen Journalism School founder Lee Stranahan on Twitter at @Stranahan. Lee is also the director of the upcoming film The Bloody Road to Cleveland.